Lunes de infierno

Another Monday from hell. I've got too many break-outs to count (OK, 4) and a big dent on one side of my head in my dull and in-desperate-need-of-a-cut mop of hair. I decided to wear a not incredibly long top which after too many cups of decaf and bloating now keeps riding up. I also look incredibly sallow. Yehaa!!
The fact that this top is my bright yellow one aids nada in turning me into a miss Sunshine today (and, note to self, buttercup yellow clashes something ghastly with sallow)

I had the worst morning with major train incidents - only a horrendously expensive soy latte and half an hour with my crime/sci-fi/page-turner Fatherland on the train turned me from 'livid and ready to kill train traffic control centre staff with my bare hands' to 'incredibly grumpy' by the time I got to the office. My colleague and I have been struggling all day with an incomprehensible excel sheet of data someone in London wants done tomorrow and well, she was the one who suggested pilfering the meeting room chocolates which really kind of says it all.

Checking my holiday weather is not exactly bringing me up or down - it's raining and 13 degrees but I'm thinking statistically that this could prove in my favour. Still, I might have to rethink my pack list (just a mental one, promise!).
Me and L finally booked our ticket for our Rome hols though so that's one thing sorted. Now I just have to work up the energy for choire practice, but I think a good train nap should sort that out. Thrilling stuff, no?

I'm also mentally reviewing my Spanish knowledge. Donde estan los llavabos por favor? Que dirección esta un estación de metro? Una clara por favor (or should I perhaps practice 'una paraguas por favor'). Quisiera una semana con mucho sol. Haha. I dunno who's gonna grant that one.
Anyway. Go do something useful with your time and stop idling!! I will. For another 30mins.
Encantada!!

(si, la autora esta un poco loco hoy)

blood-sucking is sooo in

So. Despite this winter-backlash it does feel like spring is just around the corner - and ironically enough I've got soo many DVDs to watch I have a hard time choosing!

First; I'm awaiting the release of True Blood which I've read so many great things about. I mean; a Swedish vampire, the girl from the piano, vampirism being official and a lead couple who are together in real life? What's not to like? (I could never really understand why I adored Men in Trees as opposed to just liked it, but it made so much sense that Marin/Jack turned out to be a couple in real life - their pairing was just magnetic). As I wait I ordered Blood Ties, a vampire/detective show, based on a series of novels, which was on sale at amazon. I don't normally love fantasy shows because the plot lines and monsters just feel - laugh-out-loud silly, at times (I could never really understand how my sister can laugh so heartily at my sci-fi addiction when I've catched her watching Angel in all seriousness, along with several other demon-centered shows). Give me some scientific explanations and away with the chanting!!
But anyway, this show works for me, and despite the second episode involving zombies (which is like, pushing all my hate-buttons with regards to fantasy) I think I'm hooked.

And what do you mean I have a vampire obsession? Pfah!!

Apart from that, my to-watch list includes:
Twin Peaks, 1,5 season just waiting (seen 3 eps so far and I love it)
Two best-of DVDs with Varanteatern
Green Wing special (just arrived on amazon)
Things we lost in the fire (my lovefilm rental)
AND I've discovered streaming TV (thanks to sis, and MTV)

Anyway, I've been recruited in as dog watcher this weekend so I can bring some of this lot and watch on the parental units wide-screen while lounging in the designer oh-so-comfy chair next to a roaring fire (assuming it's still butt-freezing cold).

Oh weekend, get a move on!

Oh joy

As in, you know, not.

I'd decided to wear my new Spring dress today Tuesday, even though last week's amazing weather went away just in time for the weekend and hasn't really come back. I wake up this morning, look outside and it's white. But at least it was just frost!! Then I noticed it was blowing a gale. Just as I was trying on my dress as a tunic with my skinny blacks, it started snowing. A lot.

Not meant to be I guess!! If I wasn't jetting off to Barcelona in less than two weeks I would be very depressed right now. But I am, so I'm not!!

Yesterday choire was cancelled, which I only found out once I got there after delayed trains and buses and a considerable amount of stress. Yey. I did however take the opportunity for exercise and decided to walk the last stretch home instead of changing buses. I didn't have my map with me (it got tainted along with several other possessions in a bag with a half-open bottle of cheap dark rum this weekend and smells like arrak with several brown stains on it) and I consequently took a wrong turn and ended up walking in a big circle around Ideon. Oh well, it was good exercise. And now I will definitely know where *not* to turn.

So the party? It started off a bit awkwardly. It was in one of those party locales you can rent in most larger apartment units. When we arrived, everyone was sitting in a big circle on those wooden stackable chairs engaged in intense conversation with each other. 90% of these people originated from/had something to do with the town of Karlskrona where J studied and M, her bfriend, is from. Despite several attempts to break in we ended up just standing in a corner for about 45mins before realizing that, like so often!! the kitchen is the place to be. We spent most of the time there and I ended up having a lot of fun and getting to know a few really cool people. Home by 3am and my drink was so disgusting that although I did get a hangover it was fairly tolerable.

