Thus ended unemployment

I’m sending February off with a bang! My month as unemployed is over. Uncertainty is no more.

On the 8th of March my next adventure starts. I have a job!

But first, I get a week of resting and doing nothing at all. I honestly think it’s good just to get to recover from the stress of ambiguity.

Even the interview process applies unpleasant amounts of pressure. Being judged and measured and questioned; no thank you!

For now I’m just going to put my feet up and relax.

Rejection with a side of regret

NO. Such a minuscule word, such rigorous emotion.
Most of us fear it; rejection;
Will I get the job?
Will he call?
Will he stay?
Simply: Do I get what I want?

Rejection very seldom comes alone. It seems to always be accompanied by a side dish or a sugary coating, all to make it easier for us to swallow and digest this hard lump of a word.

Sometimes rejection comes with regret. ‘You seem very competent, but other people are more qualified, you lack certain experience. I am sorry, You don’t get the job’. Fair enough. I can take that, it’s a valid comment, and actually it does not reject me as a person but rather points to the holes in my professional agenda. I am aware. I can accept. Swallow and digest.

At other times regret comes with obligation. ‘I can’t come tonight I promised my mother I would eat with her this evening’ or ‘I promised my boss I would stay until six today so I can’t make it to yoga-class’. Ok, obligations, they make it all a bit rougher to take in. After all, what about your obligation to me? Why am I not being prioritized? Do I not mean as much? They take just a bit longer. But we can manage, when we manage to understand the nature of this urgent obligation. Afer all...it happens to most of us.

This is when sugar coating, a rejection with icing, is imperative. Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down! And so it goes; with ‘I’m sorry’, ‘I’ll make it up to you’, ‘I know we decided…please don’t be sad’. Even the ‘It was a pleasure to meet you’, ‘we were very impressed’ or ‘we will keep your CV on for the future’, helps, irrespective of whether it is true or not.

Rejection with icing is, in the end, not only a way for the person rejecting to soften the fact that they are saying no, but also a way to show that you have taken into consideration the feelings of their fellow person ad show some measure of Regret. Perceived consideration can work miracles (genuine consideration works even better), really! And regret will probably work even better!

But what about when there is no plea or reference to your emotion? What about when there is no logic, regret or obligation? When there is no remorse or empathy? What do you do then? How do you defend yourself against it?

Raw rejection, a NO with no coatings or sides, gives you nothing to hold on to make you feel better, nothing to help you digest and move on. When you see neither remorse nor consideration can you forgive? Can you actually accept rejection without regret?

I know I can’t. I take my rejection with a side of regret.

Quality and convention

Applications…don’t even get me started.

For one of my applications I had to write a 150 word essay on what I did to maintain the quality of my output. It made me formulate two sentences essential to my concept of excellence;

Quality is a process, not an instantaneous occurrence.

A great result is most often the result of time, perseverance and continuous alterations and improvements. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have a strike of genius without any kind of premeditation. But most good ideas require thought, research and dialogue. Most good ideas require internal; self criticism and external; feedback and input.

Never sacrifice quality for conventionality.

No, conventional and qualitative are not mutually exclusive; some ‘products’ even become qualitative because they fit certain standards. However, when the choice stands between mainstream and magnificent, it is not a hard one to make. I’m not saying bend the rules or not even wiggle the framework. Just that only doing what you are supposed to do is often less than all that you can do.

I might not be a creative whiz, and I might even like to play it safe, but sometimes when I can present regular with a twist, routine and convention seem all that less interesting.

The essay landed on exactly 150 words, making use of every opportunity I was given to shed light on myself…it’s tough to know quality when you don’t know convention…cross your fingers x

Let the wild rumpus begin?

People seem to think that now that I am graduated, life should be all candy and pink roses. But the reality of it is slightly different, while some exclaim freedom, relief and new starts, I feel like Max, going where the wild things are.

