End of January

Last day of the month. Went by fast. Haven't been as cold as I feared. If it wasn't for the wind it wouldn't be too bad. The last few days have been a bit colder, and whiter. It's been an eventful month; got my drivers licence, school started again and I saw my grandpa. A good month. 

February will start with an early Early flight in the morning with touchdown in Jamaica. I'd say it's probably one of the better turn of the month's I've ever had. I am so excited to take my shoes off and pretty much just leave them off for two weeks straight. Byebye January!

Pinterest

Idag började jag använda mig av Pinterest. Det var mamma som visade det för mig med en varning om att det är väldigt beroendeframkallande. Och jo, det kan jag hålla med om! Det går att klicka sig vidare och vidare och vidare i oändligheten. Så mycket bilder. Men det är fantastiskt roligt. Du kan söka på precis vad du vill, så kommer det fram en massa bilder som folk har "pinnat" - klickar du på bilden kan du också sätta en pin i den om du vill spara den på en av dina anslagstavlor. Under bilderna går det även att se vart den ursprungligen kommit ifrån - på det här viset kan man komma till hemsidor där det finns tips och trix och allt möjligt. Kul kul!

Här hittar ni min Pinterest!

Started using Pinterest today. My mom recommended it to me with the attached warning that it can be very addictive. And yes, I am very much willing to agree to this! You can go on clicking and clicking and clicking into the eternity. There are so many pictures. But it's a lot of fun. You can search for anything you want, and are shown a whole bunch of photos that people have "pinned" - if you click the picture you too can put a pin it if you want to save it on one of your boards. Below the pictures you can also find where it is originally from - a great way to find good home pages. Fun!

Follow this link to have a look at my Pinterests!

Solkatt

Sitter och kikar på taxfree inför lördagens resa. Solkräm solkräm solkräm. Åh, vad det ska bli härligt med sol! Barfota barfota barfota. Vad mer behöver man? Skriver packlista;

Solkrämen

Kameran

Solbrillor

Badkläder

Klänning

Hatt

...

Vad mer behöver man? Åh, Lycka!

Shooting an Elephant

The spring semester have started at last. Contemporary english literature. We are reading and analysing the short story Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. I really enjoyed the short story, and there is a lot to find once you start digging. Me and my study-buddy Moa are getting in there. It's great having someone to study with, especially when it comes to analysing literature - it just gets so much more interesting to have more than one point of view. Tomorrow night we have the second seminar of the semester and I'm excited to see what the other students have found in the text. 

The five page story is quickly read through and I very much recommend you doing so! HERE for example.

I find this picture so sad but hauntingly beautiful.

I love my grandpa

Seeing gramps was amazing, I haven't seen my favourite grandpa for two years and have missed him a lot. He is now 92 years old and full of life and jokes, making me laugh constantly. I still have the teddy bear he gave me on my first birthday - it hasn't left my bed since. Oh, how I love this old man! 

The first ride!

This Saturday I went on the first ride with my new drivers licence! Me and Thomas took his car and drove to Malmö to visit my grandpa! It was such a strange feeling - but A LOT of fun and even though it was a bit hard at first to get used to the car, which was really different from the one I have been driving for the past two weeks, it went great. (As you can see in the photo Thomas thought so too.) After driving a long time on the high way my leg did get really tired, I still haven't learned how to relax. But that'll come with time. 

Driving School day 10 (Uppkörning!)

The final day of driving school. Aaaand guess who's got a brand new licence? Right - it's Maja!

My driving exam was at 10.30 but we started the day with a lesson to get warmed up. Afterwards we drove straight to the place where my exam was to be started from. The instructor was really friendly and calm, which I think rubbed off on me. My teacher was in the back as well as another instructor who was learning how to grade driving exams, so it was a full car! It was quite nice though, as I was a bit worried about having my teacher there, but since there were two of them in the back they talked to each other a lot and I could concentrate on me, the driving and my instructor. The only thing he commented on at the end of the 40 minute drive was that at one point I'd been "too nice" and let someone drive before me even though I didn't have to. So there was no trouble at all and the licence is mine. SUCH a relief! When I walked back home afterwards I couldn't stop laughing.

