Back in black!

Hey, t So now i'm back (in black). I'll first of all let you in on an update. It's been about 4 yrs since my last post (i think). I'm now working as a forensic psychologist at a prison for sex offenders in a town in Sweden. I have two kids (boy: 21 months, girl soon to be 2 wks) and a girlfriend. I suppose the order is rather: gf then kids. We were together for about 8 months before the first boy was conceived. It was planned. I was recently graduated and was working my first job as a (new) psychologist at a correctional facility (aka prison) when i met HER. We met at a party for the Youth Communist Party and the rest is history. I had recently joined and she was serving drinks at the bar. She was (is) hot and i asked her out (a few days later, on Facebook). Later she was to tell me she hardly remembers the day/night we met. She was drunk that night. I wasn't as much. She hit me square in the face with a mop, which she doesn't remember. She was introduced to me along with an (ex) friend of hers. More on that later. Anyhow, we met, I asked her out. And that episode in and of itself was characteristic of me in a way. I have as long as i can remember been a bit shy. But when it came to girls/ppl i was genuinely interested in i wasn't, at all. So i guess in a way i wasn't shy at all. When it comes to ppl I'm genuinely interested in, I'm quite comfortable and not shy at all. I can, in fact, be quite the sociable type. So this is what happened the night i met the future mother of my children. I was newly graduated, working, earning a decent wage but living in a small town a ways a way from my hometown. I lose myself. We met, had a few dates, invited her back to mine (which happened to be my bro's flat at the time), and then we were "going out". I can honestly say that this was the first gf i'd had where i genuinely felt that it was someone i had chosen. Chosen as in someone i felt that I was interested in, and not merely because she had showed interest in me first. This was something that had plagued me earlier in life (due to low self-esteem i suspect). Anyway, long story short. I now live in a town near Göteborg, small 3 room apt with two kids and a gf. I have a job i enjoy (meh, more on this later, I've had my doubts recently), a family (hasn't really sunk in yet) and a gf (more on why no wife later). This was a hello post, a post to say I'm back and I finally have something to talk about again. It's been a few years and maybe this time i'll be able to write for a time, given i have something to write about. I started it again mostly because i want to write again. Not that i believe I'm any good at it, but merely because i feel its good for me, for my "soul". Ive also had doubts recently about my chosen profession and I felt i needed somewhere to air my thoughts! Lights are flickering, bladder is calling. Need to return to reality. Soon again!

what's the deal?

I hear two stories. One is of how great it is to be in love and be in a relationship and all that. Which I'm sure is great, and drawing on the experience I have of being in love, i'm sure if it were ever reciprocated it would sure be nice. However I'm not there yet. The other side is that of actually getting along with the significant other. I think I've lived long enough to know (rationally) that one has to pass through a few phases before commiting long term to a person. Don't settle down in the first phase of passionate love, don't settle down after that phase has passed, since that phase is one of trying to integrate the other person's personality into one's own without being too critical. In phase that follows one has (possibly) started to become irritated by the same personality because it was, after all, not so much like your own; and the friction starts. The other possibility being things working out, being a good match. If one waits, past the passion phase, past the second phase which i have forgotten the name of, and enters the phase of where one has accepted and can comfortably live with each other...then go for it. However, i suspect one can linger in the second phase, desperately trying to sugarcoat the things that annoy, the things that anger, and so on and so forth, fearing that if one loses this person, finding another will be impossible then it's "better to learn to live, however unbearable, with this person". wrong.

What does this mean for me?

I've grown even more picky than before. Ok, I've grown more picky with prospective girlfriends. And since I've never really been the sleeping around type, this discourse concerns my reality with girls.

I love kids, i want kids one day. But not at the price of my sanity. Where is Mrs. Yarollahi? Are you out there?

Ps. Once you've found the girl you think is the one, then you have to work on that relationship, nurture it. Don't give up. In this day and age, people seem to think that if love isn't there, magically, then one shouldn't be together. Are they refering to that initial phase of passionate love? That phase is exactly, that, a phase. Phases are transient. After that it's commitment-phobia. Are you a commitment-phobic? Meditate on why. Get to know yourself.

update

Work work work.

I work almost everyday now. I'm working at a home for kids 0-12y.o. It's a home for kids whose parents aren't always fit to be parents and the social services have gone in and removed the children from that home, and placed them in this home, where I work...