There are no more scheduled vacations, classes, exams or grades. I’m setting into a forest of unknown; future employers, council tax, 9-6 work, professional development, so much potential. Yet, I am the first to admit, it is a bit like facing up to the monsters, getting to know them, and conquering them if you will.

Max was right to stare his monsters steadily in the eye, if nothing else, then to overcome his own alarm. Small and new does not necessarily mean inferior. However it might just mean you have to work a little harder.

Wild rumpus? Sure, I will admit to some emotional commotion. Going out to be measured and weighted by a whole new set of criteria. Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed?

Now this might all seem like a campaign of self conviction, but the truth of the matter is advancement and alterations are great gifts. Newness always carries with it the ambivalence of fear and excitement. Where would we be without the occasional fuss and fizzy? Isn’t it just the prize we pay to be going somewhere?

And if I am presented the chance to grow a little bit wiser and a little bit stronger. Who am I to shy away? I say: let the wild rumpus begin!

Paris je t'aime??

I used to be sold on Paris; Fan, Super-Fan, Fanatic. Used to. This weekend I had a long awaited reunion with my beloved city. But for some reason it wasn’t as I thought it would be. Walking across a rainy Paris I felt like a stranger, and although the views continually swept me off my feet (as they always do), I was reminded, again and again, of why Paris is not a city where I want to live anymore.

Listing the things that I love….would take a long time; the smell of a bakery, the slow pace of a Saturday…the even slower pace of a Sunday, the space to live, the time to enjoy, the creative liberty, the appreciation of good things; beauty, food, art; love of that which embellishes life, the quality, the thoroughness, the choice (especially in the market and supermarket), the pride, the splendor…all the splendor…and still…I was confounded.

Maybe it was the lack of habit, the loss of edge that only a few months in Paris give you, but I was shaken by the arrogance and the sense of not belonging. I certainly hadn’t missed being walked into 1000 times on a crowded street without as much as a pardon. There I was, in the stronghold of politesse, yet it was nowhere to be seen?

Maybe it was the rain, that swallowed the pace and the brilliance and beauty which otherwise stings my eyes.

Maybe it was the short moment that didn’t allow me to digest and profit.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…I just felt that Paris was a chapter passed…but an eternal love. When we landed back in London it was neither melancholy nor relief, just…acceptance, just normal.

Paris je ne t’aime plus, mais je t’aimerai toujours

Rather sleepless in Seattle than heatless in London?

Autumn has come to London. All of a sudden sticky grey has been replaced by biting blue. I am trying to convince myself that the fact that the sun is actually making an appearance every second day, makes up for the 7 degree loss in temperature. And I would have been successful should my apartment not have been as cold as the outside.

Resentment is the word. Who ever came up with this ridiculous boiler-system? And where in the world did anyone get the idea that single windows have an isolating effect? As you might have guessed, my boiler doesn’t work, and I wake up every morning with excessive amounts of mist on my window (it is called excessive when you can’t see the colour of the sky). I can’t even begin to tell you the pleasure of getting out of bed and stepping into Siberia…or Antarctica, whichever is colder.

After having spent the entire weekend closed in my room with schoolwork, I have completely exhausted all my ideas of how to heat myself up; candles, tea, double layered clothes, woollen throws, hot showers…and still…cold toes.

I keep trying to tell myself that this is yet another one of life’s ways of making me appreciate the simple luxuries that I have come to take for granted…but a little heating isn’t too much to ask, is it?

One tough cookie...?

Marie said I am too kind for my own good...and that I need to become One tough cookie:

"Daddy, I want another pony"

Looking around it seems that people are never satisfied, quite frankly I am even occasionally disgusted by my own hungry materialism.

While a simple gaze can trigger the most profound fulfillment, most of us seem to want to believe that the very same feeling can be purchased with an item, or just purchased, period. Now I am no hypocrite, I walk in the same trap, although I see myself doing it; “Oh, if I had that top, I’d feel pretty… and content”. I can be really daft sometimes.