Driving School day 9

Wow, 9 days of driving are already over. Tomorrow is the day with a big D - my drivers exam. Just got home from today's final lesson. I think I'ts been a pretty good day, driving wise. But non the less I am just about dying from nervousness. Don't know what to do with myself, haha. I just want it to be over. And please please please let it go well. I know the worst thing that could happen is that I'd have to do it again, which isn't so bad. I just really hope I won't need to.

My teacher asked if he could come with in the car tomorrow with me and who ever I get scoring my driving. I said yes, but will think about it until tomorrow. I don't know if it's a good or a bad idea. Having him in the back seat might make me more nervous, or make me feel safer. I don't know. He said he'd sit in the back and try to talk as much as possible with the instructor to make sure he doesn't try to disturb my attention. Haha!

Got any pointers? They're all welcome! 

Driving School day 8

Jan 22
8th day of driving school is over. Time has passed fast and at the same time I feel like it's been ages. I can't wait til it's over. I'm starting to get really nervous about the exam. Like really nervous. I know I should just relax, if I don't pass I'll just have to try again later. By now I just really want it over and done with.

In the evening we did the mandatory "darkness driving" where they showed us how far away you can see someone wearing a reflex, when to use your high beams and when not to etc. Amazing what difference a little plastic thing can do. Reflexes should be "årets julklap" - gift of the year, every year. Since there were two cars we took the opportunity to practice overtaking. This is hard to practice when you're out driving with just one car, at least if you want to keep it within the legal speed limits, since it's pretty much impossible to find someone driving slow enough on the roads these days. It was interesting. I got to drive in the car with my theory teacher, which I really enjoyed. 

Watched Cool Runnings to get into the Jamaican mode. Just a bit over a week and I'm there! Can't wait.

Driving School day 7 (Teoriprov!)

Jan 21
Nailed my theory exam! 60/65 points and top of the class. YES! Finally I can relax a little. Just one test left, the actual driving test. It's on Friday and I can't wait til it's over. Fingers crossed.

Was supposed to have four lessons today as well as the exam, but luckily my teacher doesn't think I'll be needing all my lessons, so we removed one off of todays schedule. Thank god, because by the time the exam was done and I'd driven three lessons I was exhausted. Just three more days..!

Anyway, today I'm celebrating another successful step towards my licence. Woop!

Driving School day 6

Monday Jan 20th
Back on it again after the weekend. Spent two lessons practicing backing the car around corners and turning in streets and junctions as well as all sorts of parking. Backing in, driving in, parallel parking. It went good. Drove with the to be-driver teacher again today. She was in charge of the lessons and my teacher was in the back. She was good, super sweet girl, but it went a little slow at times. Learning together I guess, ha.

Then had another theory class which was again really good. My theory exam is due Tuesday and I am studying all my spare time. The teacher wished me luck and said he thought it would go well, since I am pretty much the only person answering all the questions in class. Sometimes I try to shut up because I want the others to have a chance to answer, but then no one ever does and so he turns to me anyway. I feel pretty confident with what I've learned, but am of course nervous about the exam.

Oh, and Halmstad is cold.

Parallel Parking

It's so nice to be off from driving school for the weekend and get some rest. But I am still studying my theory books like a crazy person. Doing sample tests over and over and over again. I think it's going pretty well, but who knows what questions they'll throw at me at the actual exam. I'm nervous. The test contains 70 questions. Apparently 5 of them are new questions that the traffic board is trying out for the future, so they don't count (wether I answer them correctly or not). At the end of the test I need 52 correct answers, but since there is no way of knowing which ones will be counted I have to get at least 57 of them to be sure.

Saturday me and my friend Thomas, who I am staying with here in Halmstad, practiced parallel parking. We used two chairs as landmarks for the two cars I was parking in between. They were pretty hard to see but I think it went alright. Some of the times I tried it at least. Some times not as good... (yes, I did hit one of the chairs). I think it is going to be the hardest part of driving school. I will start learning the tricks of parking and reverse driving with my teacher in the beginning of next week. Wish me luck!

This is my first ever parallel parking. If you look closely you can see 

Thomas giving me the thumbs up from the passenger seat. Heyoo

Driving School day 5

Jan 17
Half way through! A week from now I (peppar, peppar) have my drivers licence. I am feeling a lot more comfortable driving, but I'm still nervous when I think about the test. Had three lessons today, rather close after each other - intense. Now I am at home studying the theoretical part, which exam I will be taking on Tuesday. I'm also a lot more comfortable with my teacher now, and we are past the just driving driving driving part but can now also talk about other things while I drive, which is nice. He seem to think I'm doing really well, which is a boost. We talked about those extra lessons and I feel better about that too. 

