Walking home at night

Walking home at night and had my camera with me. Good night shots can be difficult to get without a tripod so I'm limited to places where I can rest the camera, on the ground, on a bin, on a railing. Whatever i can find really. But that usually means I can't get the shot from the angle I want. Which ofcourse is a huge drawback. Need a tripod, badly!




I also realised the necessity of an extra battery back. There's nothing more annoying than running out of batteris when you need it the most. So I'm getting an extra battery pack, quite cheaply too. Battery pack for a Canon 350D, €15 (eBay). Wonder if I can find a tripod too on eBay...

Paparazzo: to be or not to be

SO i did get a bit intoxicated last night. BUT, only slightly, and from what I had bought previously from Systemet. Didn't get anything once i was inside.
All in all it was a pretty good night. Lots of people, lots of people I knew! Imagine that. We left a bit later than most, hit the club around 11, probably later than that. By the time we got there though there was a massive queue. Luckily we were on the guestlist (for the student union?) so we skipped the queue and didn't have to pay entry (40kr) woohoo. lol. Can't believe i get even a bit excited over that fact. That's what living UNDER the existential minimum does to you. Though i'm sure alot of people would take issue with me on that point.

I brought my camera and I tend to get quite trigger happy at times. When i got back i noticed i had taken just short of 400 photos! A few blurry ones since it was on manual focus and a few on total strangers. Given that you don't see people walking around with big arse digital SLRs that often in a club setting like this (not at the SU in Örebro anyway!) people thought i was taking photos for some major swedish paper. Made for some pretty entertaining fibbing.

If you want to see the photos of last night I suggest to you the easiest way, which is adding me on Facebook.

Feeling today? You know the feeling you get after a really tiresome and long workout where every muscle in your body is revolting against you? even in places you didn't know you had muscles! That could almost explain the pain I was in this morning. Just rolling over was painful.

To drink or not to drink?

So, tonight I intend to drink 4-5 small beers. I don't intend to get drunk however. The keyword for tonight is Control. Seeing as I'll be taking my camera with me I'd have to be extra careful.

I've been looking for work. Not going very well. I intend to try again later, nearer the holidays. If i do manage to get one i reckon i could earn some serious cash during the xmas hols and New Year for some summer galavanting.

Time to get prepared for the evening's festivities! So long

Change for the better

So I haven't blogged since May 4th it seems. I've recently discovered I'm not much of a writer. As the title suggests, there has been some changes since May 4th, nothing dramatic however.

I'm back in Örebro for one. The fall semester started about 6 weeks ago and with it came a new batch of exchange students. This batch, much like the last, consists of mainly fun-loving kids from all over the world who come here to party mostly, and travel occasionally (whilst drinking usually).

I'm also officially a student therapist this year, in my capacity as a fourth year clin psy student. So, excited about that. I got my first patient the other week and I've gone through the motions of getting the patient approved for student therapy and should start treatment shortly. The modules are more interesting since they are very hands-on, teaching therapy techniques which you can then go on to use during your sessions if you want.

On a more interesting note...ummm, I was in Oslo this weekend with three of the exchange students (three canadians girls, a.k.a. The Wongs). Cool city, quite small but it was cool, with lots of old buildings and the like. A big arse palace downtown and a big park with lots of statues of naked men, women and children in all manners of poses. The statues weren't only in the park. They were scattered all over town, by fountains, by the harbour, on buildings, in the street. Pretty much everywhere. The Norwegians sure like their statues. And ofcourse it has to be said that Norway is f-in expensive! I'd recommend going for the day to Oslo if you're going and make packed lunches etc. And if you're going for longer, I sure hope it's less expensive outside of Oslo otherwise you'd better set aside a disproportionate bit of your budget for Norway if you want to go!

What else...Arvin was in Göteborg from Sunday till today (Tuesday). I went back for a quick visit from Sunday till Monday evening. I thought I'd bring my passport with me back to Örebro in case I would need it for any trips with the exchange students. So, naturally, i take Arvins passport as well as my own (don't ask how i managed to get both). Fortunately i noticed the same night I got back to Örebro and was forced to get the early morning train BACK to Göteborg (7am) and then return on the same day. I've been back for a few hours now. All in all I've spent about...22 hours traveling (bus and train) just this weekend! Urgh, not going ANYWHERE for a few weeks.

Can't really think of anything else to write right now but I will try harder to write more here. I've been thinking of getting my own domain and setting up a "proper" blog. I'm pretty skint at the moment so that will have to wait until the end of the month.

Was thinking of www.emile.se
what do you think? :)

Video from London in November

Dug this out from my clips. Pretty funny, to me atleast. I was wasted at the time. not sure how i managed to operate my phone to take this video.

Exchange students getting wacky

A swedish song (not sure when it is sung but i'm guessing alcohol is involved in the event. lots of alcohol). Anyway, here we see a bunch of americans (us and ca) trying to sing along. amusing to say the least.

major

I'm planning a major revamp of the blog. Thinking of doing the layout etc on my own instead of using blogger's templates. I have some free time tonight so I'm gonna start fleshing out some of the ideas in my head. Need to get the appropriate software as well.

"Jack of all trades, master of none"

Me in a nutshell.

Interesting photography

http://princess-of-shadows.deviantart.com/store/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54397336/

Global Gathering

Summer Planner

:: 7th June - 8th July ::

Spain

:: 27th-29th July ::

Global Gathering

:: 16th August ::

The Goo Goo Dolls Concert (London)

Interesting posts from beyond

forgot how much cool stuff there is at Conceptart.org. If you appreciate good art then you should definately check it out. Very inspiring. Makes you want to pick up the ol' pen and paper and draw something yourself. It's got every genre of art you can imagine. Fantasy and Sci-fi is quite prevalent however. I just love it.

Think I'm gonna get my Wacom out again and start doing some paint work. Hmm...why do you always get creative when you have tons of other shit to do?? Not that I have alot to do these days, just sitting in an office doing f all isn't what i'd call a stimulating environment so I have to find ways of entertaining myself. Surfing and drawing is what I've come up with sofar.

http://www.digitaldomain.com/links/screening_room/screening_room.html

addictive

whoever said piercing is addictive was definately right! Can't stop thinking about it :) Hmm, I wonder what I'll do next...

Never thought I'd go through with it, but lo and behold I got myself a labret piercing. For those of you who don't know what/where that is, allow me to enlighten you. A big fat needle is used to poke a hole through your skin slightly below your lower lip. It can be placed anywhere really between your lower lip and your chin but the majority are placed close to the middle or closer to the lip (like mine) to allow for more comfortable use of rings (as opposed to studs) later on.

I got mine done on saturday. I went into the studio on my own around 11 and was back home in time for lunch ;)

As for the healing process, so far so good. It seems to be healing up nicely and I've had no signs of infection. There's a bit of swelling but nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently, a piercing in the mouth is the least susceptible to infection thanks to a particular enzyme in your mouth that's very effective in keeping things clean and germ-free :) I rinse twice a day (and after meals) with medical grade mouth wash and wash the stud morning and night with unscented soap. No alcohol for two weeks. No kissing. Basically I have to stay away from other people's bacteria for the duration of the healing. I'm hoping it will have healed by the time I'm off to Spain. They say it takes about 6-8 weeks for it to have properly healed. You can also help it along if you eat minerals and vitamins. I'll be stopping by the drugstore to stock up on those later on today. Wish me luck!

24 keeps getting better!

fact: 24 is the best thing to have happened to the world in a long time.
fact: Jack Bauer is my god.
fact: The show will never end.
fact: Jack Bauer can't die. it simply doesn't happen.
fact: Completed Season 2 in less than 48h. You can do it too.

"24" is, bar none, the best show out there right now. Sure there are alot of other great ones, but Jack Bauer is unbeatable. If you've ever watched it you know how addictive it is. It's like a drug. Watching it on Tv can be harmful to your health. You must have more than one episode at hand before you start watching.

Get the CTU ringtone on your mobile to show your dedication to the show.

Voy a España

Found a few photos of our place in Spain, here's one of them. It's going to be great! I'm not coming back till I got a proper tan either. No reason to be in Sweden when you can be down there. One downside is that there's no internet yet. We're looking into getting it installed but no news yet. There's tv but no hablo espagñol unfortunately. don't have much much interest in that area anyway.

We'll be boozing at night and chilling in the great outdoors during the day. Reading, chatting shit, taking it easy by the pool. Can't think of a better way to spend my summer. My folks are down there now and signing contracts, getting keys and making sure everything is in order. Maybe if i get bored I can just hop on a train and go somewhere else. Explore Spain on my own!