Friends with money…I have them. Granted, they don’t have to ask themselves how they are going to pay for food or rent, or think twice before they buy a sweater (on sale), but they are neither happier nor unhappier than me, just… facilitated in life.

Realistically, I don’t lack anything; I don’t need, another book, another film, or another pair of shoes, yet I crave it from time to time. That’s when I feel corrupted; I have it all, but I still want more? Like Veruca Salt (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) who upon getting her golden ticket – allegedly, everything she ever wanted – looks coldly at it and exclaims: “Daddy, I want another pony” (in addition to the two rabbits, six parrots, one hamster…). I would hate myself. Because there is, nevertheless, one element that makes the fundamental difference between blind greed á la Veruca Salt and the occasional yearning middle-class miss: appreciation.

Call me simple, but I like the concept of ‘no pain, no gain’. I like the thought of working, trying and achieving something. I love the process of making myself deserving of my own successes. That makes me smile from the inside. That makes me truly satisfied. And of course, there is nothing like giving yourself the pleasure of a prize, when you’re the one who’s made the effort. But to be greedy on somebody else’s expense? No.

Greed starts becoming dangerous, when you forget the value of what you already have, when you diminish it to irrelevancies, and give in to the desire for that next watch, shirt or pair of jeans to add to the collection. When you let arrogance take the overhand of humility, hubris in one single word. And you keep wanting more and more and more. Perhaps when you forget, or misjudge your own self value, it’s easier to attempt to gain it back by accessorizing your life and wardrobe, rather than your spirit?

Yet I want exactly that; to adorn my inner self, if you will; I want to love, laugh, give, contribute, dream, achieve, experience. I want to make something of myself, and for myself, something worthy and valuable. Like Veruca sings (which is hopefully where our common denominators end): “I want the world, I want the whole world…I want today, I want tomorrow…”…but just to experience, not to have.

- Sharing is caring ;-) -

PS. Just a small parenthesis: Above clip is from Willy Wonka: original Roald Dahl feature from the 70ties, Tim Burton remake is also recommended.

A day wasted is a week won

I think Tracy Chapman sung the line of the millennium when she said a woman’s work is never done… I say an adult’s work is never done, the list just never ends OR once you’ve gotten to the end of it, it is time to start from the beginning again.

Buy food, clean bathroom, wash towels, put in a dark wash, hang dark wash, put in light wash, pay the phone bill, bake a cake, make lunch, clean the kitchen, change the sheets, e-mail twenty odd people, take care of all correspondence, look for a job, look more for jobs, read the novel (but only 30 pages…because…there are other things to do in life), work, correct…by this time food will have run out, and the bathroom will need cleaning again. And there I go, running up and down that list, ad on bronchitis, two colds, the flu and a few other infections, and there is not much left of a person.

So at the end of the summer, it all started to get to me, and I was feeling pretty exhausted. But who has time to rest, right? The show must go on.

Nevertheless, at some point I started to get the sneaking suspicion that some rest would be good…you know, a few of those days where you wake up, but you stay in bed, wear your PJs all day, watch crappy movies, read and think about absolutely NOTHING useful. You need those days to make the good days function. But when your list reaches across the Atlantic…where do you find the time to waste a day? An ENTIRE day??

However, when the energy-account was on minus, there was no escaping the fact, that wasting a day would win me some energy. And so, I decided (because every rule calls for an exception… and my rule would be; rest when you’re done), that wasting time was not actually a bad idea, why not deviate from lists and routines? A day wasted is a week won, and I have plenty of weeks to go on living. Viva vacation (if only for another few hours)!

She lingers – an experimental one

When she lingers, it is to pull the band-aid.
She is searching in her vacant heart,
but the void is growing, all the larger is the shade;
wishing for a feeling, at least a point to start.
She wants to escape, but her path has been laid,
body and mind are pulling apart.
Where to look for what’s lost inside,
without repeating what’s left behind?