I thought I would want to keep driving through out the weekend to just get it over and done with, but at the moment I am quite happy about the fact that I get to rest for two days. There is so much information to digest. I. AM. TIRED.

Driving School day 4 (Halkbanan)

16 Jan
What a long long day. Started by 7 am at the school where we got picked up to go have a try at driving on really icy slippery ground. Then went straight back to school for the first lesson of the day. Did some theory studying before my second lesson which ended just in time for theory class. At 7 pm I could finally head back home. Needless to say I slept like a rock.

The slippery ground test-
was awesome! So much fun. And very interesting. You don't realize how big a difference a few km/h make when the roads are slippery. Also, what huge difference good vs bad tires make. It was exciting to be driving alone in the car without a teacher next to me.

We had three stations to go through during the day. One was the icy turn. Got to try it at 45km/h and weren't allowed to let go of the gas throughout the turn. It went pretty well. Then we increased the speed by a few 5-10km/h and it was pretty much impossible to stay on the right side of the road. Went sliding across it. Then had to do it again at the lower speed, but this time (without us knowing) they had put a dummy doll on the road and we had to react - with different results. 

We then got to the straight roads where we got to experience how far we went after hitting the breaks at full speed. There was one road without snow and one with. We tried them both at 40, 60 and 75km/h. Huge difference. And this is where we could tell the difference between tires. The car with the most worn tires went about 30 meters further than the one with the best. Freaky. Then we got to drive at 85km/h and try to steer past a moose on one side of the road and then another one on the other. 

The last station was the indoors one where we got to look at how different safety equipment inside the car works. The air-bags etc. We tried how the belt feel at a collision at 7km/h (so slow!). The teacher then asked if we'd like to try it without the belt. Umm, no thanks. "Then imagine that people don't wear belts at much higher speeds." We jumped into a car that was then turned around as if we had driven off the road and flipped upside-down. 

It was an eventful day indeed. I enjoyed it, but I might have enjoyed my sleep afterwards even more.

Driving School day 3

15 Jan
Three lessons today, a lot of progress. We were going to practice starting in the middle of a hill. It went so well we only did it perhaps 2-3 times and then moved on. It's been a good day. I've done about a million tests to prepare for the theory exam and am now having trouble sleeping because there are just too many thoughts running through my head. Had soup for dinner (my fav!) and then watched "Up!" (another fav!). Good evening. Tomorrow is the day of my second mile stone - the icy slippery driving test. I'm nervous and excited at the same time! Now sleep. Sleep damnit! 

Driving School day 2

After my second day at driving school I had mixed feelings. First of all, and what I'm very happy about, is that I already feel a lot more comfortable with my teacher. It was such a huge difference when we were alone in the car. However, he had already booked those extra classes he mentioned the day before (after my first and only class) and gave me a new schedule including these before we started our second lesson. What a confidence boost, huh! 

Agghh, this course is supposed to be enough, and you don't even know how well I drive yet. Give me a break, man. I think it's terrible that these places are commission based. I know they are trying to make extra money off of me, but it's so hard to do anything about it since he's the one who decides what to do, how much to do it and for how long. And when I'm "ready" for any next step. Im completely in the mercy of his position. 

Anyway. Had three lessons today and they went awesome, so far I am making huge progress - which feels great. A lot of the driving I did all those years ago is starting to come back. When I got home though the whole extra lesson/money-thing was still on my mind and I am feeling really annoyed about it.  I cut vegetables for dinner like crazy to get some of my anger out, haha. It helped for a while, but here I am all grumpy again. Not sure what to do.

Theoretical Class

Monday evening I also had my first in room driving class about rules and regulations etc. I LOVED the teacher. Absolutely adorable. Super sweet and friendly guy. Wish he would be my driving teacher as well.. I'm excited for the next class, on thursday! And to hit the roads again, wrrrrroom!