6 weeks to go. Difficult to imagine what'll be like at this stage but hopes, expectations and spirits are high. Hopefully we can get a whole bunch of people together down there. Right now it's me, adam and ariel that are pretty much booked. Firas had to pull out and got a few maybes (4-5). All in all, it's definately going to be a good trip no matter what!

Look

Things are starting to take shape. Spain looks like it will definately happen. Got some more people onboard. Tanning, boozing, chilling, partying! Going to be ace. Not sure how much it'll cost but can't imagine it being a hell of a lot really. Flights with Ryanair are dirtcheap and living free.

I'm currently at work, as you I'm sure you can tell. Facebook and blogging is all I do it seems. Patients now and then. I could keep busy with reading i guess but it's shite. Listening to my iPod, dictating patient files, scoring psych tests, therapy, those are some of the things I get to do here. Can't wait for summer though.

.Mac Life (again)

So I've signed up for another trial period of .Mac to give it another try. Don't remember why I stopped using it last time but it was probably for the money. I reviewed it and decided I'd give it another shot: e.softspot@mac.com

I'll get my iDisk up and runnig soon and will start sharing my iCal, photos and other things shortly.

Canada was awesome, can't wait to go back. Next time I'd like to go with some mates and check out the party life, which i hear there is no lack of. Montréal is on everyone's lips these days. Probably worth checking out. Other news? Not much, I've finally got my PowerBook working again by doing so long overdue DIY work on it. I'm saving now to get an optical drive replacement as well. Got it hooked up to my TV now and streaming internet to it via the iMac. Streaming TV and watching shows. Can't get any better.

After coming back from Canada I won't be traveling anywhere for a while. Next stop is our flat in Alicante (zeniamar), Spain with some good people for some good times. Starting at the beginning of June and staying till i get sick of the place. Might also go to Ibiza with my brother and Sandra to get some partying done. Summer is coming!

snart bär det av!

Soon I, Emilian von Yarol, will depart on yet another journey to far away lands. This time, and for the second time, I am off to the New World. The far side of it. Not sure why I've always had this irrational and, some would probably say, unfounded admiration and fascination with Canada. The same can be said about my attitude towards Japan. I can't say why and where the feelings come from but I'm seriously starting to believe it's the colours of their flags(!). Red and white for some reason strike a cord with me. But then again there must be other reasons because I don't find myself in the least bit interested or fascinated by the history or legacy of say, Switzerland or Denmark.

When I go there now to discover, like many before me, the grand (in more than one sense) nation of Canada I hope I will not be disappointed, but it isn't a possibility far removed from the incredible. When you've built up your expectations for a number of years then dissappointment is just around the corner.

I, however, doubt that I'll be disappointed. With great company and in a setting like Vancouver I think it will turn out to be one of the best experiences to date. Only time will tell.

none

so im sitting at work waiting to meet up with Adam. It's been a long day and I really i just want to get back home and sleep. Also, somehow the little bottle of ink that's in my pencilcase in my bag opened and all the ink spilled into my bag and onto all my things. So now i have a blue calender, a blue copy of "Persian Fire" and some other blue-tinted items. Amazingly none of the colour stuck to the actual bag, it's the same colour it was before. I guess the material is non-stick or something.

I suppose now i can get the hardback of Persian Fire instead. They're nicer :)

Ambivalence

I should post more often, i procrastinate way too much with it. I start forgetting and all you get is a half-arsed attempt at retelling the events that unfolded. Umm, what has happened lately i wonder...
Life is quite good right now, social life is at it's peak and so is everything academia. The downside (if you can call it that, im positively inclined) is that from one day to the next i'm either drunk or stoned which has made me feel that I haven't been clear-headed in almost 2 weeks. And having this much alcohol around just looming there in the corner of my room makes me feel rather uncomfortable, is this how alcoholism starts i wonder? It's there you know, could have a glass anytime...I've been able to resist the temptation sofar!

Things have taken off with girl A and as always im at crossroads, never saw myself as the afraid-of-commitment type but everytime i get close to someone i hit this massive wall. Should I continue, should i not?? Pro's and Con's are considered and usually it takes too long to make a decision, meaning that eventually either one has to be taken for me (!) or I'll just go with the flow. Sometimes I have also been forced (more or less) or coerced into making one.
I think really it all comes down to which side of your conscience you pick, the red devil emil or the little angel. There is no middle ground, or should i say the middle ground is my head and if i don't make up my mind i'll start thinking too much and eventually it will just be a gooey mess of bad thoughts, panic, inertia, apathy, undecisiveness and the thing guys love above all else ofc!

My options as i see them at the moment:
1. Just realised i probably should'nt state my options in such a public place!

The underlying problem is that i don't want to be associated with any of person at the moment, news travels fast in the exchange student community so you might end up burning bridges left, right and center without even realising it. And that is not something i want to do. It's nice though, having some company now and then never hurt. You kinda get the best of both worlds. Milking the cow but occasionally also spending some time with it...not sure if that makes sense...

girls come and go

Nothing to keep for now, they come and go. Come and go often enough not to get attached to one. If they try to play you they're definately not worth the trouble. Being in close contact with the exchange students here is a big plus as well since u get to chat with a lot of them and get to know them quite well.

No time for long-time/distance things. Enjoy your life while you can, life is too short to have idiotic principles. It's about getting to know your fellow human beings, having fun while you can and enjoying meaningful relationships (be it friends, family or otherwise) when the time comes for those kinds of commitments.

Right now however I'm not there yet. I'm catching up with a few years of youth so I definately don't think I'm at a place where i should be settling down. Not soon anyway. For now we have girl A that things just started out with, met her pretty randomly on my way to an afterparty at Tybble (where i live). Don't know how we got to chatting but we did, exchanged numbers and i went to an after-afterparty with her and her friend and a french guy till 6 am. All good! Well cute! Girl B also sweet, bit more effort perhaps as things are still in the beginning stages but might turn out to be something fun. Then there are some potentials I guess i could work with but nothing's been set in stone yet as far as they go. Mostly mutual "looks" and checking outs i guess you could say. Probably could happen if i put some effort into it but right now I'm pretty tired generally so we'll see how things play out.

I never did put much effort into things before which explains alot as far as my love life went a few years back but now for some reason that same strategy works better since i do pretty much exactly what i've always done but things seem to move a lot smoother these days! Stuff just happens it seems, It's a mystery to me still! I look pretty much the same as i did when i was in the U.K. maybe the attitude's changed...

I might've burnt a few bridges with this post but none worth saving anyhow i would suspect! I'm here, having the time of my life, studying what i enjoy most, hanging out with people i like and having a great time. For now that's all that matters.

Take care old & new friends

Peace!

New coat of...

Lots of stuff have gone down lately, seeing as that's something that doesn't happen too often i'll give a detailed description of the events up until now.

Not sure if i wrote about it but i'm a fadder at the moment, which means i take care of a group of new students at Uni. Since i joined the "International Fadderiet" the students i'm responsible for are exchange students from all around the world. Fun fun. I got assigned an american guy (adam, very cool, not ur average american), a belgian guy (also cool), a greek girl, a russian girl and a polish girl. I'm taking care of these together with two other fadders. Thus far we've had a dinner and an rather uneventful evening. But the group is good so i'm happy. I also thought i'd become more involved since it's so much fun being with the exchange students so I might be joining Fadderiet (the board of swedish students organising everything).
Because i wanted to join they invited me to take a little day trip to a snowy cabin area with them and all the exchange students. Tons of fun and very cold, luckily (!) i brought only my sneakers so i spent two days in wet socks thanks to the blizzard that happened to pass and bless us with what looked like a feet of snow (and probably was). Got back from that trip Sunday noon and I was totally spent so i just chilled and did pretty much nothing all day, which was exactly what i needed. A good night's sleep!

I also decided (actually i decided long ago but finally got off my arse) to paint my room in some more pleasurable colours. Three "antique white" walls and one maroon. Been painting all day and i've finished 2/3 of the white walls and i need to go back to Gbg this weekend to get the maroon paint from my parents. The room will hopefully be completely repainted by next week some time.
I learned in the process that painting is nothing to be taken lightly, i managed to work up a significant sweat! Which was something i really didn't expect. The fun thing i guess is that you see results pretty much right away.

I'm tired, covered with paint and my back hurts a bit so I'm gonna love you and leave you for now.

Fool

MyTube

Here's some youtube vids i thought were fun/hilarious, check em' out!

Hip Hop Medley by Aries Spears
(something for lovers of hiphop/rap music, and still interesting to those who aren't)

McDonald's Rap Order
(fun)

There was one on YouTube! just last night of a SNL sketch with Justin Timberlake ("Dick in a box") but it's been removed by NBC cuz of some copyright infringement thingie, was hilarious. Too bad they removed it!