Coloured by despair, the tears are deep.
Lost and begging for force;
mustering will, for the uphill is steep.
Roaming externals, to find the source.
The will to progress, is a treasure-hunt,
a map-less one. It must run its course.
Impatience drives, all the while it darkens and burns
walking towards the day when the light returns.

Home is where the heart is?

If home is where the heart is, I am fundamentally confused.

My heart is scattered… if that is even possible. But…How does it work out then; home is where a majority of the heart is? So how do I know who has the greater part? Or can I even know that?

The absurdity of these questions boils down to the eternal dilemma of figuring out where one belongs (which to be honest, tends to plague me with regular intervals).

There is more than one place in the world, where the sight of the natural scenery makes my eyes tear with profound emotion, and where my heart can come to rest. I have no one home with exclusivity. Then again, might there be a difference between feeling comfortable, familiar, and not a stranger, and the feeling of being at home?

Some people make you feel at home, where ever you might be; in the deepest of jungles or in the roaring city, you will still feel safe and content; as if you are where you are supposed to be. And I ask myself; is home really a place or a person?

When do I actually feel at home? Home, has for me, a sense of personal identification. Home is family. Where home is, or who home is, in one way or another, has to appeal to the essentials of my personality. I have to be able to see how I could fit into the various contexts; cultural, social, practical, and also how I could have been shaped by these very same contexts. It is not only a question of finding a ‘common denominator’; most places will offer you that option, it is about finding yourself in large parts of the contextual frameworks which constitute what you call home. It is about seeing your history and your future in their very evolution.

If this is fairly straight forward, why am I still confused then? Because; in addition to the one or two places in the world where I feel profoundly at home, there is the home that I build for myself; education, career, apartment…the list goes on. Everything that is mine is here, in London. When I go to my house, this is where I find it.

However, as much as love London, this is not home to me, in the sense that my heart tells me differently; the views do not speak to me. This is home…for now. I feel comfortable, I don’t feel a stranger, I can navigate. I’ve created myself a history here, and I might even be building a future, but truth be told; I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I am not 'at home'.

On the other hand, I am with someone (in London) who makes me feel loved, happy and content, in whose presence the importance of the physical location tends to diminish (but not vanish). I am exactly where I’m supposed to be…

…So…if home is where the heart is; where is home for me?

Friday of longing

Someone said to me, on Fridays (at least for a jew) there is a feeling of longing. Today, I miss this:

The hills are alive

Up on Hampstead Heath with a great view of London
(I know...I'm really white...it's a work in progress)


...and on the other side of the hill it's just green...good for a change, breathing some new oxygen


... an iPal is a good pal, and entertaining picnic associate

Chasing away animals lurking in the grass...

Soduko in the sun :)

Spying on the neighbour (?)

I've heard of flying saucers...but never flying sausages. Can anyone tell me what that is??

And the clouds came roaming in... and I can't resist saying it...SEE!! Every cloud has a silver lining.

And then the storm came...massive drops...thank god for tube stations and good timing.

No one was spared, after a Bakerloo train ride, out of the ordinary, where water was leaking in from every possible direction, we took out our blanket for cover and made our way home.

As a routined londonian I should know by now to ALWAYS bring an umbrella, but I like to be an optimist, and as you say in Swedish: 'Alla sätt är bra utom de dåliga' - 'All ways are good except for the bad ones'.

Apart from this not being a very dry adventure... It was actually a real laugh.

Verbally positive is practically optimistic…?

A week or so ago I was walking with my loving other along the southern banks of the Thames. At a specific passage there were a lot of street performers; bronze-painted, gold-painted, and even lizard-painted (?). However there was one specific performer, who, sadly, attracted more of my pity than my attention; through a plastic ‘transport-cage’ for dogs, this man had stuck his head, painted like a Dalmatian with floppy ears, while hiding his body underneath the table where the cage was posed. To ‘add some spice’ he had attached a wagging tail to the back of the ‘canine container’, thus spending his days barking through the small opening of the cage to make a living for himself.