Driving School day 1

Had my first driving lesson yesterday. It went alright, considering it was the first. There was a driving teacher-to be tagging along in the car as well. She seemed nice. My teacher's alright, he almost felt a bit too educational. It didn't feel very comfortable, but I'm guessing it might have been for her sake. I'm sure it'll get better when we get to know each other more and can relax a little - both of us. It's fun being back in a car, and terrifying at the same time. It's going to be exciting to see how these two weeks go. I wish my teacher wouldn't have started talking about how we might need a couple of extra classes already after the first one where we barely had time for anything. I mean, I'm not surprised - they want to make money. But it was just too obvious. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Cheerio!

The Wolf of Wall Street

Oh, how I wanted to like this movie! My expectations were high. I did love DiCaprio in it, he's good as always, no doubt about that. I really wanted to like it and I really tried to. But it was way too long. And just like in American Hustle there really wasn't that much going on. The movie has Great energy, and I loved it from the start. But then it was like it got stuck in that energy, and never really got out. It was pretty much the same over and over again. It was just a dragged out painful thing. It really didn't need the three hours. Were it made shorter it might have been a winner. If that first feeling would have been allowed to stay and not have time to turn into a snooze fest. Some parts were hilarious, and some genius. But meh. All in all, I walked out of the theater feeling disappointed and sleepy. Too bad, really. What did you think?

Ouch~

12 Jan,
Am now sitting in the Gothenburg train station waiting for my stop over to finish and the train to Halmstad to arrive. I have no internet but figure writing is a great way to pass the time. My butt hurts from the hours already sat on it. Apparently the train had some trouble with its shock-absorber. "It's luckily just a comfort issue". True, lucky compared to a lot of things. But still; Lucky? Questionable choice of word. Every time the train took a little curve everyone slipped to the right or left. Things were falling off tables and it was impossible to get comfortable. It was quite amusing at times, but a relief to get off. And now here I am, sitting on a hard bench in the waiting hall.

Tomorrow is the first day of my driving course, and I am freakin' nervous. Tick tack.

Snowy

So the snow finally made it to Stockholm. I almost thought we were in the clear (haha, we're never in the clear) - but it's been very slow this year. Last year we had snow in October. This year it took almost half of January to get going, but the other night it finally did. I was hanging out at a friends place. Almost wore my thin spring jacket over there because the day wasn't very cold at all. And while we were inside it started snowing a little. And then some more. And then a lot more. And when it was about time for me to head home it was snowing pretty consistently. I slipped around in my Converse and looked like a snowman by the time the bus arrived. 

And then what happened? Well, as every year, public transportation freaked out. SNOW, in SWEDEN!? (Yes, Again!). This is a mystery to me. You'd think they would have learned by now.

It's pretty though!

American Hustle

Saw the movie American Hustle. Wasn't impressed. Good actors, nice time epoch, outfits etc. The sound quality of the version I saw wasn't amazing, which might have contributed to the fact that I didn't enjoy it. But mostly I just found it boring. Too much talking. It was like the entire movie was about waiting for something to happen. And once it finally did (I guess) I didn't really understand what actually did happen. Because I'd gotten bored on the way, lost interest and therefore got it all mixed up. Wait, who's that? Which person did this? A bit in to watching the movie me and my friend looked at each other and said "Somethings GOTTA happen soon, right?" We thought we were getting closer to the end, but it turned out we'd only watched about half of it. I think my friend might even have fallen asleep for a while there.

I don't know. It might be better with better sound. But as far as my experience goes, I still wouldn't give it another shot. Sound or no sound.

Driving School (Riskettan)

Var på Riskettan igår. Det var helt ok intressant. Väldigt många videklipp. En del fruktansvärt hemska, andra underhållande. Ganska kul i perioder. Vi fick diskutera olika företeelser i trafiken och i folks beteenden. Påverkan av alkohol, telefoner, sömnbrist etc. Jämföra manligt och kvinnligt osv. Kan bli ganska intressant diskussioner där. Läraren var verkligen supergullig. Var en härlig blandning av åldrar också. Många runt 20års-åldern såklart. Men även andra. Den äldsta måste ha varit i 50års-åldern.

Var en ung tjej som jag inte alls kom överens med. Korkad på ett irriterande "jag vet/kan bäst"-sätt, fast det inte alls var så. När det diskuterades riskerna med att prata i telefon medan man kör: "Alltså, varför ska man förbjuda att prata i telefon för att det sker olyckor pga det? Det är ju olika från person till person. Jag t.ex. som pratar väääldigt myyycket i telefon klarar ju av att göra andra saker samtidigt. Så varför ska jag inte kunna göra det medan jag kör? Då får man väl ta lite eget ansvar liksom." eller när läraren påpekar att om man är väldigt trött när man kör kan det vara värt att stanna och sova lite: "Men om jag är trött så kan jag ju inte typ stanna mitt i en skog och sova... det vore ju helt sjukt. Typ tänk om nån kommer och överfaller en??" - du tror inte risken att du dör i en olycka för att du somnar bakom ratten är större eller? Idiot.