En Maroc

Wont write too much cuz 1] it would take me forever 2] i cant find half the keys i need on this stupid french layout keyboard. Ive been here in Morocco now since last thursday and to be honest i dont care much for it, except ofcourse for the weather! gotta love the weather; the people...meeh, what can i say, theyre arabs and nomads :P but ill try not to generalise. Just one word of caution, dont come here lookin for fit girls, you will find only a handful. But then again im not in the capital, but yet again if you dont see one fit girl for a whole week in a city of 500,000+ then its not a good sign.

Lecture doodles

New Year's Photos

Ive uploaded some photos from new year's eve on the Mo-blog page. Didn't wanna clutter up the main one, so head over there for photographic documentation of the last day of 2006.

http://mobilehermil.blogspot.com

The thumb series

Hilarious shorts by Steve Oedekerk. These are just a few of them, there are a total of six shorts so far i think (The ones below + ThumbWars, Thumbtanic & Frankenthumb)

pretto!

Varning! Handlar mest om tv o opersonliga grejer..du har inte missat nåt

du kan sluta läsa nu!

tack tack!

Uneventful

Not much has been going on after New Year. Things are extremely dull at the moment and I can't motivate myself to do anything. Just waiting till Thursday so we can get going. Need some sun i think, It's so fricking dark and depressing here now.

Parents decided they wanted the Samsung flat screen, guess they reached the same conclusion i did. If u want a flat screen tv u better do it right and get a proper good one. High contrast and crystal clear image and all that. Hurray for them!

Ordering pizzas, watching some tv and then i might try to get some reading done.

sometimes people make perfect sense, sometimes they're awfully confusing, why can't people just make sense??

Random

New Year's was fun as always. What started out as an innocent little house party ended up in a funky night club in town. Went out to my mate's for a small get together for the turnover, after that we all went into town to hit some clubs. Luckily we were able to jump the queue, though i can't recalll the exact reason. One of those Sms tickets, which meant we didnt have to pay the 150sek entry! yay! So we're in there, dance for a bit, drink for a bit. I get separated from my group as usual. I met a classmate from my old class, we caught up a bit and had rather lenghty chat.
I ended up wandering around the club on my own for a while, then sat down in a chair somewhere. I must've looked extremely lonely or something cause this random guy comes up to me and asks me if i want to go to an afterparty...
I never give up a chance for random encounters with complete strangers so i accept his offer and we set off to his place, accompanied by his canadian wife (not to be mistaken for old peeps, they were my age). We finally arrive at the party and it's actually in a flat belonging to one of his mates. So we're 6 ppl drinking, chatting and generally have a merry ol time.
After the afterparty died down we headed back to theirs and hung out till noon the following day just having a laugh, looking at old photos, wedding albums etc! Genuinely cool people, I went by theirs later that day (i.e. still today) to hang out some more and watch some films. Hilarious Thumb films!
So people, if a random person ever comes up to you, take a chance, you never know. I've been very lucky so far in that I have only been pleasantly surprised by these random encounters.
Alot of random stuff happened last night, some of which left me rather confused and lost.
All in all though it was a good night!

Hurray for random nice people!

my room is

As i said earlier, my room is starting to look like something now, finally, after 4 months. It's still a work in progress as i haven't decided on a colour theme yet but its grown more out of necessity than choice thanks to the colour of my walls!

(the file is pretty big and the quality is pretty crap)

two things

Just watched a good french film! Mostly about being an erasmus student in spain and relationships. Would recommend seeing it if you haven't. Cant be arsed to look up the english title...oh yea, the original title is "L'auberge espagnole" i think, or something like that. Very entertaining, especially if you've ever lived in a shared flat with people from different countries.

Also discovered India Arie's tunes. Better late than never eh! Easy listening...

Day 1

I've been up to quite a bit lately so i'll try and keep it short.
I left Uni last saturday, i.e. the day before xmas eve, and headed back home to Gbg. The following day we all went to my uncle's place in Habo (about 170km east of here), which is a small-ish town of maybe 2000. Spent Xmas eve there with my cousins just chatting, drinking and generally having a merry ol' time. Can't rememeber the last time I ate till I was actually wanting to be sick! Some people just don't know when to stop!

On xmas day we headed back home and started packing up some stuff, bla bla bla...i just realised this isnt much too talk about! I'll make myself even shorter...

• moved my parents' tv to my flat
• went to the capital for a few days
• met up with some uni mates there
• went to IKEA on the way back to buy some stuff for my room (it's starting to look like something i can call home for the next 2 yrs)

so that's pretty much what i've been up to lately. Nothing spectacular. House party on sunday and then we're going to Morocco with my folks from 4th-11th of Jan. Sunkisses and arabian nights, waawaaweewa! Fun fun fun :P

When i get back i can look forward to a 3 day home exam and, as i found out last night, taking care of some of the new exchange students. Me being a good samaritan and helping our exchange students increases my chances of being able to do my last semester in Canada. Hmm, it's not really a being a good samaritan if you gain something is it?? Anywho, I've looked into a few of the unis we have exchange programs with and of the three the uni in Calgary looks like the better one. The other ones are in small towns which im not too keen on. And besides, Calgary is pretty close(-ish) to Vancouver! and it also has lots of clinical psych. courses.

Late night

Well I'm back again. Too tired to write to be honest but i'll try to make something out of this...
On second thought, I'll write something in bed and post it tomorrow morning. Yea, that sounds like a better idea.

My eyes feel like lead. Been waking up way too early (7am) the past few days thanks to the traveling. More on that later.

Might just post it later on tonight, don't hold your breath though!

(courtesy of sonic)

Facial

Still not sure what i should write but i spent some time playing around with some templates and then changing the colours to suit my emo mood(!). Quite happy with the result.
On a duller note, I'm pretty bored at the moment and seeing as we have no TV here (i stole it to my flat :P) I will probably post again this evening. Perhaps a lenghty one.

I feel like lying down on a bed and writing on a laptop, I feel that that position would be the most conducive to my creative (!) writing and it will be infinitely more enjoyable to read for you as opposed to my blabbering here whilst sitting down, staring at a way-too-bright monitor.

Hasta luego!

I bring new tidings

Not yet. I'm still thinking of something to write that would be worth reading. I'll get back to you when i've thought some more about it.

Moblog

Ya you heard me! I've managed to set up a moblogging account, all praise sonyericsson for making the best mobiles on the market!

http://mobilehermil.blogspot.com

che-che-check it Aout!

OMFG is this going to be the best movie ever or what! *drool*

300 <---click here to see the trailer/teaser

"...our arrows will blot out the sun"
"Then we will fight in the shade"

The addiction ends

I was kinda like this minus the being guild officer part...scary in hindsight! It's an addiction like anything else. Especially the part about a sense of accomplishment etc etc rings true. A good read.

World of Warcraft: Addict

End

These are not just empty words i hope but i cancelled my subscription to the world of warcrap now and will cancel my account tomorrow. Damn Blizzard make you call them to cancel the account. This way i can make sure i don't go crawling back and pay another £9 a few days later as has happened many a time before. Even wiping the damn game off my drive couldnt keep me off.

Perhaps its time to face the music at last. I can't keep away :/ I'm addicted, i truly am...

"Hello, my name is Emil and i'm a WoW addict"

"Hey Emil"

Meh

I'm stuck in a vicious circle that sucks all energy and motivation out of me and it refuses to let go. It used to be fun but now it's just a chore. The only reason for keeping it up is the thought of how much time and effort I've already put in it and it would feel like a waste to stop. Not stopping is more of a waste...

It has suspended my life, I dont take the time to take care of myself, my hobbies, my friends.

Should i stop? YES
Will I stop? YES....eventually

Addiction is a myth...im an extremely mythical being.

In and out...

Yet again I've been missing for a long period of time but I am back. I'm not gonna run the whole "hopefully I'll be around longer this time" because, frankly, that shit just doesn't carry any weight at all. I write and blog whenever i feel like it and during some periods of my life i write more than others. Recently it's been a period of the latter. So what have i been up to then...

Well i'll do a bulletpoint version since my last post, which was just before my exams if i remember correctly

> Back in Sweden mid June-Beginning of July
> Spent 1 month in Thailand from Beg. of July till end July.
> Got my Bachelor's in Psychology
> Dossed about a lot after my vacation in Sweden doing f*** all

...and now i'm living in a Swedish city/town called Örebro where i've resumed my psychology studies start from the 3rd year on the 5yr program here. I just got my new flat today and moved all my stuff in just before i headed back to Gothenburg (where i'm presently writing this text).