This being a situation which could obviously not go un-commented by my standards, I turn to my boyfriend and say (in French):
That’s what I call desperation (using the very same word in French).
Whereby he says to me (also in French):
It’s not desperation it’s désespoir
And then he smiles and says:
…but it’s no surprise you don’t know that word, you don’t ever use those kinds of words (referring to what I would entitle ‘negative vocabulary’)

All of this goes back to a discussion we had earlier that day where he confessed that words such as enthusiastic or practical had so far been words ‘of mine’ to invade his active vocabulary.

This simple fact makes me smile for a number of reasons:

One, there is truth to the Swedish saying: ‘Man blir som man umgås’ equivalent to you become like the people you spend your time with.

Two… I really don’t use a lot of negatively ringing words. I tend to go with possible, energy, solution, enthusiasm, belief, goodness, positivity. Still I don’t think I come across as naïve, I am a realist, but an optimistic one.

Three… The vocabulary you use in many ways reflects your world view. If you are positive you will perhaps believe in helpful people, in sincere caring and in true friends. This of course doesn’t mean that you are not careful or aware of risk, but rather that you see the glass half full and not half empty.

If you, on the other hand, are a negative person, maybe you use words such as horrible, idiot or problem a lot, and you tend to use your words to draw up disastrous scenarios, full of betrayal, forgetfulness and unaccommodating attitudes.

So the words paint your world. In what color? It’s up to you. Language and attitude is ultimately merely a self-fulfilling prophesy. What you believe is what you create. Similarly your perspective guides your choices and helps you rebuild the verbal and concrete world wherein you feel comfortable, be it a dark or a light one.

Your words are used to describe what you see, and so accordingly if your concept world is positive, the verbal structures describing it are much along the same lines and vice versa.

Hence your vocabulary use greatly mirrors your practical world perspective, it does not shape your actions, your attitude and belief does, but it describes them. The words you use in that sense become a reflection of who you are.

Of course, a lot comes into language; intonation, gestures and meaningful gazes. But only from the actual words used, irrespective of what accompanies them, a lot could be told. So I, who am verbally positive…am I inevitably practically optimistic?

What words do you use?

Things you might not know...

• My name is Shani but people call me Shunka, Nicki, L’amour, Shnix, Shanne.
• I will be 24 in March.
• I was born in Karlskrona (Sweden)and now live in London with my boyfriend (French) and another flat-mate.
• In the future I want to live in the US perhaps, but I would like to return to Sweden.
• I study International Business with Spanish.
• In my spare time I usually study or go for walks in London, but I would also like to go to the cinema and to art exhibitions more often…and to read more books.
• This time next year I am working at a company that does something really interesting.
• I would like to be world champion in …God…I don’t need to be champion in anything, what’s important is to improve and advance.
• I would have liked to have invented the wheel.
• I would like to invent windscreen wipers for glasses…or a time-machine.
• Anne Hathaway plays me in the film about myself, because she looks good in glasses, and she can play an ugly duckling/dork/determined and passionate carrier woman.
• In ten years I think that I have a small family, a decent job and a lovely place to live in.
• I feel happy when I get to spend time with people I love, the sun shines, people are helpful, cars stop to let you cross the road, when I succeed in something that was a real struggle…lots of things… you are so much happier if you rejoice over small things.
• I get angry when I encounter unfairness or violence, or when people don’t listen.
• I have stopped wearing all my lovely jewelry (need to start again) and started neglecting doing sports (in my defense my health has been really unlucky this year)
• I collect…languages (if 5 count as a collection?)
• I am proud of anyone I know who fight for something they want or believe in, or anyone I love who dares to dream or be a visionary.
• My role models are most of the people who I feel close to because they possess an admirable quality of some kind that I either don’t have or don’t have enough of.
• My dream profession is to be an author but it would also be a lot of fun to organize and coordinate things in a creative or multicultural enterprise.
  