Nu är i alla fall den delen av körkortsjakten avklarad. På söndag åker jag till Halmstad där min kurs börjar på måndag. Heja heja!

Livets karusell

Här om dagen var allt tip top. Just nu känns tillvaron rätt sugig. Hej vad det går.

6 Jan

According to my new years resolution this post should of course have been published yesterday. But oh well, sometimes there just isn't enough time. I worked my last day (again) at the store in Haninge. Have only been working extra during Christmas. One month was quite enough and I'm happy to be back to just studying. Doing both at the same time was a lot to handle. Just found out that I passed my exam in English Grammar, which is a big relief. Yay! We had to learn all the grammatical rules and regulations in about a month and a half. And it's fucking hard man. The book we studied is called "A University Grammar of English with a Swedish Perspective" - I think that says it all. Phew. Glad it's over. Now on to the next term, where we are going to study Contemporary English literature and Written Communication, which I'm quite excited about it. In my Swedish Literature course we are just beginning our studies in "The birth of modern literature", which hopefully will be more interesting than our last course module. Spring semester, here we go!

Life is good -

You know how sometimes things just feel in place? This is one of those days.

Im chillin' on my couch, listening to music. This weeks essay has just been filed, tomorrow is my last day at work and it all feels damn good! In a week I start my driving course, and another week after that's done (hopefully successfully so) I fly to Jamaica!

And then I have no idea what I am going to do with my life. But at the moment, it's pretty damn good.

Yes!

Phedra

I see I can't control my emotions.
Since I've broken my silence
Madam, I must go on: I must tell you
The secret my heart can no longer contain.
You see before you a pitiable prince,
The very image of fearless pride.
I spurned the whole idea of love,
Offended by its captives and their chains;
Pitying the wrecks of flesh and blood,
I always thought to watch the storm from the shore.
Now I'm like all the rest,
I see myself swept out to sea!
I was defeated in a moment:
My proud spirit is finally brought to heel;
For six months, ashamed, in despair,
Pierced by an arrow,
I've raged against you, against myself.
It's no use.
When you're there, I run away;
When you're not, I see you
Everywhere;
Deep in the forest, your image haunts me;
By day, by night,
Everything shines with your radiance;
I would rebel, I can't;
Everything makes me your slave.
I don't recognise myself; I'm lost.
My bow, my spears, my chariot - I despise them;
I've forgotten what it was that Neptune taught me.
The woods ring only with my lovesick sighs,
My stallions stand idle - they've forgotten the sound of my voice.
You must be appalled at this declaration,
To have aroused such savage love!
How could I offer you my heart in such brutal terms!
Don't you find your prisoner bizarre?
All the more reason to value my love - it's genuine.
Remember, I'm speaking a foreign language;
Don't reject what I'm saying because I don't know how to say it;
Without you, I'd never have felt what I feel.

Hippolytos declaration of love to Aricia
- Racine's Phedra.

Hamlet

Struggled to get through an English version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. This old-ish version of the English language is so hard to read smoothly. I get stuck on every second word and have to re-read sentences to fully understand them. Sometimes I still don't. 

In the end they all died, and I kinda felt like it was a waste of time. Shakespeare is very interesting though and I enjoy his writings. Next up is The Tempest (Stormen) and I'm quite excited. The movie "Resan till Melonia" is one of my childhood favourites. Haven't seen it? You should. 

"The Journey to Melonia" is a Swedish-Norwegian animated fantasy adventure film from 1989, loosely based on The Tempest. It's gorgeous.

Ps.

Och så ska jag ta körkort, ta mig tusan!

New years resolution

There we go, yet another year has passed and we have entered the year of 2014. Exciting.

This year my resolution will once again be to write a little every day. May it be on here (preferably) or somewhere else. It started off well with not a single word written on the 1st day of the year, but I consider it a day where exceptions are allowed. It is meant to be a lazy day.

Anyway, happy new year!