The city seems nice and the people ive met sofar seem nice as well. Each cohort consists of about 40 people so it feels more like i'm back in Highschool than at Uni (as opposed to the UK format where you're one for 200 students).Everyone is on good terms with everyone else and more focus is on group project where u get cases to work on...bla bla bla.
Starting next semester i will get my placement, either in Örebro or in Gothenburg if i can find a good one. I'm really looking forward to that actually, finally i'm allowed to get in there and do some damage :P

oh well, enough for now...

E.

Tips from down under

Something i picked up from a mate's blog, he's been lookin for something like this for a while and i'm glad (weee) he found it. Just installed it and it looks sweet as. Have a try if you're running Mac OS X.

Menu Shade

Late night compositing

Been trying to figure out a way to get this coffee mug onto the computer and here is what i came up with. If you have any grand ideas please feel free to comment or whatever (and preferably something that doesn't involve ripping the paper off the mug :)



Drew this while on a (moving) train on my way back from Paris, and might i add i'm quite surprised it turned out like it did. Hope the doodles are visible :)

Bah

In an attempt to rectify past financial misteps i might have taken i have decided to put my recently purchased PSP on eBay. I really need the money and i hope i can get a good price for it. Only owned it for abit over a month really and haven't had alot of time to play with it. It's just laying there, £230 worth of equipment and games, reminding me of my poor finance management skills.

On a lighter note(!)...

I'm starting the 3 week long cramming sessions tomorrow and i should be finished, and hopefully still with my sanity in check, sometime early June. Can't say i'm thrilled about the whole idea but it seems it's the only way i can revise. Organisation and pre-planning evidently hasn't worked so well for me (think 4 resits) and it pains me to say that this cramming technique does. I think it's because it appeals to my lazy side. I can't get off my arse to do anything and some days when i know i should really be studying i sit in front of the computer and don't get up until several hours later (6h+ usually) due to pure inertia. And i think it is safe to say that i cannot be trusted to sit in front of a computer and study at the same time (not effectively anyway). Let's just say my room isn't entirely conducive to my learning :)

My solution is thus: get up bright and early, head straight for the library and not leave until it is dark outside, which is normally around 7-8 pm these days. I hope i can stick to this routine for longer than 2 days. And also, on top of the 6 exams i need to revise for i have a 6ooo words dissertation due in on tuesday (9th May) and im still about 4ooo words short :/

Needless to say, i have alot of exciting times to look forward to; after which i will hopefully be able to put it all behind me and rest easy on some desolate beach in Thailand. For now, I'm going to finish an episode of E.R. and then read for a bit, if i can manage to keep my eyes open, before hitting the sack.

Bonne nuit my nooblings

one more thing...

I just read a passage in the book i spoke of earlier, the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind, that kind of sums up what the author, Julian Jaynes is proposing, however tentatively.

"...man and his early civilizations had a profoundly different mentality from our own, that in fact men and women were not conscious as are we, were not responsible for their actions, and therefore cannot be given credit or blame for anything that was done over these vast millenia of time; that instead each person had a part of his nervous system which was divine, by which he was ordered about like any slave, a voice or voices which indeed where what we call volition and empowered what they commanded and were related to the hallucinated voices of others in a carefully established hierarchy..."

"...The gods were in no sense 'figments of the imagination' of anyone. They were man's volition. They occupied his nervous system, probably his right hemisphere, and from stores of admonitory and preceptive, transmuted this experience into articulated speech which then 'told' the man what to do.."

(Jaynes, J. 1976. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, New York.)

These are just excerpts ofcourse but i find the whole idea he proposes very interesting,

back to reading! :D

Roots

More on the topic of books (i should really be reading textbooks at the moment and not these kinds of books) my mother recommended a few books on the history of the Persian Empire. i've ordered them both and they are, or will be soon, en route to me. They are:

Darius the Great: Ancient Ruler of the Persian Empire
Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War

Two books i hope to read very soon and I'm quite eager to do so in fact. There is also another on the same topic which is by the same author of other popular history books such as "Rubicon" on the Roman Empire, namely Tom Holland. Should be an interesting read:

Persian Fire

None of these books i actually have the time to read right now! /cry
but hopefully i can bring them along to Thailand this summer and read on the plane and on the beach. Aaahh...summer...

(＾＿＾)/〜〜

the cookie has gone bad!

Reading a truly fascinating book at the moment that deals with the very essence of our being, our consciousness and its origins. I'm infamous for totally destroying any description or story i attempt to tell so i will not try to explain what it's about but let me just say after reading a few chapters of this book you will start to rethink everything you know or think to know about human experience, history, religion etc etc...

It was recommened to me by a truly superb lecturer at the University of Leicester, an intelligent and great man, although abit eccentric (but isnt that a part of what makes good people great? :)), by the name of Julian Boon. He is a legend in his own right among psychology students here and it's great fun and always rewarding to be in one of his lectures. The book he recommends is part of the Psychology of Love and attraction module which he teaches. I'm yet to fully grasp the link between love and attraction and the subject matter of this book but im sure it will come to me when i start to read through the textbooks.

the book, if you are interested in reading it, is called "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" and can probably be found at your local book shop if not you can follow the link i provided to get it from Amazon. I bought it from our Uni bookshop here and it cost me £5 so i can't imagine it costing that much on Amazon.

I can safely say that those £5 are the best £5 i've ever spent!

bogtown

Of late, done several things list below, one of which is untrue:

- been to paris for 5 days
- had a haircut for £22
- finished lectures
- bought iPod Video
- bought iMac G5
- bought PSP

who am i kidding? they're all true

Take my money away...i have no in my fridge but i still go and buy gadgets, the most recent a total impulse buy. Im happy with it though. Very interesting "thing".

Sketch #2

Sketch #1

Never was good at taking notes :)

*sigh*

How bored can you be before your head explodes? :/

exams, dissertation deadline, oral presentation for dissertation and essay deadline....*SIGH*

too much play no work makes for an unsuccesful bum

*pinch*

The chief export of Chuck Norris is PAIN!

Check out the latest fad, the infamous Walker Texas Ranger is back and he's coming for you, read up on him before it's too late. Don't be a victim!

For your own safety please read up on these random facts about Chuck Norris. They could save your life!

LOL :D

The Pillows & Co

One of my favourite japanese bands, The Pillows, have released a new album "My Foot"(!) Got it the other day and had a listen. It's got a few true gems and is overall a damn good album. I like the title track especially (my foot), as well as "Third Eye". Those are the ones that get played most and are likely to be put on repeat quite often. Check them out, a brilliant rock band from japan.

On other news, been starting to think about my plans for after graduation and have my eyes set on continuing my psychology studies in Sweden. That's if i'm accepted to the course. Hopefully i will. If i do get accepted, i will study for one term until jan '07 then hopefully have enough money (either scraped from studen loan leftovers or charitable donations from my overworked doctor brother :D). Once you get settled in and get a job money isn't really an issue, but it's just the settling in part that can be quite expensive. Getting an apartment isn't always easy and once you do, there are some fees that must be paid, fees such as a deposit (which is usually the equivalent of 3 months rent) and key money, which is a one-off payment to the landlord (another months rent) who has been so gracious as to let you live there. So as you can see it all adds up and before you've even set foot in your home for the next year you've paid for almost half your time in it. Crazy huh, but that is the way of the japanese and one must follow the rules or be without a place to live, which isn't really an option :D

"hopefully" it will all go to plan and i can gradute -> start studying in sweden -> go to japan for 1year+

after that god knows what will happen!

iPod

Finally got my student loan today! Chi-ching. And what is the first thing i go and do? Straight to the local apple retailer and buy a new ipod :D Got me a 60gb Black (sexy as fuck) iPod Video and my god are they lovely. The video bit has proven to quite a mission (encoding for ipod format etc) but its all good. Especially impressed by the photo bit. The quality is amazing.

Well well, no time to write. gotta go drool abit more over my latest gadget, and maybe some more on the one before that (the new swedish keyboard arrived the other day as well free of charge, courtesy of Apple, so now i have two keyboards yeay)

ba-bai

never ever

Uni has started again and that means new things to study and more lectures to attend. I have 4 lectures a week with wednesdays off. Not much new going on at the moment. Have discovered a new fun pasttime and as usually im abit late to get on the bandwagon. What i'm talking about is Podcasts from iTunes (or other places now). One particular podcast i enjoy is MyExtraLife. Just a bunch of guys, geeks and talented webcomic artists alike, chatting about anything and everything that is geeky, dorky or in any other shape or form, female-repelling. Very funny in other words :P Movies, games, webcomics etc etc, those are the usual topics anyway. Great fun!

