Freezing cold...

As always at this time of the year I start to wonder how the hell I am going to survive the winter. I am freezing!! Constantly freezing. It does not matter how much or how warm clothes I wear, I am still cold. My hands and fingers are ice cold during the day and at night it is mostly my feet that gets the worse. The only time I feel really warm is while taking a hot shower. And then the temperature has not even gone below zero yet!! Then I start to worry about what it will be like when the weather gets even colder. But somehow it works and I will most probably survive this winter too. But it is really annoying to have to go through this every year. I am so fed up being cold. I whish I lived in a warm country!!

Paprika Nation

Was in Skopje last weekend: Really nice!! Posted some picture, but decided to put them on the Travel-blog.

A Weekend in The Small Town!!!

It is amazing how relaxing it can be not to go anywhere on the weekend. One prerequisite is of course that you stay away from blending with The Small Town, but staying in the apartment with only short visits to the golf course was a great combination. I have slept a lot, sorted things out, did some work, watched movies, made some telephone calls and feel very relaxed. But it is really necessary that I don’t have any interaction with the town. I can see some of my colleagues, but not go out. Yesterday they had a party and would after that go to a night club; that I refused. You might call me arrogant or blame me for not giving the place a chance. But I am absolutely sure that I am better off not even setting my foot on one of those places. I know I will not like, worse I will only hate the place more. But staying at home is fine!!

Playing golf is also fine! That is one of the good things about the place. The golf course is nearby and most of the time there is not so many people playing, and today was a beautiful autumn day. Unfortunately of course there is nothing open in the small town on Sundays, so when I hit my last ball straight into the water at the 13.th hole I had to go home… Funnily that made me realise that obviously I am know at the club (although I know no one). Walking back I passed the three men playing ahead of me. One of them asked if I wanted them to let me pass. I explained that I was on my way back and was not playing anymore. Then he apologised for not having asked before if I wanted to pass, as I was playing alone. Then he said: “but if I remember correctly you don’t mind to wait and prefer to play alone”. I was flabbergasted, how the hell did he know that?!?! I can not remember ever having seen the man. But obviously they knew me. I guess I am the only member of the club that is neither related nor married to one of the members.

Back to normality?

I realise that if I move back to Stockholm I might not have anything to write about on the blog. After all the life in The Small Town is rather exotic. I was discussing the matter with some of my colleagues today, who are all happy about the prospect of finally get out of here, and we all agreed about The Small Town almost being as exotic as other places we have lived in, as Sudan, Kongo, CAR, Philppines, France; Italy etc etc, only more depressing and tragic. Stockholm is far more "normal".

Wednesday 10 AM in The Small Town

Today I had another experience that showed me who detached from The Small Town we, my colleagues and I, really are.



I woke up with a headache and had to go to the pharmacy and get some migraine medication before I could go to work today. Going down to the centre on a Wednesday morning at ten was an interesting experience. The place was full of people!!!! There was some kind of market on the main square and the pedestrian zone and loads of people. Of course still none between the ages of 20 to 60, but still people!! And at the pharmacy too!! There was a queue of people!! Still mostly old people. So this is what people do here!!! They hang around town at ten on weekday mornings!! I asked my colleagues if they knew anything about a market, no one did.

Application frustration

Today I have been trying to work on writing applications, but it is sooo frustrating and I absolutely utterly hate writing applications!! And if it wasn't bad enough, most of the employers I would like to apply for seem to use standardised web-based application forms. And that I hate more than anything!! It is so frustrating trying to force my somewhat chaotic and out-of-the-box-life into the standard form. It just doesn't work! And you can be pretty sure that the web-page will crash at least a couple of times while you are doing it and if you are really cursed the page can not be saved but filled in all at once, meaning you will have to start all over when it crashes. Sometimes you can not browse ahead to see what information is required. Meaning you will have to start filling it out step by step and then all of a sudden you come to a question like the exact date when you graduated high school, something noone normally is interested in. While you try to sort that out (or just invent a plausible date) you can be pretty sure the webpage will shut down and you have to start all over again.

I also can't help wondering if anyone ever got a job by applying through one of those web-forms. I for sure haven't. I believe it is just a way to get rid of some applicants. Therefore it is mostly used by employers who get a lot of applicants and this is a way to ger rid of many before they even manage to finish their applications. To the ones that manage the system sends an automatic reply and then they employ someone the already know...