8,5 working days until BCN!! Maybe I should check the weather there real quick...

of ants and men...

Wow, this week has pretty much flown by. Highlight of the week: finding out that it's now 95% certain I get to go to Amsterdam for training in July, woohoo!! To add to the splendor it's apparently for a whole week and, in total five of us are going from the office hopefully making it a rather merry event. There will be 39 of us from offices all over Europe, so hopefully I'll get to meet up with some chums from my London days, and of course hopefully get to know other cool colleagues. When I switched role from research to DQ I gave up hope of ever getting sent on any trip on the company's tab so I'm thoroughly excited.
Also, me and my manager had two sessions getting introduced to the new database for data migration purposes, and as I had only a few but mostly negative expectations I was pleasantly surprised. Some functionalities are the same, some are gone, and there are some new ones which will most likely affect a lot of work processes, hopefully for the better. All in all it was inspiring. Data migration is very interesting (for geeks like me), and it's fun to be able to have some impact, however small.

The bummer part of this week is the ants: we suddenly have rather a lot of them, in the kitchen. I reported it Wednesday, have been on the phone all morning as no action so far and someone was supposed to call me back from the exterminator place today but lo behold! the phone has been silent all day (I know, because I've carried it with me everywhere - which has only resulted in me having to dash back to the toilet where I've forgotten it twice).

After last week's total and utter looser-weekend I have a party to go to tomorrow through my social butterfly J. If I manage to avoid getting trashed and the unavoidable consequences of memory loss and severe hangover (see previous post 'the curious incident of the salmon chop') I'm hooking up with A on Sunday to play (the violin). That'll make it the first time I've played with anyone since eh, 2004? (not counting the utterly disastrous attempts with V in final year at uni - I don't know what the heck that was about but our violin's were not compatible).

Right. I think I'm gonna sneak off just a few minutes early in a couple of minutes so toodles!! Wishing you all a pleasant weekend with lots of sunshine!!

Picture perfect

I've been thinking how I should post more pics here, mostly because it's so much fun to read other people's blogs when they have pictures. So, well, I don't know if these first pics are very amusing but I've been thinking for some time that I should take some pics at my fairly astounding surroundings at work. So, today I played tourist and walked around snapping shots like your regular German or Pole or Korean chap.

I have to say this one turned out quite well. The proper name of the guard escapes me, but in any case to me they mean: food!!

















Their first turn around the square is at 11.50am which is when I go to the loo and gather me things to go down to the canteen.