A crush

Can you fall in love with the sound of a voice? I think i just did...It's so weird. Got a call from Apple about an order i had cancelled. I missed the call so she had left a message and as soon as i heard that accent i was a goner. I'm really quite worried :) I think i'm moving to Australia...!

Powerless

So some quite interesting things have happened here lately. Late on friday night, 23:50 to be more precise, the power and water went off in our flat. I was out with my brother visiting a local drinking facility at the time but i received a text from our flatmates telling us what had happened. I thought, as you would, it was some small affair to be fixed within the hour and they shouldn't worry too much. It would probably come back on by the time we were back, which would be after 2 hours give or take a few minutes. To my astonishment my brother and I were met with a pitch black court and malfunctioning magnetic lock systems. Everything was off (apart from the two or three rooms that for some reason were being supplied). The power came back for a few minutes around 3 am but went off again shortly thereafter. And they were to remain off until about an hour and half ago.
Now, being without power and water for a few hours is not much of a hassle. If we would've had atleast water it would be another matter. Being without either for 1day and a half does become slightly problematic. Then there is the problem of light. After sundown you're pretty much forced to stop any work you were doing, can't read, can't use the bathroom (since you can't flush) and other things. So we were pretty much forced to go out and entertain ourselves. My brother and I went for a burger and to have a chat with the people outside now hard at work trying to fix a major problem even for them who are used to fixing powercuts etc.

Finally, after 36h we have power and water back. Though the water might come and go at times they tell us, as it's a temporary meausure. We'll see what happens, i'm just happy the power is back. And we have £50 each coming our way as compensation from Central Networks (the power company), hope we get to see the colour of that money sometime soon, you never know with these things.

New Year in Gothenburg

I apologise for the size of the image, I'm gonna get my site up and running soon and there will be much more for you guys to look at there. For now this will have to do. A panoramic city view on new year's eve 05. The stitching isn't perfect as i did this rather quick, might do a better one at some point.

Of Late

Some stuff has happened that hasn't really affected me as they should've perhaps. Broke up with the girl, which I've been waiting to do ever since I pretty much started to dislike her when she came to Sweden over Christmas.

Mental note to self: never invite a girl back to Sweden when you don't really know her, bad idea.

Now that I think back on it I don't even know why, or how even, I started going out with her. She was ok looking, cute. Petite, skinny even. Very white skintone, no haircolour to speak of (though if had to choose I would probably say it was...the colour of..washed out brown, oversaturated brown even, not something i'd prefer). I'm more into full, dark brown or other full colours.
After a few encounters with her in the beginning it becomes obvious that she is a pretty shy girl, which at first is sweet but comes to be slightly annoying.
When she arrived in Sweden, i will not lie, i was late to the airshed (as i have decided to call Gothenburg City "Airport") because of a slight misunderstanding between myself and the itiniery. My parents were in the car and it was all good, the first day passed without any problems to speak of.
I think the annoyances started on the second day, can't remember exactly what started it. A variety of factors i would say. Her extreme politeness, as much as to pur herself in discomfort for the sake of not being rude (my mum gave her some clothes to put on as it was pretty cold outside, -10C, but she was too hot but when i told her she refused to take anything off), now people say that's very English, in my opinion that's very stupid. I just gave up trying to convince her my mum just wants her to be comfortable.
Another point to worth noting before i wrap this up is her unwillingness to engage in any kind of discussion, all she wants to do is drink her tea and watch tv or something. I even tried playing the devil's advocate a few times to get her engaged but it didn't really work as i'd intended. She asked me why i always wanted to argue, and i replied i wanted to have some, ANY, kind of discussion or debate with her, but my cries fell on deaf ears.

So those things and alot more contributed to the fact that we just ain't meant for eachother. She was raised in a small town outside of colchester in a strict, conservative family while i've been raised, for the majority of my life, in a city in a open loving and very liberal family with close-knit ties to one another. It was bound to fail.
For some reason though i think i had to get this out of the way, now i feel my next choice for a girlfriend will be much wiser and last hopefully more than the last ones have (2 months to be precise).

On a lighter note, I LOVE my new iMac G5! Very recently the new iMacs with Intel processors were released and i couldn't return it for one of those but i've been told, reassured even, that that was for the best at this stage. And what a beauty it is, the perfect personal computer. I also got the extended Apple Care package for it so i won't have to worry about anything after the first year has passed. It's usually £140 but if you purchase the Protection Plan at the same time as you order you get a massive discount (50% i think it is). So my new computer i bought for £850 including Apple Protection Plan and another £73 for an extra 1GB of RAM purchased from Crucial.com.

design

not much to write about really. discovered that the uni computers can be used for p2p and i will be taking advantage of that to the fullest. Mostly to download the weekly episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Rome and American Dad. I just realised what i've been doing, i hardly ever watch tv anymore. What i'm doing now is just watching what is best on tv and cutting out all the crap. Obviously i'm also weeding out some of the unnoticed good stuff, like the occasional interesting documentary or so. i think at one point in my life i actually thought tv was super...now i don't. i guess ive just found other ways of wasting away my life.

And won't be getting a new psp. still considering getting an ipod video, now that the battery life is 20h what used to be the only flaw with the ipod is no more :) could be better but 20h (up to 20h!) is good enough for me...especially since my model (3rd gen) was only 8.

The time to make a choice for my dissertation title is drawing near and i think im just a tiny bit closer than before. Went in to talk with my supervisor on monday and he gave me some ideas and here i am, reading up on linguistics. It's very interesting. honest. :D

also been taking more photos and hitting the darkroom alot more. i stopped before mostly because i didn't have access to one but now that my flatmate has shown me the DMU darkrooms i'm in and out more than him ;) and its great fun. Been to a few places and i'm quite happy with the results to be honest. i think if this whole psychology thing falls through i will give my photography a shot, or even if i continue doing psychology. would be interesting to see how far i could get.

will be putting up a new website with all my work soonish, will see when i can find the time to finish what i've started on it. spent 3h thinking of ideas for the layout and design and changed it so many times, i ended up with a simple text with my name.

you can find what i've done sofar here. If i ever get it up and running i will get a domain name sorted.

moving from A to B

My iPod has gone from bad to worse and im in need of a replacement. I was looking at the new iPod Nanos but i'm not really sure. The new sony psp's look alot nicer and you can do alot more with them. Watch videos, listen to music, play games and alot more and getting one imported works out cheaper than getting one here, plus the sleak white ceramic coloured ones aren't available here yet (see picture).



All in good time, found out today that my student will be arriving on monday next week. Add another three days for wiring the money from sweden to UK i should have it by wednesday next week. Then i can look at things from a more serious POV. There are a few from eBay but i'm always abit suspicious when buying stuff from there. If i get it myself and get it sent here i know its not a scam and all that.

I'm falling ill again! damn you arvin!!! >(

return

hello

Long time ago i posted. Thought i'd keep you up to date with stuff that has been happening lately. Will keep it short as not much has happened. Ben and Myles came up last week for fresher's week and we all went out a couple of times and got totally smashed which was great fun. We went to the student union one night which i don't recall but it was fun by the accounts of the others that were there. Had an incredibly bad hangover the day after. On that monday we went to Zanzibar which wasn't bad owing only to the fact that i had one of my oh-so-emil-specific near-hits with a girl. The story goes as follows.

boy dances with friends
boy sees girl, girl smiles
boy smiles
boy goes to girl
boy and girl chat for awhile
boy gets good vibes from girl
girl tells boys she likes iranian guys
boy gets more good vibes
girl pinches boy
boy thinks this cannot go wrong
boy and girl go to bar and get drinks
girl goes to bathroom
boy waits
girl doesn't come back
boy looks for girl only to find girl with another boy
boy gives up and goes home
boy sad

so that's pretty much what happened, the whole scenario stretched across about half an hour or so. I can't really say how long, to me it felt like alot longer. But what can you do eh, life goes on. Suppose i should concentrate on my studies more this year as i barely made it past my last year.

What else, no internet as of yet in my room so i have to come to the library or go to a friend's place which sucks. How can you live without the internet. it's ok for a few days after which you run out of things to do and watch. My computer feels so lifeless without it.

Also watched the last few episodes of friends last night. I'd forgotten how funny it was. One of the few shows that can make me laugh out loud when watching it alone. And that is quite an accomplishment.

A long time ago

I used to write quite often here but recently i just haven't had the time nor energy to. The reason? It's summer and i'm enjoying myself...now if i had said that i would have been lying. The truth is that i'm just busy revising for some exams i failed earlier in the year. I totally deserve this so i won't complain.