<I started the job as a part-time gig back in September when I was still in uni. Back then I was commuting 3hrs by train, once or twice a week to this other town called Örebro. That was last semester. Fast Forward again >>. I'm on a small hiatus from uni this semester to clear my head and figure some stuff out. Figure some real shit out. Like if this is what i wanna be doing, how I can best do it, and if I decide to do it, then how to go about being good at it. Life stuff.

So while I'm doing this I'm living at home, making new friends, working and saving money. The work wasn't supposed to take over my life though, I'm starting to feel like there's not much else, which I guess would be ok if it were my future profession but I doubt I'll be doing this for that long. So it can get a bit tedious at times. Not the actual work though, it's usually fun, mostly involving playing with these kids and taking them places, to the pool, to the cinema, skating etc. So a plus is that I'm doing stuff I probably normally wouldn't be doing (yet).

Living at home. Living at home isn't as hard as people make it out to be. Has a lot of perks and some downsides but in my opinion the perks far outweigh the downsides. And I get along with my parents well. Ofcourse it can get pretty difficult sometimes but it usually blows over and we're back to being ok.

As for plans for the near future? This routine till after summer, then I either start uni again and finish it (1.5yrs left of my post-grad studies) or I do something else. But I'm fairly certain I'll be finishing up Uni.

i am alive!

yes, i'm still walking this earth. Feel better, working, and having fun.

updates coming soon.

back in bla...

Soo..It's been nearly 3 months now (feels like a lot longer...) and I haven't had any meat to eat. I've been doing well. I think I'm past the difficult part now, I don't crave meat anymore...was a bit challenging in the beginning but I overcame. AND, i'm positive that I won't eat meat ever again.

so two hurrays for me and one for my bro who I have managed to convert also...no, two hurrays for him too because he has done better than I thought he would. I underestimated you brother. You did well...

In other news,

I'll be doing what I've been wanting to do for a mighty long time now and that is to go to Japan and LIVE&WORK! It shall be the greatest adventure that I have been on to date and I look forward to it very much! I'm currently saving up for my ticket and some starter cash and as soon as I've got that I'm off to the promised land...In the meantime I've got to brush up on my, by now, fossilised Japanese. For that I've signed up for a beginner's course in Japanese at Gothenburg Uni. I won't have time to finish it but it's very basic Japanese so it won't really matter. I'm very familiar with the basics so it's mostly to get me into the whole thing again.

Between March-May I'm off...!

Signing out...

Stopped eating meat/pork/chicken, why?

Because of this shit and other acts like it. Don't matter if it's not happening in Sweden, which i don't doubt it does, this movement can only be stopped by removing the demand for these products, i believe. Start weening yourself off meats people!

And AMERICA, if you elect McCain to be your next president I will be mighty disappointed in you. Just watch the debates and you'll see how inept he is.

Peace out

..

Call on Hormel to make changes for animals!

Homosexuality

I was just thinking about this time when my brother and I went to a gay club. Apparently my brother had heard from friends that gay clubs can be real good places to pick up hot numbers of the opposite sex. These girls go to gay club cause they get left alone, i.e not a bunch of guys coming up and bothering and shit. you get the point. anyway, at said club I saw, not surprisingly, two middle-aged men making out. Even though I was well aware I might see some of that it still surprised me, just seeing it. It didn't help that these were two MEN, say around my dads age. It made it all that more weird.

so, I was having a smoke out my roomwindow, and I got to thinking of that time and at first I had much the same reaction I had the first time, disgust. And then I thought, "why I is it so disgusting to me", really, why is it disgusting...? In my mind, I'm thinking it's got alot, if not everything, to do with upbringing and the general social zeitgeist. We're brought up, from day 1, that it's man and woman. That's it. Gradually you also "learn" that two men or two women (for some reason it seems female homosexuality isn't as bad...why is that?) having "relations" is wrong, if not also bad. Growing up in such an environment it shouldn't surprise you to meet people holding such beliefs...right. How...hmm, can you be born with this heterosexual pursuit? That you instincivly know that your penis is supposed to go into a woman, how would that look if you grew up in an environment with only men...? wouldn't you assume to insert your thing somewhere else. Hmm, i'm still trying to figure things out so it might not seem like much. All these things..., they make me think that this "disgust" people feel towards gays is temporary. That sounded like i just fell upon something grand and unique. I realise that it's probably neither.

As more and more people "come out", and are accepted in society I really think we might see a day where homosexuality is right as rain...hmmm, yea, that.

And no, i'm not gay. just pondering the matter, and it really did make me think about it. Works well if you can allow yourself to question your own core-beliefs and values. If you can move beyond yourself then reasoning about this much more fruitful and stimulating.