I hope this doesn't turn into a pavlovlian response though, I could hear marching music during other circumstances and drooling might be a bit awkward then. I don't find a man in uniform abhorrant or anything I suppose but outright drooling - well that'd be a bit extreme.

~~~oOo~~~

Now, in case you didn't know? I like sci-fi. I read it, I watch some (but not as much as I read because, frankly, the best movie sets and the biggest budgets and the best programmers in the world still have a hard time living up to the imagination of the human mind). And I am absolutely fascinated by these sculptures? poles? land marks? near the castle, not only because they contrast so drastically with the pretty-as-a-picture castle gardens but because, well, look at them!!

























I haven't actually read any of the signs so it's possible there is some explanation of these works but to me it's just Resistance Is Futile cyborg-technology-gone-wrong and can we call in SG-1 because mutant organisms are melting the walls and soon they're gonna start hacking their way into people's brains and turn us all into mindless drones and take over the world!!!

So. Awesome.

Recall of second to last post

Funnily enough, after having spent so much time raving about my lovely parental unit in my last post I ended up having the kind of weekend which convinced me that

a) I spend way too much time with my parents

b) I really need to get a life

c) more physical distance from my parents may be just the ticket, despite that this would mean that I would have to hang my own curtains and somehow get rid of a 5-seat white leather couch

It's amazing how two people can bring you emotional comfort and drive you to the brink of insanity simultaneously.


Apart from that, it's a pretty good Monday. I'm wearing a new skirt and in combination with a bright yellow shirt I haven't worn in ages (because it's been too cold, but now it's not!!) this outfit is really giving me some extra oomph. Work is rather fun today: now that I'm not working on classifying companies every single day I appreciate getting to research (ie learn) about odd things like what the heck is bulkering and is polyurethane a polymer? (this might sound obvious but I know heck all about chemicals).

Todays 'Huh'

I just made some changes to 5000 records in our database at once in a batch-change. Many things can go wrong and should they do so, it would take a bloody long time to fix it (there is no ctrl + Z in this instance).

Both times while the modifications were made by the system (which takes a few seconds) I instinctively hunkered down and covered my ears.

Now, as a fear-based response I suppose this could still be useful in modern day - I might not have to hide from any dangers in the form of tigers or bears but you could hide from perps with guns or exploding buildings.
Still - I don't think hunkering and ear-covering does much to prevent getting fired for screwing up the database.

back up and running

All systems appear to be go, if at limited speed. I'm very relieved. I was at the gym yesterday and I definitely couldn't go all out but I focused on my legs and ache quite a lot today :)

A week of Spring-like weather came to an abrupt end with lots of snow yesterday, but it's already melting and we're getting a balmy 6 degrees (C) this weekend. I'm spending it with my folks in the forest. I was so miserable and 'homesick' the last two weeks so I'm gonna go home. I mean, I have my own home of course, in Lund. But Home is where your Heart is it seems so that's with my family (the majority of it, anyway).

My parents drive me nuts a lot of the time but I think I might be lucky, because I like hanging out with them. Of course my kombo has a bfriend to spend her free time with but she never seems to have the urge to go chill with her folks. Fair enough though, she has lived there for more years than me and more recently...
But I still really appreciate the fact that when I miss my family I can just *go* and it takes me an extra twenty minutes on the train, instead of trying to distract myself with long (lonely) walks or buying some DVDs to watch (alone) because hell you can't just fly home just like that.
And then, of course, there are the times when I miss that feeling of independence you get being away and completely on your own, where your parents have no idea what you're up to and especially don't feel the need to meddle in your affairs (or at least, the meddling is decidedly less annoying and successful when done only on the phone). Or, as Mr Darcy puts it: "It is possible for a woman to be settled too near her family"
But for now (because one never knows what the future brings) I am making the most of being within such an easy distance of them.

And yes, it is entirely possible that I spent some of my covalescing hours last week with a P&P marathon.

gossip girl

I don't normally admit to indulging in gossip but I just think it's the funniest thing ever that "The Hills" Lauren's cast-off bfriend Doug is dating none other than Ms Hilton. Hilarious!!
I admit I kind of rooted for him on the show because he seemed genuinely smitten in Lauren (they knew each other from before the show, so it's perfectly plausible the feeling was genuine enough) but in the end he was pretty spoilt with his riches and obviously quite full of himself.
I think this new couple could be very well suited for each other, if they can handle sharing the limelight.

Also, my research skills are being tested in a new domain: I could have sworn that the model advising Whitney (in "The Hills" spin-off "The City", reds anm) about the errant ways of bfriend Jay is the same girl who is the main model in H&Ms Spring catalogue. She's obviously East-European and I was a tad surprised when she showed up in episode 7 or something with a perfect English accent. She annoyed me something vastly in the H&M catalogue - and not because she's that pretty, the models are supposed to be pretty!! I couldn't put my finger on it but I certainly remembered her face. Anyway, I am determined to confirm that it is in fact the same person but despite appreciating gossip I tend to limit myself to Aftonbladet. I think I have to familiarize myself with a completely new set of sources to find this out. I realize this is not necessarily a worthwhile use of my free time but shucks, I don't care.

Apart from that; back to work today after being home for a couple of days with a fever. It still comes and goes but the doctor I saw yesterday couldn't find any reason for it. So, it's either nothing and some sort of clinging virus thing or it's a symptom of a serious illness and I will fall down dead at some point having gone undiagnosed. I hope you can guess which one I'm rooting for.
In any case, the headaches that also come with it are something fierce. I had what I think was the most intense headache of my life last night when I was trying to go to sleep. It felt like someone was using a sledgehammer on a white-hot poker going into the left side of my head. I didn't want to take any painkillers in case I was about to die and one Ibuprofene tablet would be enough to send me to sleep (to die peacefully) rather than be aware and able to call an ambulance. Good times.

Today I'm feeling slightly off-kilter and a bit woozy, but so far fine. The fever usually comes like clockwork around 4pm, I'm sure you'll all wait breathlessly for my next posting to hear if it did.

One for the books

I got very excited today over something that's really not interesting to anyone else, but I'm going to note it here anyway for future record. For the first time I have managed to sync my monthly travel card with a week off. Yey!! The last day on my card is the day I head to the airport for 8 days in Barcelona. Since there's no way to pause the (hideously expensive at SEK2200/month) travel card every week off is a fairly big financial loss.
Also, it's just the principle!! So. Yay for me!

Apart from that, life is about half/half crap and OK. I have a low fever that comes and goes. I tried going running Saturday anyway -that was a bad idea and not something I'm gonna repeat anytime soon. I'm very frustrated, I really want to get back to working out but I feel like I just need to lie down - all the time. And shivering on and off. Not sick enough to stay home from work though, although this morning I did and said several incredibly ditzy things. My brain's just not quite with it.

However, there's so much daylight and sunshine around that I can't feel too gloomy. Also, our new caterer is amazing! I've gotten used to lunch consisting of cold vegetables and if I'm lucky some cottage cheese. Now I get my own plate with vegetarian goodies. It's all been quite spicy so far but still so much better than any previous lunches. I'm spoilt for choice with protein sources! Usually I get something cold like some kind of patties made from chick peas and vegetables, and one day I got quiche. And one day the warm main course was vegetarian, and the other two days there were also lentils and beans to be had in the salad buffé. Today there was mackerel but I was too full to even bother.
This has the potential to save me quite a bit of money as well - I can just eat porridge or something in the evening when I've had a proper lunch. And it perks up your day when lunch is something tasty as opposed to something blah.

Eh. I'm gonna stop dithering now and get back to work.