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.

Off

Review of my trip to Japan '04

Got iWork the other day after witnessing the amazing powers of their latest word-processor "Pages". I saw it on the MacWorld Keynote presentation and i was hooked right away. Once i got it i started fiddling with it right away and i must say it is ALL THAT. I wish i had my own printer so i could print the stuff i create.

Anywho, i started fiddling with it, as i mentioned before, and slowly it turned into a review of my first solo trip to japan in the summer of 2004. Started adding pictures, a "Table of Contents" and halfway through this i started thinking about the actual trip and i realised i had better use the entries in my travel diary in the review, mostly because i don't remember much of the detail from my trip. Will have to read through the diary myself soon.

I recommend anyone travelling to keep a diary. They're so fun to read when you're back and especially after a couple of months when you've forgotten stuff. It's like reading someone else's journal. So now my journal is in a crappy RTF format, so hopefully soon it will be in a very stylish Pages format, are u excited?? Cuz i sure am.

One thing after the other

Just less than a week after i receive my new battery (for my PowerBook) my SuperDrive decides to malfunction. For what reason? I don't know...but what i do know is that it's going to cost me half a fortune to get it fixed. Now the big question is, how long can you go with a CD/DVD drive, i will attempt to answer that question. Not very long. Though longer than one would expect. It broke down today, after i wrote a CD....after which it decided it was going to spit out all CDs and DVDs i fed it. What a grumpy little prick! Just when things were starting to look brighter for me.

Will have to contact Subway for some regular shifts soon. My money pouch is getting too light and my expenses are creeping up on me, as well as my desires for saucy apple gadgets :P

I-P-O-D S-H-U-F-F-L-E

but i have decided to wait buying that till i'm in Japan because they're like £20 cheaper.

I have also looked mobiles in Japan. For starters...they are way better than ours. And i want one, unfortunately they use a different network, one we really should be using. Japan and South Korea share (use the same type, whichever i dont know) this type of network and nowhere else as far as i know. Which isn't very far really. A handy solution for temporary visitors like me (not really long-term but more than a few weeks) is the Rent-a-Phone service they have there. u pay around Y11,000 for one month for the phone and Y110 per minute for talk time, which is not that unreasonable. That's why i have to start working at subway again. The freedom your own mobile gives u in a foreign country is great. I can give out my number to girls i meet, which i couldn't really do before. Giving my friend's mobile number to a stranger isn't such a good friend thing to do, in my opinion. But what the heck, this way you have a, cool might i add, mobile for a month and it's probably gonna come in handy travelling around with my mum, for making reservations beforehand etc.