My favorite:

• Food: Plenty of things…but I do love deserts
• Country: Ah…this is a though one, I have three natural loyalties Sweden (born and raised + my father is Swedish), Israel (Israeli mother and a big and loving family), France (boyfriend is French…and Paris really is ‘my’ city).
• Expression: 'Finns det hjärterum så finns det stjärterum', Swedish for: if there is room in the heart there is room for the ass as well.
• TV-series: Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, Friends
• Song: For lyrics: If it be your will – Leonard Cohen…but ah…there are so many
• Team: Sweden?...not really big on the sports
• Lie: When something is really bad: Good is not the word for it!
• Garment: Underwear…that’s pretty basic, then it depends on the mood
• Web-page: Google
• Person: Pff…I can’t choose that…my winner-stand fits a lot of people in first-place.
• Animal: If I have to choose a dolphin or a horse, I prefer people to animals
• Shop: Ordning & Reda

Tell me something about you...?

Modern version fakir?

This is my bed of nails. It's supposed to help relax my tense back, improve my blood circulation and my sleep. Never did I think achieving these things would require becoming a fakir.

10 minutes is all I was allowed to do today, and quite frankly my back looked fairly traumatised; red and warm and full of little dents and dimples (what else would you expect from a bed of nails?)

However bad this may sound I have only to admit that I felt a strange feeling of ease throughout the entire back. So I'm giving it a try for a few days. I'm hoping I can pack it down and bring it to London and that it will salvage me from stress, tenderness and pain. If so, ten minutes of warm stinging ache and discomfort will be an insignificant price to pay.

So here I am, sold on portable masochism (?)...on a small nail mattress, like a modern day fakir.

Lesson from Thai massage

If there is one thing getting a Thai massage can teach you, it is to never underestimate a woman... Small can still be equal to strong... even very strong.

Kvinnor kan! (Women can!)

Stray luggage

Travelling is this happy yet melancholic event; rainy walks to the bus-stop, waiting at cold train-stations, tearful good-byes at the airport. And then, the joyous arrivals, the warm welcomes, the comfort and the love.

Nonetheless, voyages in all their glory, they still have that one element of unavoidable impatience; waiting.

Checking in, you will always get in the 'wrong' line; the one which, as per chance, takes the most time. So, despite being sleep-deprived and in general having difficulties upholding your posture and perky disposition, there is still that moment of leaning gently on your suitcase, and at the same time observing all lines next to you move in express pace, while your's is seemingly advancing in slow motion.

Security, lets not even start; put your liquids in a bag, take your belt and jacket off, remove your laptop from your bag, take your shoes off (?), go throught the detector, get body searched if you are unlucky (three times if its not your day, none otherwise). The fun part comes after that; put everything on fast enough not to block the flow of people coming after you.

God, by the time you get to the tax free, you feel like you've come to paradise. Here there are two scenarios; one: you rush through the stores, and after 40 minutes you realise there is a final call for your gate. Two: you have ridiculous amounts of time to spend at the airport, and after your second tour of all the stores you start to feel slightly irritated that your gate hasn't even been announced yet.

Eventually on the plane, there are a few ways to go; none ideal, all possible. Either you fall asleep before the plane has even pulled out, or it feels like an eternity before it actually does. When you are going to your destination time can pass fairly quickly; it's exciting and thrilling and you can't wait to get there. However, going home is either a necessary evil or conversely; something you really desire (either way you are in for, what feels like a very long jurney).

Finally, the moment is there, when the cellphones start ringing again; halfway out of the aircraft and everyone is already on a par with your every step. But, not to forget is that little appendix, that you always bring along, your luggage, for which... you have to wait.

