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.

I want some cred!

Or actually I don’t need that. I am proud enough of my self anyway. Today I said “thank you, but no thank you to the foreign ministry!!! And that I think is really something they are not too used to. I have been waiting for an offer of a job contract from them, and today I got their offer. It was not bad, but it was definitely not good enough! And I am soo proud of myself that I actually did not let myself be fooled and persuaded to accept anyway. I have had enough of bad contracts and worthless promises from the ministry. If I am to continue that line of work they will have to come up with something better.
This time I also had a very interesting alternative, which of course made the decision easier. Now I am starting something completely new. This is also something that takes some courage. Not to change jobs, but this means moving to the dreaded little small town!! But as I say, fear eats the soul so one just has to try the thing one fears the most. I feel brave and courageous! So maybe I do want some cred after all!

Stress behaviour

This time when I haven’t been working and been living a somewhat other kind of life I have been thinking quite a lot about stress and how it affects people. I would normally say I can handle stress pretty well and that it does not affect me, but it has been very interesting to be in this position were I have been so completely un-stressed and able to see how it affects other people. I can see how my friends and family are affected even though they might not be aware of it themselves. I can see that people around me act strangely because they are stressed but I also see how much better I can handle stressed people when I am in this situation myself. If I had been living my normal life, I am not sure I would have realised, but most probably just would have been irritated because of their irrational behaviour. I hope I will be able to bring this new experience and knowledge with me when I start working again. This period has really been so good and useful and I have learnt so much! I am pretty sure I will soon start working again and although I still don’t even know in what part of the world, which says quite a lot about what a weird life I live, I hope I will be able to take this experience with me.

Of course this not knowing where and when you will have to move again is also causing a sort of stress. Yesterday i.e. I went into town to see a friend. Before seeing her I made some errands and then while waiting for here I started wondering; didn’t I have a plastic bag with a pair of shoes?! And where is that now? Yes I did, but after I picked them up at the shoemaker I went to the pharmacy and obviously left them there! Today I went to the supermarket especially to buy lime, while there I also bought some other things, at home I realised I must have forgot the lime at the counter. After I paid for it. This absent-mindedness is so typical stress behaviour.

Horses

Some of my friends seem to wonder what I do all day when I don't work. To explain that a bit better I will introduce some of the friends I have been seeing when I don't see you, my human, urban friends.

Here I am riding Pepperon.

This is Pepperon







Here is Graffe.



Let me introduce Zillah.

























Here is the great Dacke! The one I ride most of the time. So nice and kind.

And here is Uno, unfortunately he is not the most clever horse.

The young ones.

Too much, but nothing to tell..

It is funny how you think you have made a decision and then, by coincidence, you get information that changes everything. The last couple of days so many things have happened and still it feels as if nothing happens, but somehow it seems the bloody ketchup bottle just exploded and I am too confused to tell anything about it... I think I will have to take a blog pause.

Sense or sensibility

I seem to be tending towards the more sensible and adult alternative. To chose the nice job in the shitty town. But I really feel deep agony and anxiety. I might be mad, but I am seriously so much more afraid of moving to this small, prosperous, extremely safe and secure town in middle south Sweden, than to the capital of one of the most corrupt and criminal countries of the world. What to do? What's wrong with me??

The ketchup effect and doing the right thing..

This weekend my aim was to figure out what to do and make some rather important decisions. I am glad it is a long weekend!! For all of a sudden I have a few concrete offers to consider, you know the ketchup effect; first there is nothing, then comes nothing and then more of nothing and then finally there is more than you can handle. So, now I have three job offers (and maybe a fourth that I haven’t had the final decision about yet), that I need to give an answer to as soon as possible, as none of them is really optimal it is not so easy. First of all, none of them is a permanent position, so regardless of which I would choose I would still have the feeling of temporality and I would still have to continue to look for another job. Ok, two of them might get extended, but you can never take things like that for granted. Two of them are until the end of the year and the third only till the end of August. One is in Stockholm where I used to work, not the same position that I quit, but with the same employer in a better position. That means; I know what to expect and there are no unpleasant surprises and I can live in a place where I already have a lot of nice friends. On the other hand, I will not learn anything new, I will not get new experiences and it will not take me further. The second is the nice job in the ugly little small town I have been writing about before. I thought I had gotten used to the thought of moving there, but when they only could offer me a temporary position a lot changed. With a temporary position I know I will not be able to adapt myself as well and the move felt a lot less tempting. The third choice is for a summer position at the embassy in Abuja, the place I would never go to, but that now really is tempting me.

