Missing my blog

I really miss writing, but right now, there is not much inspiration for me left over at the end of the day. New projects are starting up, and I have to work hard operating, which takes a hell of a lot energy and active focusing. I am absolutely exhausted, but still happy. I like the project, and my nice american co-worker! We are having so much fun together, and supporting eachother in the rather stressful current situation. She will be leaving Sweden in about a year, and I am already starting to worry about how sad that will be. At times it pops into my head and makes me a bit sad, but most of the time my effort goes into focusing on one day at the time. Really really hard.

Next week will be somewhat slower, hopefully. It looks like that right now at least. And the subsequent week should be even slower, which I am looking forward to. Plus that it is always slow in the beginning, since it has passed quite some time since I last did operations, almost 3 years I think. So I am a bit rusty on the edges. Plus that I have one completely new method I am learning, and the second method that I am familiar with since 3 years back has been slightly changed. Those are all my excuses for working slow. But thoroghly, ambitiously, and hard, I promise you! Which are all more important, especially being thorough. What's the point in working quickly when I in the end can't trust my results or feel I didn't do all that I could to make it work? No, no. Either you do it properly, or you just don't do it.

The picture of the cat really doesn't go with my text today, I just had to show it. That kitten was born recently on the same place as one of my sister's cats were born. It looks horrible when they have no fur, but at the same time, isn't it kind of cute? Like an Indian cow, but in cat version. And what makes them even cuter is that they seek you out and places themselves really really close to you, and cuddles a lot (since they are cold from not having fur). But of course, they are nothing like my cute cat. Although he has been testing my patience by waking me up at night by scratching the curtains, shredding the toilet rolls, biting my toes, and pushing over flower pots. I can't understand what he is trying to tell me, but I am trying to give him even more attention than before. And more goodies! That should do the trick. I am also sending him on a one-week boot-camp to my parents' and Obidobi's place (i.e. his brother). That ought to cool him off.

Stuff piling up

Isn't it crazy how things sometimes seem to just collect, add up and grow until having formed a huge stack of stressful should-have-done-s. Eventhough I feel I really make an effort to finish things I start, and prioritize in a resonable way. But still, at times, it isn't "enough". At the moment, a significant amount of my closest and dearest friends and relatives are feeling extremely sad, low or generally crap; due to divorces, illness, monetary issues, stress etc. I am trying to be as supportive as you can in situations like those crappy ones, but it is hard to get the feeling of you being adequate, sufficient, enough. Although I really think I am. The main problem for myself is that I put me on the very bottom of my "important to take care of"-list. I'm trying hard though, to squeeze in some time and effort spent only on myself, but it feels a bit unreal and fabricated. It is hard to keep up the spirit and GO when you on the sunday afternoon/evening still feel very tired from your last week. But I guess things'll be fine anyway, they always are in the end. Crap always happen, and you never "deserve" it, because crappiness doesn't care about deserving. I hope next week will be a bit slower and slightly more relaxing. I have plans to go to Stockholm to visit a friend from wednesday to saturday, which I am looking forward to (and have done ever since I bought the tickets). I hope I will be able to relax then, and not worry how those that I care about that feel really bad right now, how they are doing and managing "without me". I am sure I am important, however not essential in any way, and just need to tone down my own role in the wellbeing of people around me.

And just go to Stockholm and enjoy myself. And try to handle the guilt I normally expose myself to when I am having fun/enjoying simultaneously as someone I care about is feeling low.

Today's good deed?

I try every day to make a good deed. It can be anything from helping someone that looks lost, donating some coins for a good cause, smiling at someone, holding a door for someone. etc. Now during the winter, my primary good deed has been to turn of bikelights that bike-owners have forgotten to turn off when they parked their bikes. I can cross a street to do it, take a detour or whatever, it is a good deed. Usually the owner won't notice it I guess, but it feels good for me, which is the whole point of the thing, along with making someone else feel good too (if they now notice it, that is).