While studying i've also been doing other stuff, socialising with friends not being one of them, but that's beside the point. Anyway, what have i been doing i hear you ask. Well, a number of things. First i have been listening to my brother's advice and about 2 weeks back i acquired (by means that are not of relevance here) the american tv show Lost . Anyone who's seen the show 24 and knows of it's addicitive potency should easily get an idea of what Lost is about. I'm not going to give you a synopsis here, just follow the link i provided for that, but i can honestly say that this show is the best thing i've seen since...since ever. 24 was a great show and is comparable to Lost but i the latter is in my opinion the better show. Not by far mind you. You'll just have to get hold of it and watch it to know what i'm talking about.
I even got my mum watching it and she's as addicted as i was. Unfortunately i finished watching it in a week or less so now im left with the withdrawal, and it's killing me! Luckily the second season starts airing in the US 21st September so the wait is not that long, thank god. What makes it such a good show? A great storyline, awesome characters and the layout of the episodes (mainly present time with flashbacks of each character's past leading up to the present, each episode deals with one or more characters) combined with great cinematography and a soundtrack perfectly tailored to fit the mood. Man, i sound like a movie critic or something. Bottomline: watch it :)

What else has been going on? Well i've been discovering some new music. Firstly, James Blunt. I heared one of his tunes on the radio driving back from the gym the other week and made a mental note of the name for later p2p checking. Didn't get around to it until a few days ago and was immediately mesmerised by the melodies and lyrics. This is totally up my street.
The other is a iranian-swedish girl (born of iranian parents, raised in sweden...and a bit in russia i think too) called Laleh. The site is both in english and swedish (i believe). She actually went to my highschool which is abit weird i think :) she was in the same year as my brother but in a different class. I also went to see her play here in the city last week and it was, to say the least, highly entertaining. Not just listening to her music but also the in between chitchat. She's quite goofy and crazy and as i'm often identified like that myself it's always nice to see a fellow goof make it :D I think you can listen to a few of her tunes (streamed) on her website, mostly notable is "Live Tomorrow".

Check it out!

Exam frenzy (again)

Now is the time to start thinking about exams again. For those of you who didn't know, i am one of the lucky people able to attend the resits in September for my two january exams. For this privilege i have had to cut my summer vacation short by about 2 months. I wouldn't change a thing. My life is perfect (sarcasm in all its glory)
I hear you ask why, well. I have in my life never failed an exam (except for that one physics exam in high school :D) and the ones i failed in january failed to light my arse on fire (much like the failed physics exam did). Usually what a failure manages to accomplish in me is to awaken this incredible passion for study and learning that unfortunately only lasts for a couple of days, one week tops, after which i return to normal. This time however i have acutally come to realise the seriousness of the consequences if i am to fail these exams. 1) I am kicked out 2) I am "allowed" to redo the year. Out of these two alternatives i naturally dread the former. The latter allowing me atleast a second (technically third) chance. Suffice it to say that i will be spending the next 7 weeks with my face buried within heaps and heaps of books about child development, intelligence, memory, visual perception, abnormal and other types of psychology :D wouldn't you just love being me right now??..huh??

Japanese is going good, my latent learning method has proven useful for this period of inactivity as i really haven't forgotten much since i was last in Japan. Listening to music and mailing friends in japan is keeping me updated and learning new words. I had planned to finish my textbook during the summer but due to recent events i don't know when i'll be able to. But i will ganbarimasuuuu (do my best) :D

Happenings of late

Story: there's a girl (girl A) living in our flat now who's from afghanistan. My dad picked up her sister (girl B) from the streets in gothenburg one night when he was working his taxi shift (she had just been smuggled to sweden and that's where the smuggler left here, seeing this poor girl my dad picked her up and brought her home to us!). she then lived with us for a while (this was about 2-3 yrs ago i think). Now she is married with some dude and lives in another city about 1h away from here.
Anyway, that's beside the point. Her sister (girl A) came from afghanistan a year or so ago and now lives with us as she helps my mum in the cafe and with other household stuff. She has an "arranged marriage" husband that lives in holland. She now sleeps in my old room and i sleep in the computer room (which is perfect if u think about it :D) So when i came home that night from the club, pissed off my face i went straight to bed, still drunk. I sleep and wake up around 7-8 am. That is the time when my mum and the girl are usually going downstairs to start opening the cafe. So i get up to get some water and go to the toilet, half-sleeping. I go out of the toilet and instead of going back to my room i for some reason or other go into the other room. I sit down on the bed. A few moments later when i turn around to lay on the bed im met by two eyes scared shitless. I hear a loud "GET OUT" and im on my way out...i realised what i had done and went back to my room to sleep. I met my mum on the way out who asked what had happened and i explained in my dazed state what had just transpired and her exact response was "oh...ok". I go back to bed. I wake up around 11 am again. I go downstairs to have some breakfast and as i get into to the cafe my mum tells me to apologize to the girl...im like what for? Oh for going into her room? I was like "ok...i suppose i should". So i did. To me and my family (and everyone else?) this was a minor incident, no biggie. But to this girl it was a huge deal. She thought (i kid you not!!!) i had come into the room to rape her. No joke! i was like..."what the fuck" :D...is this girl for real or what. Me?Rape someone? hehe...

This is funny to me.

exams

well then, here i am again...two out of three exams are finished. next one is tomorrow...need to revise more, the fact that i studied already in the beginning of the month for this particular exam, thinking it was the first of the three exams, put me in a position where i'm not too worried about failing. however i still think i have to go over the material once or twice more and i still haven't learned how to interpret ANOVA (ANalysis Of VAriance, for those interested) output. I have tomorrow (wednesday) and thursday until 2.30 pm to read up on it! :D should be ok

other news, going home soon. mixed feelings about that. will probably miss the boys but it will also be nice to get away from leicester which i by now have come to associate with worrying (deadlines, exams), worrying (money) and binge drinking, and then some fun (everything else). once back home i can kick back and do nothing for most of the days. catch up on my japanese which i haven't done in ages!! music and movies are keeping me afloat at the moment.

world of warcraft is addicitive as always, can't wait to get started again.

want to be able to display photos here again but i have no webspace, should sort out that out with our ISP at home.

also found out where i can get boxes (for moving things), apparently morrisons (local supermarket) have some they give out for free, common knowledge, new to me. though this is actually the first time i've actually needed boxes and have had to get them myself. they fall into the category of things that just are there when you need them, until you're out of your parents' :)

.e

Is it just me?

Or is Blogger abit slow on posting your latest posts? It seems my new posts don't appear until a few days after i actually wrote them. Minor annoyance however since i don't often post these days. Good news though is that i've been trying to better myself when it comes to that. Things have been quite hectic here however, alot to revise and not enough to do it in...started cramming today as i realised i would never be able to "properly" memorise all this. Will have to rely on my memory to get my out of this fix. I will start reading all the journals tomorrow and finsih by the following night. The day after the day after tomorrow (?) i will have to start revising for my second exam which is on the 23rd, which in turn leaves me with 3 days to study for the last exam.

My willpower finally buckled under the pressure and i ordered WoW on amazon today (a bargain, they sell it for £10 less than what i think is the RRP [£35]). I will probably receive it on wednesday or thursday since i'm having it sent by first class mail. For an extra £2 i don't think it's so bad. Will make my third excursin to the great outdoors tomorrow to pick up a book (probably just photocopy a few chapters) from the main library for my reading. If i can get over the burning eyes i might get some reading done now.

.e

The most inappropriate times

to get a new hyper-addictive game is just before big exams. I blame ben (my housemate) for buying the game in the first place and thus dragging me down with him. The game is World of Warcraft, one of the most entertaining role-playing games i've played in a while. The game is what is known as a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) in which thousands upon thousands of people play warcraft (classic) with eachother doing various things, such as questiong and battling. The warcraft is not really like the previous warcraft games. Here you control one character which you take through numerous different places in search for, well...everything!
With every retail copy of the game you get a 10-day free guest pass which ben graciously gave me and thus for the past 10 ten i've been playing non-stop. And now i'm extremely eager to buy the game and it's taking every last drop of self-control to hold out until after exams. I just have to keep away from Amazon!
I also wish i had a slightly better computer to play it on. Playing it on my 12" Powerbook is not bad and considering the fact that i fell in love (ok maybe not fell in love, just a little crush :P) with the game using this computer i reckon it's not all that bad. Just imagine though, a massive 23" (grrr, firas!!) apple monitor backed by a g5 powermac. would worked wonders for those laggy raids that occur from time to time and reduce the game to a laggy mess of pixels! I try to stay away. Generally the computer performs surprisingly well under such stress and i'm glad, because it is one of the greatest games i have played to date.