Without exception, you will see that strand of stray luggage; one bag which is shining new, not even a scratch to it, the trendy version of traveling, then another bag which you can understand someone might not want to claim; torn, old or other, it's one that doesn't look valid for travelling. A third one is the well travelled suitcase, the one with a few old stickers and some bumps and scratches (that looks like it has a life apart from it's owner). Occationally there is the odd large hard samsonite with one of those belts around, or that has been aggressively wrapped in plastic (that looks impossible to open). And sometimes, just sometimes, a part of a trolley or a toy rotates around and around, all the while some poor baby will be missing their means of transportation.

I am not the one waiting anymore, my silver titan slides up infront of me. Yet someone somewhere, is still waiting; stray people, lost from their luggage, stray luggage waiting for their owner. Someone will have to journey without their luggage, continue without their extention... and continue to wait while the stray find their way home... because they always do, no?.

From one structure fetishist to another

A few weeks ago I was finishing off a group report at university. Now I am the kind of person who takes great pleasure and seeing a finished report, not only because it’s in fact, done but because I like seeing structures; headlines, paragraphs and every other component that makes a report look neat and accessible (not to speak of language use and sentence structure, which is a different story altogether).

Also mentionable is that, although my ex-flat mate claims with conviction that I have an innate resistance to anything that is potentially addictive, I do occasionally (or realistically quite often) splurge in chocolate. Addictive or not, but chocolate is a life necessity.

Sitting in the computer lab, working on the finishing touches, I lean over to look at V’s screen:
Me: Oh, do you also use the automatic index function in word?
V: Ohh yes!
Me: Don’t you just love it??
V: Mhmm!
Me: The best moment is when you press the button and the index just appears, all nice and organized
V: I know, isn’t it great?!
Me: It’s like chocolate!
V: (laughing)
V: (2 minutes later….still laughing?)
Me: I know, I’m a bit wacky
V: (still laughing….and I’m sure there was a tear or two) I’m the SAME way!
Me: (laughing) So that’s why you’re laughing?
V: (laughing and nodding)
Me: (thinking it’s actually quite a relief to not be alone with my abnormality)

The report turned out really well… two structure fetishists on one report (!!). If that’s not organized what is?

Cleaning coma

This morning I felt like four months of stress just dropped on my head. Yesterday I had my last exam, and already towards the evening I started feeling like someone had seriously done my head in, to the point where I felt dizzy and started doubting my ability to walk down even the widest staircase.

Having woken up at ten o’clock this morning, it took me until 14.30 to actually set foot outside the bedroom door, or on the floor in general for that matter (and it’s ok for me to do that! Wow! Can’t believe it…).

I managed to get through this semester, flues, bronchitis, infections and all, and now I just felt like….blahhh, empty. It was a rough one, towards the end it started to feel like the more things I tried to put into my head, the more came out of it, is there such a thing as knowledge retention, honestly?? Indeed, there does come a point where you are so tired that nothing feels relevant anymore, its saddening really, to feel like what you do loses meaning.

Anyhow, once I actually got up, I got to making some food for myself and my boyfriend who was coming home (very hungry) between his shifts. That physical action alone took the life out of me, and as I was fairly unmotivated to force myself to do anything (because…I say it again: I didn’t have to!) I went back to bed and watched ridiculous episodes of series I’ve never seen before… as if in a coma.

Feeling that my day needed to have some kind of purpose, I started cleaning. Organized my papers and stowed them neatly in the shelf, I even put away my neon markers and retired my calendar, and THEN I got to cleaning, bedroom, bathroom, changing sheets and towels. Still feeling like in a coma….fairly detached from what I was doing. I EVEN ironed things that had been lying around for at least two months (because I never had the time, and my boyfriend, bless him, although he does a lot of things, does not iron).

And now I am actually wondering whether this was a cleansing coma, rather than a cleaning coma, admittedly I do feel just a tad more ready to take on the world again… Hello vacation!