Today, my good deed was a rather far-fetched one. You know many of my annoyments by now, and what goes with me getting annoyed at others, other obviously get annoyed with my behaviour too. Me and my sister crossed a parking lot this afternoon, when we met one of all these smokers you see everywhere. It smelled bad, and I made a purposeful, but also rather drama queen gesture. It was annoying, but I shook it off. Then, within another 10 steps, two young female smokers stood in our way. It all happened spontaneously, and I did no effort to stop it, but just as we passed them, I said "and another two, all these smokers and smoke you have to breathe". Annoying, huh? One of the girls got annoyed at least, and said "yeye, all these smokers" with a stupid voice. I am not sure what her point was. Or well, I know what her point was, but she was not very eloquent and I can easily decide not to let it come through. Something more adequate, a cool snappy comeback, that's the least you can expect right? They should be used to it by now these smokers, getting annoying looks, since that is what they do to their surroundings, annoy. But maybe where the smoke goes in, the wit goes out?

I actually had no idea of the massive impact this increased smoking prohibit (clubs, pubs, cafés) would have on general opinion on smokers, and especially not how much more easily I could justify my annoying comments to annoying smokers. It is rather sad, don't you think? See them there stomping in the cold, wrapped in their jackets, outside the fun club, smoking away. No mittens either, because how would that work? Fire and fabric is not a good combination. I hope smokers will become the society laughing stocks! Seriously.

I am not an evil person, but that comment might seem cruel. But if you scrutinize, they increase my risk for cancer, along with their own crazy risk. If they do get ill, not only their, but also my tax money will pay their expensive chemotherapy treatments, and research on COPD (chronic obstructive lung disorder; 99% caused by smoking) treatment. They annoy with their mere awful stench, not only smelling themselves, but making me smell bad too.

There is no excuse to start smoking, and only very very few exceptions to not quit if you are already stuck in it (e.g. like you are on the verge of dying anyway, and depriving your body of a dependent toxin might just speed the inevitable along). Just don't fucking do it! And especially not in my face. I will annoy you back, in the same way you annoy me. I am tempted as counting "annoying smoky-girls" as my today's good deed. Maybe annoying non-smokers like me annoying them back often enough, will help them realise the stupidity in the habit and quit, thereby I am helping to perhaps saving their lives. Too farfetched? I don't think so.

A day with a record

Sundays are normally the day to relax, and just enjoy that you've survived another week, recharging for the next. But today, as the headline implies, I broke a record. It is not a huge record or anything, it's just one of those records you have everyday, but usually not stop to think even twice about. But I am now more educated in the art of cognitive psychology, and realise that a tiny thing (like rewarding yourself for just spent another day with yourself, or like now, enjoying a very trivial personal record) can mean a huge difference in the way you feel and perceive yourself. Weird, hard to believe? But it is true.

My record was broken in the stairs machine. After a slow sunday breakfast (around lunch-time; watching the 3-4 am episode of 1st season of '24'!!) I went to the gym to get rid of some built up agitation and stress. I chose my ordinary climbing machine programme 'Fat Burn', 45 minutes, 62 kg. But today, I used a higher level / lower resistance / tougher work-out than normally, level 15 out of maximum 20. I felt a bit optimistic starting off, but at the same time I really wanted to make sure that all stress was relieved at the end of the 45 minutes. And it was. And I was actually quite satisfied breaking all my previous records on the machine; climbing for 10.25 km, 315 flights of stairs, 91 steps / min, mean effect around 210 W, and also with an estimated loss of 560 kcal. In 45 minutes! I have never before climbed over 10 km, and never before more thatn 300 flights in one go (i.e. 45 min). I actually raised my hands high above my head when I broke the two records, feeling very pleased with myself, along with ignoring looks from other work-outers. It made my day, I must admit. And I have lived on it long after the increased endorphin levels declined to normal levels again. Such a minor thing, can make a huge difference in the way you perceive yourself and the way you feel about yourself. Trust me!

And try it! (it does not have to be on a stairs machine)

Annoyment continues

Yesterday I was back at the gym again, climbing the stairs machine. Can you imagine the amount of energy formed in a gym, both in the form of heat energy, but also in the form of kinetic energy by the people using many of the machines!? I cannot understand how gyms don't put generators in all their machines, and let the people working out supply them with electricity. Myself, I was standing in that machine for 45 minutes, my body was giving off heat energy at 180 W, plus that I was climbing climbing climbing 284 floors (corresponding to 9.6 km). All that energy I formed by climbing those stairs, couldn't it be saved, and used for lighting up the gym, or energy for boiling the coffee in the reception? I was deep into my thoughts of how this could be done in practice, when I saw her. My anti-person.