On a more serious/academic note...my first exam is in 5 days and i have alot to study still. I really i hope i pass these exams. they are on "abnormal psychology and individual differences" and "Biological Psychology" as well as "practical psychology", though im not too worried about the latter. The abnormal is mostly about, u guessed it, abnormal behaviour...such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders as well as substance-related disorders. The problem is that there is so much information that i have to somehow or other cram in my poor mind. The exam format is as follows: two sections A and B, section A consists of two essay questions in which you have a choice of six different topics set by four lecturers. I've decided to concentrate my efforts on one of the questions only and on the second section of the exam (B). The B section consists of 50 multiple-choice questions based on the set reading material one was supposed to read during term. They are mostly journal articles and book chapters which u have to memorize. The B part is generally easier than the A section and therefore i'm assigning more time to the A section. The main problem with essay questions is that you have to know infinitely more than you have to know when doing a MCQ.

I just hope i 1) don't have to do more resits than the two i'm already doing 2) don't get kicked out!

.e

too late to go back

to the way it used to be, been thinking alot about the past lately and how weird it feels (in a good nostalgic kind of way) to walk around places where u spent alot of time as a kid. Wondering how it would be like if i went there now and what it would look like. Feels like the place i grew up in (a small town on the outskirts of Gothenburg) is frozen in time and everytime i go back, not much has changed. Only the people, and sometimes not even them.
You see friends you haven't spoken to or seen in ages and it all takes you back to 10 years ago when you used to play with them along the river, at their houses, doing what kids do. Would be unreal to be out there again! Don't know why i feel like this...maybe i'll go there for a quick visit in summer just to check things out. And it being summer all the emotions will probably be enhanced brining back memories from those times when the days seemed everlasting and summer would never end. Summer passes way too quickly nowadays. Just hit me that every generation since like ever has probably had this same thought, every generation feeling time passing slower, things being better and generally more trouble free back in the day. I suppose that is what they call the circle of life.

Now my cicadian rhythm tells me i should sleep and that i shall...lookign forward to a good day filled with lots of revision tomorrow (never thought i'd say that did you!) :D

.e

let shit happen

i wish i had something more interesting to talk about here but the fact is that my life seems to be at a standstill at the moment. nothing of any interest to anyone (including myself) has happened or will happen in the near future. concentrating on passing the exams in a few weeks and hopefully have a nice summer sprinkled with more studying for the resits in september. and also perhaps a short holiday in the south of france with sandra and her broher, and my brother ofcourse.
have been rethinking the whole architecture plan. will just let stuff happen from now on, on the academia/job front that is. until i graduate i won't make any plans for what i want to do afterwards. atleast not when it comes to career choices. if i find i really want to do someting related to further studies then i will otherwise i will assume that i will (somehow) spend a year away in Japan. been looking into the whole english teaching and it seems it would be the only thing that pays reasonobly well (about £12-15/h+). just getting a job and sponsor from abroad seems to be quite a difficult thing to do so i might have to go there on a tourist visa and get a job while i'm there. all these things are shit i busy myself with so i won't have to think about studying.
the boys and girls just came back from Life/Creation and making a fuss as usual so i will retreat for the night, in hopes of falling asleep rather quickly.
Hopefully i can start playing some World of Warcraft tomorrow aswell. ben bought it last week and it arrived today in the mail. speaking of mail, the textbook i bought the other day from amazon should be arriving any day now.

peace

Need some space

here we go again. felt i needed to change the template again. i don't know why i get these urges but i just do and i have actually learnt to live with them. as i have many other odd stuff i do, i've just stopped trying to find explanations for them. right now i'm giving a no-capitalisation approach to writing a try. wonder how annoying it is. i guess we will find out soon enough.
on a lighter note i have started revising, thank heavens. i think im starting to feel the pressure but it's still not apathy-bad yet. when that apathy hits man you're a goner. all you do is stress. i have another 17 days until my first exam and 20 til the second one and 23 days til the last one. after which i have one week off in which i have to pack the contents of my room (and believe me there is ALOT of content) into small boxes to be moved to my new student room at oxford court. that week is also there to allow me some time to gather all the things i need for the revision i need to do for my re-sits in september. if i do pass my re-sits i will have a whole month free to do whatever the f** i want. might catch up with my japanese. don't want to become fossilised! as i was saying...will hit the sack today for a hopefully good day at the books tomorrow. remind me to take food and drink with me. i forgot today and by the end of it i was really struggling to keep everything in. studying while having..umm...a lack of food is not a very bright idea.
sleep is also good, especially when you get it. until next time we meet!

Beginner's luck?

Just came back from GALA casino and i'm very happy...why? I won ofcourse, how much? £25, that's like 5h work and i'm quite happy about it. I played only the Blackjack tables, only place i feel i have some control over what the fuck is going on. Though much of it is luck, there's more skill involved in BJ than say roulette.

Sandra's brother, Thomas, is up in Leicester for a few days visiting his sis and he's staying at the house with everyone else it would seem :D Have arvin staying here, as well as sandra. This is probably the only time i have had any guests of my own since i moved in.

Been reconsidering a career in Psychology. Went to the careers advice office the other day and had a look at some folders and stuff on prospective...things one can do after graduating and nothing really appealed to me to be honest. Have been thinking of doing either a postgraduate in something or just another degree once finished. Architecture has always fascinated me, the designing and construction of buildings has always boggled my mind, and i think i would be good at it. It would however mean that i will have to study for another 3, probably 5-6 years and thus the problem of financing arises. The swedish student loans company only grants loans for 5 years. Seeing as I've already used up 4 of those 5 by the time I graduate means i only have one more year to spare. That and the fact that tuiton fees will be tripled when the time comes for me to start my second degree, who will pay i wonder. If i can get the support of my parents then I'm sorted but perhaps a very nice (:D) sibling will be so nice to his younger brother as to support him financially, i can only hope.
All this providing i even get into Architecture. But i do think i would like it, i think it will give me a chance to express my creative and artistic side as opposed to my weaker analytical one(?), can only hope. If i decide to do that i will have to start building a portfolio, what that is supposed to contain i'm not sure yet. But i have emailed some people and hopefully soon i will get some answers.

Until then,

People are back

Yesterday was quite an eventful night. It was Amar's 21st birthday and we (me, ben, firas, amar, becky, jess and some other people) went out on a pubcrawl that ended in Lloyd's. On the way i hooked up with this girl and ended up coming back to mine and spending the night. Not my brightest moment but been a long time so i think i needed it. But it really made me think about the whole thing and realised how much better it would be if the first thought in the morning wasn't figuring out how to get rid of her as quickly and sublty as possible. Maybe if you actually enjoyed the girls company that wouldn't occur to you. Don't know, just random thoughts this late at night (!).

Today my brother came back from his 7-week trek through south america. He's got a proper nice sun tan, though it does look more like accumalted dirt than sun burn, healthy looking in any case. His girlfriend Sandra also returned from France today, bringing her 18yr old brother Thomas with her. Seems like a decent guy and will probably be good fun to hang out with.

Still haven't finished things that i had promised myself to finish before the end of the weekend. And now there is alot more to do and less time to do it in. I have about 2 weeks til the exams start and loads to do. First things first though, get the stupid practical report done.

More on psychology, been thinking about doing a MSc in something for a while now. Searched the internet yesterday for an interesting postgraduate course to do and came up with a MSc in Cross-cultural Studies. This is something that (this early in my psychology career) intrigues me and sparks my interest enough to actually read stuff on my own about. The 1-yr postgrad course is at Brunel Uni in the vicinity of London. Still don't know if that good or not, had applied to go there for my whole degree course but didn't get accepted at first. But i don't really take that to heart, as i didn't really get in Leicester either but through an internal transfer i was able to get in. So it's either staying here another year and doing a Msc or going to Japan and working for a year or so and just cotching and enjoying myself! See what happens, if i can even get by second year, at this rate it looks like even that will be a challenge.

anyhow, time to hit the sack...can't keep my eyes open for much longer and i've got a lecture 10.30 tomorrow (from next week i'll have no lectures and have loads of time to study for the exams, yippie. Adios amigos!!!