I know that the most sensible thing would be to move to the small town and take the nice job, for even if it is just temporary it might lead to other things and I will get new experiences and a new network. And of course I will not have to live all my life in that small town, if I really don’t like it the fact that it is only a temporary job can make it easy for me to leave. This choice is for sure the most sensible and “adult” choice. Why can I then not feel sensible and adult!?!

On the other hand people often say you should follow your gut-feeling when making decisions, your gut never lies. My gut wants to go to Nigeria! This is probably my only chance to go to Nigeria; it is not really a tourist destination. It would be exciting and interesting, but it would leave me in the same position in September again. But who knows maybe September is better than January…

So, how is it? Should one really listen to your head or your stomach???

Helsingborg weekend of a different kind

This weekend I am off to another weird thing. For the second time I will work at a coin fair! I did it last year and this year as well it is in Helsingborg. It was a very interesting experiense, not that I know much (or rather anything) about coins though, but it was still interesting. One thing at least that hopefully will be different this year is that we all agreed on not having a big night out the first evening, leaving all of us terribly hung over the first day of the fair. That was not good. For anyone who might be interested in collecting coins, this is the company I will be representing: http://www.kuenker.de

Have a nice weekend everyone!

The noble art of doing nothing

Sometimes people ask me what I do all day long when I am not working and if I don’t bored and restless. The answer amazes me just as much as anyone else; I don’t do much at all actually and still I am not very bored. I, queen of restlessness, don’t even get very restless. Which is probably a good thing. I am excelling in the noble art of doing nothing.

I, like I think most people, have some projects that never gets done, things you feel you should do some day when you have more time. In my case there are those plastic bags full of photos that I always say I will sort and put in albums one day, not to mention all the digital ones that I just store randomly in my computer, and of course I could always clean out my closet and send away all clothes I never use. I used to say I would do it a rainy day, then I change it to saying I would do it one day if I get unemployed or slightly ill, like breaking a leg or so. But I can tell you I haven’t done it this far and I don’t think I will. I think I will have to postpone it and start saying I will do it once I retire. Or maybe I should just accept my plastic bags and the chaos in my closet… Somehow that seems easier!

Stressless

Maybe I give you the impression I really enjoy being unemployed and some might even think I am getting lazy and unemployable. That is not true at all! Of course I sometimes worry about my situation and wonder whether it really was the right decision to quit my safe fulltime state employment. That is however quickly cured by a short chat with any of my former colleagues… But of course I also worry about how long it will take before I find a new job and what kind of job I will find and so on. Still I try to enjoy this time of my life as much as I can. It was my own decision that put me here and I don’t count on it to last for very long and it has for sure hade some good consequences too. I feel I have learnt a lot about myself and about life around me.
Being unemployed and worrying is of course stressful, but still I feel completely stressless and relaxed. Getting out of the everyday stress opens up new perspectives. Just travelling the underground during rush hour has a new meaning when you don’t feel tired, stressed, worn out and therefore irritated and annoyed about everything around you. I don’t freak out whenever I miss a bus or a train and have to wait another five or ten minutes, and I don’t get furious when people push themselves around without apologising and I don’t get completely annoyed by people who behave irrational and stupid. Instead I just get a bit curious and fascinated and wonder what makes them act that way. It is a very nice feeling and I am quite sure it is because I am out of the everyday stress! Everyone should try it!

