New Year Promise...

... have fun (and save out my hair)!

Storm

It's storming outside. The windows whine and if I close my eyes and just listen I could almost trick myself that I'm in a tiny tree house by the ocean and waves are thundering into the shore. This is a typical drink-hot-chocolate-with-whipped-cream-day.

My 2011

It's only four days left of this year and I seek to sum up this year. The year of 2011 started out with a cold and long winter, where the snow hid my bike for months and all the streets were an icy hell. So, we kept up the temperature with dance dance dance. I remember our "halvtidssittning" in January, the class party to celebrate that we were halfway through our studies. It was a magnificient evening where everybody was dressed up, dinner, song and dance all night long.

And speaking of study. We could call the computer lab in the B-building our second home (together with the computer geeks). All our courses contained labs and some days the number of hours together with our friend Matlab exceeded the hours of sleep. That's bad. Really bad. Luckily, life was not only about manipulating pictures of a baboon and mathematical models. If the computer room was my second home I would say that Campushallen was my third home. I set PB in frequency at the gym. Also, I was a dodgeball leader at Campushallen during the spring, which was fun as I meet a lot people and could come up with own ideas to plan the classes. I discovered House dance and began to take classes. In my opinion, one should never be afraid to try new things, learning is fun!

When it comes to music I haven't seen so many bands as I wish (it cannot be to many concerts). However, I saw many singers I liked at Popadelica. Besides those, I think it was a pleasure to quietly sing along to Säkert!, dance to Håkan Hellström and rock to The Sounds.

But the main thing this year has been my Chinese studies in Taiwan. It was a long process from loose plans to health examination, school application and then wait for the admission letter, get the visa and eventually buy the flight ticket. After that, I could count down the days till the take off. To go to Taipei and study Mandarin at OCAC and the Mandarin Training Center was the best decision ever. Not only did I rapidly learn to speak and write everyday Chinese. I met nice people from all over the world, ate lots of delicious food, experienced a different culture and learned to be independent. I visited more museums than I ever been to in my entire life, learned aboriginal dance and kung fu, bathed in hot springs, tried wakeboard and hiked in the green forests. Will I go back to Taiwan? Yes, I think I will some day.
I've started to miss Taiwan. Taiwan - the country of convenience stores, lively night markets, karaoke bars and tasty beverages (but I do not miss the mosquito attacks). Moreover, the Taiwanese are so friendly and helpful, both friends and unknown people have reached out their hands whenever I needed help. Taiwan 2011 was a memory for life and I'm very thankful that I had the opportunity to experience the big city life. And now when I'm back home I appreciate home more than before. To be with family and friends make me truly glad!

Sometimes I tend to diminish the negative things. Naturally, there are ups and downs in life but I choose to learn from the bad experiences and thereafter focus on the good things rather than let ruminations take over.

In summary, my 2011 has been a very unusal and adventurous year. I fulfilled my aim to learn some Chinese and had a great time along the way.

Shake It Out

Maybe the best song right now. I find just one word for it- liberating.

Totally adorable

Yesterday, I met up with Isabelle to exchange Christmas presents and have a chat. The first thing I saw when Isabelle opened the door was something black that ran towards me. The puppy looks like a doll with curly intense black fur and is so cute and so lively. So happy to meet Isabelle and play with the puppy!

Christmas Day

This year we celebrated Christmas at Christmas Day of practical reasons. It was a joyful evening with family and relatives, lots of good food and play with the Christmas present.

Pepparmint truffle, mmm!

 

I gave one of my cousins blow-plastic-bubble-set from Taiwan and they blew one bubble after another and even made a nice sligthly deformed plastic snowman. My youngest cousin (or should I say Santa?) got a remote-controlled helicopter with blue and red lights and I just had to try it out! I think it was kinda hard to control and flew anything but straight. Still I think it is so cool. 

After the dinner and opening of presents we sang karaoke, both Cantonese and Mandarin songs. 

Dan före dan före dopparedan...

...or shortly, it's two days till Christmas Eve. I'm too old to be excited about Christmas presents and I'm so tired of the hysterical consumption. I sound like the mini-Grinch. Haha.
But I apart from the above mentioned things I like the family gathering and, of course, the "julbord"  (Swedish traditional Christmas food).

Peanut Butter

Today, the only thing needed to make me unproportional happy is a banana&peanut butter sandwich. 

Sauna Evening

Today, I drenched my brain with falting, Fourier series and trigonometric formulas (I got a retake in signal and image processing in January. Go anti-procrastination!). I think I need time to warm up because it was quite long time ago I did any of that stuff...

In the evening I went to the indoor swimming pool (the same place that I've been to since I was a little girl, but it looks quite different now). I swum a few rounds before I had a sauna marathon. The first one was a common dry sauna and since tonight was "bastusittning" a staff member added lemon grass extract water on the hot stove and then used a towel to propel and swing which results in enhanced heat and scent. Each swing fires of a wall of hotness that hits the skin. So hot and so comfortble! A bucket of ice was place outside the sauna to cool down. We also used peppermint oil  (the smell made me think of "polkagrisar").

The second sauna was a steam sauna, not as hot as the dry sauna but the moist air made it a little bit more difficult to breath and one cannot even see across the sauna because of the thick steam.