Back in the U.K

Arrived just yesterday after a long (but surpisingly comfortable) 12h flight + 2-3h train journey, was nackered once i got back and just unpacked a few necessities and then hit the sack. Need to get back to my old routines, still have about 2 weeks left worth of gym time which ive already paid for and might aswell take advantage of. Aswell as another 9 days to write my practical. When i got back i was told some good news regarding our internet, it has (finally) been restored to its former glory and also been bumped up free of charge to 3mb. Sooo Fast ;)

I think i still might be on Japan time so i should take advantage of it and get as much done as possible before i collapse again, though i suspect the jetlag won't bother me for more than what has already passed. Got a few hours sleep on the plane (which was quite bumpy due to the fact that i was at the absolute back, two rows from the end), i did have two seats for myself though which was nice.

Need to get off my ass now and get something done! The feeling of action paralysis is coming back and i dont want to end up doing nothing all day. So until next time, adios amigos!

Ja-pain!

Maaaa...havent updated in ages. Mainly because im in Japan at the moment and am really busy enjoying myself. Im sitting in an all-night internet cafe and waiting for morning so i can take the bullet train to tokyo! Im hungry, sleepy and not doing anything about either. If i sleep i reckon i wont notice the hunger so i will do just that.

As you also may have noticed i have changed the look of the blog. I get sick of the same thing very fast! Anyhows, not looking forward to going back to england, AT ALL...have loads of work to do and revising for exams isnt something i want to do right now. Not after spending a whole month in this great and fun country! Definately coming back after my degree and just chilling out for a while!

I also dislike my phone, mainly because i have seen how much better japanese phones are and really want one of them. And the closest thing to a japanese mobile u can find in europe is the "new" sony ericsson with a 1.3 megapix camera! they all have it here...some even with 2.0 mp.

sleepy ...

Am off *to the promise land

Long time no blog, thought i'd to a quick one today just to get started again. Haven't been doing much lately aside from going to the gym everyday, working on my last piece of coursework and working at Subway earning money. Right now im waiting for sandra to come over and make me some crepes :9

thinking of changing the template back to the old one i used to have. Sitting here wasting time, bought Jack Johnson's new album the other day and its very good, as usual! :D Been listening to the old albums and they truly are relaxing.

What else, ...

not much for the time being, might be going down to St:Albans tomorrow instead of Saturday, watch some Babylon 5 and just have a merry ol time with mates, in waiting for sunday ;)

the internet

It's out again so i'm using some poor guy/girl's from across the street, just temporarily ofcourse :D I hate when this happens, the internet goes out and has to be reset from the source, i.e. the cable modem which is in dan's room. Don't want to wake the poor guy up so we have to wait until he's up and then the internet can come on again, tiresome eh.
So the medics' electives have started, they just had the biggest exams of their 4th year and now they're all scattering across the world for some well-earned vacation, 7 WEEK vacation. My brother is going off to Mexico and south america with Ronnie, Nori's off to Australia and japan, andy and tamir are going around the world. If i wasn't going to Japan soon i would be extremely jealous :D
Also found out about this site that do really funny smiley faces, quite complex ones aswell. They're well funny :D i hope they show up on blogger, since they use a different character set (japanese). I'll give it a try,

ヘ（＿ ＿ヘ）☆＼（＾∀＾*）なんでやねん！

寝る　（￣¬￣）ＺＺＺｚｚｚ・・・

♪♪(((*＾＾）八（＾＾ )))♪♪

no name

what's new...Counting the days till im sitting on that plane bound for Japan, only 18 days left and counting. Been having to think about money matters and how much i have to move around with. Will have to scrape the barrel for my days remaining here so i can live lavishly there but not too lavishly. Also found out today that i'm eligible for a Mastercard, don't know how much the credit is yet but i will be contacted and find out soon i believe. I don't think i will fall for the creditcard trap considering my attitude towards money and the complications surrounding it. Im not the person to spend money i don't have.

not much

Haven't been up to much lately, mostly failing my exams and thinking about stuff. Like, 'should study more', and i've actually made a promise to myself (and they are very few and far between, trust me...i dont usually commit myself to my own promises [regarding myself]). I will read atleast one article a day, starting today. Other news? In about 4 weeks i will be departing to Japan :D I'm excitement personified! i did some 'soul-searching' the other day (on the topic of "excitement") and i realised that i'm not easily excited, takes alot to get me REALLY hyped up. Even for this japan trip im not jumping up and down, runnin in circles etc, its kind of a mellow, laid-back excitement...

Have alot of food now thanks to my parents :D And i also have my favourite drink!! dhogh (don't know how u spell it), but its a carbonated yoghurt drink and its lovely, its imported to sweden from Iran (the make is "Irandad", which literally means "Iran gave"). Most western don't like it, understandably. It does smell like its gone off, but it tastes like heaven!

me out

Reading again

thank god im back to reading. I love reading, i had just forgotten how fun it can be if you have a really good book. The one i'm reading now is about the famous London diarist Samuel Pepys (pronounced Peeps) and his life. Well, its like a biography of him mostly, taking you through his diary and retelling some stuff from his diary but mostly it tells the story of the times in which it was written. What was going on in London and England at the time. And that's what interests me. Increases my admiration of London even more. Every time i go to London i feel so small walking around there, it has so much history and its all over the place. You can just imagine the bombs falling over london or how the royalists tried to take over the parliament over and over and the riots of the people every other day. The turbulent times seem always present in the texture of the city. If i was from london i would be very patriotic towards it. Much as i am towards Gothenburg, another town filled with alot of interesting history and old places.

I read a passage in the book yesterday night that quite shocked me, it showed the english's meddling attitude even back in the 1660's. Cromwell (leader of england at the time) had sent a fleet captained by Edward Montagu to aid the Swedes against the Danes (who were back by the Dutch, a long time enemy of the British) to ensure Baltic trade routes with England. It probably doesnt make sense to anyone else but it does to me and it is fascinating. I guess it's always been about protecting your own interests.

news have come through

First order of business, I did not receive the scholarship i was so convinced of getting. I wasn't very hopeful in the beginning but after the interview i felt i had the money in my hand already. They must've thought that either 1) the project was too much for a second year student 2) i was just funding my trip to japan. The second reason being quite true, but that's beside the point :P I'm not too torn up about it. I just realised i have to write pretty quickly because in exactly 6 minutes the internet goes down (don't ask, NTL) and i won't be able to post.

As i have mentioned before, my Superdrive needs fixing. Went to the Apple Store Genius Bar and they confirmed it. It will cost me about £230 to get it fixed and a 2-week separation from my beloved. Instead something might happen that will render this particular PB unusable, either due to theft or just pure folly and a new one will hopefully be put in its place. That's all in about 2 months time, in that time i hope Apple will bring out the long-awaited Mac Os X 10.4 Tiger.

Anyway, only two minutes left so i will wrap this up and say my goodnites!

Latest book shop

Went to Waterstone's yesterday to check the price of Lonely Planet's Guide to Japan (to compare with Amazon) and it was £5 more expensive but i bought it anyway...and three more books, on that '3 for 2' deal they always have going. I walked out of WS £35 poorer and about 2000+ words richer. I love buying books, as i do reading them but the fact that my stack of "unread" books is getting higher i deduce that i must like buying them more than i do reading them. Cursed WS!! Needed the Japan Guide though, mostly for planning the trip in April, but it's also fun to just read it through, about the history and such.

Going down to London on friday to pay a little visit to my friend Firas who has recently been blessed with a new PowerMac G5 with a 20" Cinema Display, the apple virus is spreading fast (all my housemates use iTunes as their main music player, they'll come around to the mac soon). Going to down to his place to help him familiarise himself with the mac and all the new features...though that doesn't really need any help, it'll all come to him in time. I'm still discovering things myself and i've had my PowerBook for a year and a bit now (purchased November '03).

Woke up not long ago and i have to eat something before i start my long long day of coding two MASSIVE questionnaires for yet another practical. I can't wait till third year when we don't have practicals, they're death.

x¶ Soon firas, i will be there! :D do not despair in this moment of truth ;)

japanese blog

Found this really cool place that does japanese blogs with alot cooler skins (well, different atleast) than blogger. It's got a spooky cemetery feel to it which i love. Very "nightmare before christmas"-ish indeed.

http://blog.drecom.jp/hemil/

Been ill for the past couple of days and the damn germs are hanging on for dear life it seems. Refuse to let me go, grrr...i hate being ill. Worked my first shift in a long time at Subway yesterday night, the new graveyard shifts on weekends, i got home at about half four. Dead beat, couldn't move a muscle this morning. That and a sore throat, and coughing ofcourse is not something you want a few days before a deadline.

Speaking of deadlines, i have one which i should be working on this very moment so i'll say my goodbyes here and now. Before i go, i have an interview for a travel scholarship to go to Japan to conduct a study on marriage attitudes. Interesting to me :D will provide me with £400. Which will go towards my ticket. Happy Times, hope i get it.

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