The non-working-people

It is a rather fascinating experience to be unemployed (for a while). All of a sudden you discover the world of the non-working people. Yesterday I went for a jog in the beautiful sunny winter weather along the water here. As the track was covered in snow and hence rather slippery I could not run all the way but had to thread carefully every now and then, which made me more aware of my fellow pedestrians. There were mostly old persons and parents with prams. Funnily I met more fathers than mothers, which made me think of one area where I think Sweden is still on top; Parental leave. Not that this really is any of my main concerns and I don’t really know that much about it, but as more and more of my friends have children and as I was recently talking about it with some non- Swedish parents-to-be I realised that Swedish parents have reason to be happy. (Of course you often hear them complain anyway but… ).
Listening to two of the men with prams that I met, I also realised something else. These men looked like very city smart professionals, but what I heard from their conversation they were not talking about the stock market or the latest merger but about sitting in a café and eating big cakes and buns. In Stockholm we have the expression “caffe latte mums” but there are obviously also “caffe latte dads”. I thought that’s soo cool! It must be so nice also for men to stay at home with their babies and spend time together with other dads, it must mean they discover new sides of themselves too. I feel sorry for those dads that don’t have that opportunity and maybe even more sad for those who have it but don’t take it.

Another category of non-working people are of course other unemployed, or those “in-between-jobs”. As I have never been unemployed before I found it really hard to somehow identify myself with the average image of being unemployed, but now I have met other peoples who temporarily don’t work, but still are so busy. There are so many creative and imaginative people who make a good living without being employed. I whish I was more creative and innovative and had more entrepreneurial skill myself. But I think I will have to settle for finding another employment. Until then I will continue to enjoy sitting in a café chatting away a couple of hours on a Tuesday afternoon! :-)

Well, I continue my way of “borrowing” other peoples lives. This time in Stockholm. I somehow started to get a bit restless in the country side. Or…, rather actually I didn’t. I got completely comfortable. Really started to like life as unemployed. There you are never alone, there are always people around, which I like, and there are always someway you can make yourself useful (hence the working on the roof!) and it seems somehow quite normal not to go to an office every morning. You also don’t need that much money so not having a regular income is not so worrying. But somehow I realise it will not work in the long run. Therefore I am now in Stockholm borrowing an apartment from a friend who is abroad. It feels bit strage to stay here. I have only been here two or three times before, and then there always was a party! But the appartment is quite close to where I used to live so it still feels kind of like home.(I am not really borrowing his life though. Don’t worry Johan if you read this :-)).

Here I will be more inspired to look for a new job. Here I will soon get bored after a while. As all my friends are working it does not seem as normal not to work. And seeing your friends in the evening and everything you do here somehow is connected with a cost, so you will soon start missing an income. But I have to admit, it was quite nice to have a slow breakfast and then go for a long walk in the park before going back and sit down in front of the computer.

But to everyone who starts worry that I am getting lazy and living off you, the working part of the people, I will just say, as some way of justifying myself, it has only been two weeks and considering that I really haven’t had much holiday this year I think that is ok and this far I am still supporting myself!

At first I didn’t know why the hell I called this blog Normal life. I have never felt really comfortable with the concept of “normality”. Now I know! Normal life is of course the Swedish Goodrun version of Paris Hilton’s and Nicole Richie’s Simple life! You know, from the glamorous jet set life of international diplomacy to a life as homeless and unemployed on the Swedish countryside! :-)

Odd things happen here too! Yesterday I found myself at a countryside auction and found myself buying a HUGE chest of drawers with a mirror on top of it. Exactly what one needs when one doesn’t even have a home of your own! Well, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the piece of furniture was built by my great granddad we wouldn’t have bought it and it will be placed at my parents’ place for a start.

Those auctions are quite an interesting phenomenon. There you really can find anything and the people you find there are also rather fascinating. Many of them are pretty old but nevertheless witty. I overheard a conversation between two octogenarian men talking about repairing clockworks and an old acquaintance who used to do that. The one man explained that this man had died, the spontaneous reply from the other man was: “then there is another lady available!” Today the same auction hall appeared in a TV-series!

Today I found myself in another interesting and completely new situation. First of all I had to drive a horse transport to pick that chest of drawers up from the auction. For all the years I have spent with horses and riding I had never driven a transport before. No crashes or scratches! Yhohooo!

The most interesting was however that I have debuted as a roofer. I have spent the whole day on the roof of my sister’s house, helping my brother in law removing the old roof cover and replacing it with new. I have never done anything like that before, but I must say it was quite fun and I think the result was quite good. However I am not sure if I will be able to get out of my bed tomorrow, my whole body feels rather sore.

Well as you see, I don’t really need a job, but I could do with an income. So I guess I will soon get started looking for a job. Soon! Cheerio!