She is a girl that was in my class for the first 2 years of undergraduate studies. And she made me annoyed already then. The main thing, at least in the view of others, might be that she at one party (where I was not present) made out with the guy I was dating at the moment. That can be quite annoying, to say the least, right? But it actually didn't start with that, that was more of a culmination. She never appealed to me. She often asked rather stupid questions, had a lisp, she was very much into her looks, had long blond hair she combed all the time, etc. I never hung out with her, but the girl I hung out with the most during my first undergraduate years, she in turn hung out with annoying-girl quite a lot. Even after the 'making-out-with-my-boyfriend'-incident, which annoyed me even more! Of course my friend could do what ever she liked, not like she had to stop hanging out with this annoying-girl just because she had offended me, but I just felt it was very unsupportive to continue hanging out with annoying-girl, and especially (!) trying all the time to make us hang out all three of us. I never joined them, and offended as I was, started also hanging out less and less with this other unsupportive / un-understanding girl too. She didn't seem like a friend I wanted to have anyway.

So yesterday, anyway, I saw annoying girl at the gym. She is there most of the time actually. I remember her bragging in class how she was at the gym working out everyday. And well, she might be there every day, but the quality of the work out... She is just sitting in the machines, with minimum resistance, using them, but all the time looking around herself, as if looking for someone, not focusing at all on working out. Her face never gets red, and she never breaks a sweat. And god forbid! What would that look like on her face all covered in make-up, and on her pretty clothes. She is even wearing really big party-earings to the gym!

Hehe, well I know most of you others out there wouldn't find her that offensive as I do, I just have a hard time describing her, because she annoys me so much. You can't put on make up, your nicest earings, and get all dressed up BEFORE going to the gym! Sitting there playing on the machines. Come on! Get fucking sweaty and focus on working out, not looking for boys or whatever you're doing! The gym is a place to work out, not a market to display yourself, your body and your fresh make up on.

(I swear I am not having one of my periods, eventhough parts of my later texts have implied that strongly. Women, eye?)

Annoying guilt

Have you ever reflected over the vast amount of spontaneous thoughts of nonsense popping up in your head every day? They can be evoked by just about anything; a person in front of you in a queue saying something you think is silly (you think: what a stupid person), a cute woman walking past you (you think: what a nice rack, didn't she just check me out?), or an unfriendly salesperson in a store snapping at you (you think: what a bastard / bitch, I will never shop here again). Many spontaneous thoughts are positive and encouraging, like "didn't he / she just check me out?", and some are negative "what a stupid fool I am". Most of the time you don't even notice them, just accept them unconsciously for facts, and move on with other thoughts. But sometimes you, or at least me, get a feeling of guilt after having thought something negative about someone else. I am then often struck by the follow-up feeling: who do I think I am judging her / him, not like I am so much better! Guilt is really my "thing", I can feel it for just about anything. But I have definitely improved, mainly due to my own hard work in context of my cognitive psychologist-meetings. I wonder, although being rather sure about the answer, if others are just like me, thinking these thoughts. Are you?

You need examples to understand my question? Here are three collected yesterday and today:
1. I worked out on the stairs machine, and on the machine in front of me was a man that made me annoyed. He smelled really bad, of old reheated sweat, had intense blond curly back / shoulder hair growth. Will I have to stare at this back hair and breathe this icky air for 45 minutes? That was enough for me to get annoyed, and subsequently being struck by a feeling of guilt for my being annoyed.
2. In the changing room getting ready for my yoga class my eyes / brain registered lower back hair growth on a woman as well. I thought: blurk! And then => guilt.
3. Today on the bus from Malmoe to Lund, I sat behind a very disturbing girl. Everything about her annoyed me, but it all started with a part of a statement she made "most PhD students are women, but still most men are professors, the higher up in the hierarchy you get, the more men you find". This is true, but there are more reasons for men having these higher positions in the academic world than female supression, i.e. that in the group of people with very long experience and education that are on these posts, there are more men than women. Just like why more men get the Nobel Prize for instance, the time usually needed for producing something worth this award, most often forces you to be in your late 70s, and then, you will find more male scientists than female. This will change, but there is obviously a delay. But it was more about her that made me annoyed. She was a typical militant feminist (ready for my prejudice?), long brunette hair that is cared for only with a coloured scrunchy towards your lower neck, glasses, and a disturbing accent, and aggressive tone in the voice. Anyone "militant" I instantly get a spontaneous negative feeling about, being militant is not a good way to change the world / situtations that disturb you. She was annoying, I promise! You would have felt it too! I think. She just didn't seem credible, just gave one the feeling of having these opinions because she knows they are the right opinions to have and express to "be" this kind of person that she wanted to be, to belong to a group she wanted to belong to. But it didn't feel personal or true, just like she was repeating something she had heard somewhere, trying to get away with it being your "own" thought. And that really annoys me! When people aren't thinking for themselves, only repeating what has been said so many times previously.