The last one is the newest one and is heated up by infra red radiation. At first it does not feel warm at all, it took like 10 minutes before I noticed some temperature changes. The radiation reaches deeper into the skin and muscles and it's said that the body burn up a noteworthy amount of calories. 

Personally, I liked the dry sauna best. Bathing sauna on cold winter days is something I highly recommend!  

Happy Meetings

I'm so happy to meet my friends again, both in my hometown and in Linköping, after so long time no seen. IRL rocks.

Inspiration Boost

I think I've had another round of oh-no-empty-of-inspiration-period which may explain the absence of update here. Last week I was home-home and lived what my sister calls a "pensionärsliv"; that is to get up, have a chill breakfast, read a nice book and make some lunch together with my grandma and go out for a walk. Or... that's not the whole truth, I've aslo spend lot of time to look for job on the internet, write personal letters and sent e-mails. So far with no result, but I hope the work will pay out some day.

I enjoyed to have some days completely off with no musts, but as always I get so restless. I'm not used to not have the days planned, days with no structure at all (and I must admit that I miss the Chinese classes). I think I have too much energy, too much will.

So, I decided to visit my sister and Linköping a couple of days so here I am now. Even though I've taken one year off school I cannot keep myself away the campus. I like the lively surroundings. Today, I went to listen to the winner of Nobel prize this year in chemistry, Dan Shechtman. That, I can assure, was inspiring and really what I needed. I didn't get much about the quasichrystal theory or the TEM pictures of "the black holes" (but I've at least heard of Fibonacci series before). However, what I'll bring from what Shechtman said is the struggle and tenacity behind the findings, and also the importance of thinking in new ways.

More information about the Nobel prize 2011 in chemistry and the source of picture.

Winter walk

Earlier this week I took a walk around the lake near where I live. The first snow of this year lightened up the ground and dressed up the naked trees. It was beautiful. Narnia-like. Before I went to Taiwan I didn't know I liked nature so much, perhaps I took it for granted. But months of greyness, endless pavements, lack of trees and green areas made me somewhat feel a mild degree of suffocation and I had a feeling that something is missing. Now I can conclude that nature is important to me.

Home Spa

Yesterday I walked downtown to make some errands. It was so stormy and the cold wind sweeped through my jacket and my blood seemed to freeze into ice. Guess if I was happy to come back home and just hear the wind whining outside. The coldness didn't want to let go so it ended up with a hot and bubbly foot bath and then sauna. We almost never use the sauna in the basement, but it is very good for winter days like yesterday. The termostate was set on the hottest temperature, which was incredibly hot and efficient against the coldness and stiffness. Indeed.

Snow!

I arrived home-home last night and it was cold and dark outside. It's lovely to be at home again. My first impression was that it was so spacious, one can actually take more than three steps without hitting a wall (in contrast to my room in Taiwan). After a good night's sleep I woke up and looked out through the window and saw that it was all white outside under dark sky as the sun hadn't really gone up yet. I went up and lighted some candles and turned on some Christmas songs. I love the time before Christmas as much as Christmas Eve itself, it's so cozy. Swedes are really good at creating a cozy atmosphere, perhaps because it's so dark in winter time and flickering candles light up beautifully. This year, unlike previous years, I won't come home from university like two days before Christmas more or less apathic and stressed up after all the exams and I'm so happy about it.

The view from my window this morning. I like when the snow stays in the tree tops and glisten as the sun comes shows up.

We've had this tiny Santa house candle as far as I remember, so nostalgic.

Basically every home has at least one lamp of this kind.

I bought some 3D Christmas cards from Taiwan. There were a whole lot of creative and fun cards, so it was not easy to pick out just a few. This is one of my favourites:

Before one opens it...

After...

I had breakfast with mum and dad. How can something so simple be so pleasurable? I even find preparing my own breakfast enjoyable (may sound totally ridiculous) ... I cannot wait till I make a comeback in the kitchen for real.

The Flight Home

The flight back to Sweden via Beijing and Frankfurt went smoothly (except for the check-in in Frankfurt which was slighty stressful due to short of time) and time passed more quickly than what I expected. I was little bit nervous before as it is the first time I fly by myself so I'm happy that I didn't end up in Brazilia or something like that...

Air plane food is... a catagory of itself. Noodles with fish (they might have forgot the seasoning), bread, salad, yogurt and cake.

The waiting hall at Beijing airport. The first thing I did when I sat there and waited was to start my computer and by reflex log into Facebook before I realized I was in China and Facebook is banned. I couldn't even blog from there. It's terrifying both that something so widely used in the world is banned and the fact that I almost forgotten how to communicatie without FB (and without cell phone).

On the flight Beijing-Frankfurt it was mini-TV on every seat so one can watch movies, TV and listen to music. High-tech and quite impressive and made the time pass faster.

The view over Stockholm in the morning.

Finally back in Sweden, I took the bus to Linköping and my sister met up me. We went to her place and had some lunch. The sun was shining and it was wonderful to see the familiar surroundings and breath the fresh air. It's not as cold as I thought (about 5 degrees) and no snow (!) but enough to be freezing in my thin spring jacket. We went to buy some "julvört, julskinka, lussekatter, pepparkakor" and clementines to have some "julfika" in the evening which was totally all I wished for. At 7 pm the jetlag kicked in so I went to bed and slept like a baby for like 13 hours (the five last hours were more sympathy sleeping as I didn't want to wake my sister up at 3 a.m. Haha.).

I enjoyed every single bite!