Ahhh, that is one more reason why I hate to apply for these jobs, it seems so pointless! Please anyone!! Give me an interesting, qualified, well paid job that I don't have to apply for!!! :-)

In Between Days...

I have just realised I might find myself in a situation where I have neither job nor housing in January and February! Is this a sign of me being a bit unresponsible?? I don't know.
Nevertheless, that means I am very available for new things. I'd love a period abroad again, preferably in a warm climate;-). So, anyone who knows about a posting or a job for that period of time; don't hesitate but please let me know about it.

Talk the Talk

Sitting on the train back to The Small Town from Stockholm, I can not believe how much I dislike the dialect of the region. It makes me feel physically ill. Not when everyone speaks it of course. There are people I like so much, that can get away with it, but just strangers on a train talking in this particular dialect can make me so irritated and make me feel ill and feel I absolutely have to put my i-pod on. ! I find it one of the most appalling Swedish dialects. I know it is completely irrational and it is very personal. I think most other Swedes find it kind of charming and friendly. Friendly I can agree with, there is nothing evil about it, it just sounds very bad to my ear.

It is also so absolutely unsexy. Next to me is a man who might actually be considered good looking, but once he opened his mouth and started talking, it was all gone. This might be one of the reasons I haven’t seen one single attractive man since I moved to The Small Town (there are of course other reasons for that too, but I will not go into that here…). I find voices and the way a man talk very important if I am to find him attractive or not. But I believe I might have rather unorthodox views on what language or dialect I find sexy. I am not saying the Stockholm dialect is sexy, in Stockholm you hear a total mix of dialects anyway so it is kind of neutral and some Stockholmers actually sound rather stupid. Gothenburg dialect is fine as well as some dialects of the north, but there is a fine line, there are some northern dialects that I just don’t like at all. For languages the classical “language of love”; French don’t do anything for me, nor does Italian or Spanish, although I find Italian a very beautiful language. What really get me off is Danish and British English. Yeah, I told you I am strange!

It is also quite strange how I came to write about this on the blog… I don’t get it!! ??

Things moving fast

Sometimes happen quickly. Even more quickly than you expected or maybe even wanted, but then I try to think there is a meaning to it; to stop you from hesitating and thinking too much about it. All of a sudden I seem to have an apartment in Stockholm. A completely legal, fist hand contract for a rental apartment!! For those of you who are not familiar with the housing market in Stockholm I can just inform you this is something very rare and difficult to get by. It is like in a real socialist society, meaning that you either have to queue for it for 20 years, have good connections or pay bribes to get it. I did neither. I have been queuing, but only for seven year so I guess I was a bit lucky as well. Ok, it is not in the very city centre as I would have liked and it is a bit more expensive than other similar apartments, but nevertheless it is just outside the very centre, with good public transport very nearby and the reason for it to be expensive is that it is completely new. It actually does not even exist yet! I have only seen the building site and 3D-projections of it. At the same time as I signed the contract I got to choose wall paper, colour and the tiles in the kitchen and the bathroom. Cool eh!? (Although I had very little time to make the choice and very limited selection so I am very curious to see if I really will like what I have chosen.)

It all happened so fast and I had to make the decision very quick as well as signing the contract. I have had some agony about it as I still don’t have a job in Stockholm and might not even have a job at all after December. But on the other hand; I will be able to move into the new place only in March so there should be ample time to find something. Wow… fascinating and a bit scary, but it is about time I get out of The Small Town and get on with my life.

Glad to have no Economy

Just a short notice to let you know that I am still alive. Just haven't really felt like blogging for a while. A lot of work and lot of other things to sort out kind of drain my energy right now.

Sometimes things that are happening in the world can be food for blogging, but right now it is all about the world financial crisis and I find it hard to think about anything less inspiring. It is depressing, uninteresting and by now rather boring. I guess I should not complain though, for once you can be happy not to even have an economy. I feel very unaffected by the whole circus, I am not losing all my savings as I don't have any and I am not losing my home due to increasing interest rates as I never owned any, so things are pretty cool. I might not have a job after December, which of course might not be such a great thing in a recession, but things tend to work out somehow.

Well, maybe I am playing it a littler cooler that I actually feel, but more about that later...