And after getting annoyed by her comments, I again felt guilt. A little...

Happy place

...that's what I think you call it in a very 'new age' type of way. And anything new age-y evokes negative feeling within me. I need thorough convincing to even be ok with doing something I initially labelled 'new age'; i.e. burning incense, meditating, owning a "dream catcher", or a big transparent glass ball for looking into your future etc. Alongside these lot, "having a calm inner place to retract to at times" inevitably falls under that category as well. But to the latter, my feelings have changed to instead being very positive and approving, initially due to my relaxation exercises for cognitive psychotherapy, and later due to the final complete relaxation-part in my yoga classes. It is a truely brilliant thing, once having gotten used to it and after enough practice retracting there.

It starts with me, lying back down on the bottom of a small wooden rowing boat. Moving through a narrow strech, then slowly moving out to open water. Open water, but not very deep. It is only a small pond, with shallow clear water. It is in Austria at summer time. Then sun stands high up to my right, and I am on a very green hillside with high grass and some tall scattered spruce trees. Behind me on my right is my house, where I am in at some stages of my retracting, but I spend most of the time in the boat. Thoughts that pass through my mind at times, are represented by white swans flying from left to the right, coming and leaving. On my arm, or rather, between my body and my right curved arm is... who do you think? Of course. Cute cat.

Well, what do you think? It sounds cheezy, which I am very aware of. But relaxing in this place, focusing all my thoughts there, instead of the present, is such an excellent relaxation, and I feel I have my whole life to modify this place, and make it just perfect. I really really enjoy yoga. Please, why don't you try it, if you haven't already? A few times, with an open mind, and deep breaths. It is a very different experience, at least for me!

Sorry about the weed-smoking blog today =), but be honoured to be let in on my very personal (at least until I press "publish") space and experiences.

Flying weeks

It is strange. You get on with your usual stuff, and suddenly (like for me know) almost a whole week has passed. And trying to think back, I can't really say what I have done. I am rather sure though it has been nothing revolutionary anyways. It has been your regular week of good and bad, happiness and general "whatever"-ness, ups and downs. I found out friday in a rather strange way (by being handed the submitted manuscript), that I was actually fifth author on a paper that I for some reason thought I would be second author on. I was a bit hurt initially, but thinking about it, I can't really argue my placement. And yesterday, I got an e-mail from the organizers of the excellent Maine (state north of New York) - conference in august, and I have been accepted as one of 135 participants on the week-long conference on 'Epilepsy and Neuronal Signalling'. I was warmly invited to join in on the fun. Wohoo! That kind of got my perspective back in the right place, and also a little self-esteem boost. Just what I needed right then.

Cute cat has been on forced stay with his brother this week, and he seems to have had a good time. He has lost like 300 g in a week, despite mother's constant reports on crazy eating. Well, alongside even more frequent reports on cats running, playing, chasing, etc. They can be quite mean to eachother, it seems at times, but then you catch them lying down like this, and you get this 'naawh'-ing feeling of their complete brotherly love for eachother. I have been at my parents' place with boyfriend all weekend, as an enduring picking up of cute cat. The weather has been perfect; about 8 inches of snow on the ground, intermittent snowfall, crisp air, snowdrop flowers forcing their way up through the snow, and between -3 and -14 degrees (Celcius. If you prefer Kelvin, or Farenheit or so, you do your own math!). I love my parents, I love to relax there (jacuzzi, served dinners, fire place, loving and welcoming atmosphere etc.), and it was especially nice to be able to bring my lovely boyfriend with me. We have had nice dinners, snowy pre-breakfastal / post-dinneral walks, board game playing, and just RELAAXING. And still, I am tired now. But it is sunday, you're supposed to be that way! And with that, I excuse my tiredness, and myself, for today.