A heart-to-heart

Ayaah, I haven't ventured out here in ages.
I apologize for that, though I am sure no one stays around to read my pointless ranting anyhow.
I am now in my final year of High School, which is a very bittersweet time for me now. On one hand I am definitely excited about moving on in life, while on the other I am going to miss the friends I have now- as I am pretty sure that I will not see again- for a good length of time. I know I have mentioned this before but time really does change a person, be it time or the time taken for a person to mature and shape but nevertheless time is most definitely the biggest factor.

Today I bumped into an old classmate from middle-school, he was in fact someone I used to dislike quite a bit, or to be a bit more civil, "couldn't get along with."
I know that it's naive or even a bit childish of me to believe I'd still harvest those kind of ill feelings toward some people from my past, but you know what they say, "old habits die hard"... or do they? As I saw him my first reaction was to look away and hope he did not notice me, however as he passed by he automatically came up to me again and greeted me briefly with a smile, and then left for his bus.
His behaviour left me with a million questions in my head. Not only had this person tormented my entire three years of middleschool, now he had the gaul to wave his past childish behaviour away and all the history we've established in that single 10 seconds of greeting? I didn't dwell on it too long, but I did think of our brief meeting as a little unexpected, the way there was no longer any childish hatred, impatience or even the least bit annoyance with each other. It's funny how people change. It's especially funny how you can have this one single image of a person completely wiped away in the span of a few seconds, after years of having thought you knew them.

Thinking back on what I did today, I realise that both events that occupied my late morning, involved my not-so-distant past and my not-too-far-away future. This sounds very philosophical but I assure you it is not, as I am nowhere near philosophical grounds- at least I would not write about it or with the manner, out of own free will- unless it was unintentional...which this probably is. In which case I apologize for being overly-philosophical...I have a tendency to get lost in my words and thoughts.


Today, I went to Lund University to attend their Open House event. A great opportunity for lost souls such as myself, to ever so slightly- clear up the mist of their futures. I have narrowed down my options to strictly just engineering, then of course (....as life is what it is)...they have 14 different courses of Engineering at Lund University (Maybe even more, just to mess with my head.) On top of that, when you have finally chosen a specified engineering field you would like to study, you will soon find out that you have more specific courses to choose between, within the course you've already had to choose. Am I making sense? (regardless if the response was yes or no)... Good...! So after 3 hours of asking different people the exact same questions, getting slightly different responses each time, I now know that I am NOT going to be doing architecture. At least for now. I constantly change my mind. I am sure many are aware of that as it is. Right?

I tend to get too carried away by things, and my attention span can be rather short-lived so I know that what I see to be a wise decision now, will be a very bad decision in..a few minutes..or hours...Or seconds. What I certainly know now is that I want nothing else than to shoot straight to University after I graduate, (of course the "shooting straight into Uni after graduation" isn't possible since I have a nice Summerbreak to enjoy in between---An incredibly FORTUNATE thing).
But of course I can't afford to start thinking about that future. I firstly have to make my way through my last year of High School- be that as annoying as it may, it won't ever come back to me, yadda yadda- I know.
Why oh Why is the forbidden the most tempting path to take?

Happy Birthday Pei!

Oops, I did it again (really did not intend to quote Britney Spears), I kind of neglected my blog D: Ah well, here I am!
What shall we talk about today? The interesting ways the human brain has on sub-conciously neglecting situations or tasks you really don't want to do? (Hah I justify that as procrastination). Rambling on is such a perfect excuse to not getting to the point, which is mostly what I love to do. But now that the point has been reached I guess there is no other way to say this than:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEEEEEEI <3

One of my oldest and dearest friends is turning .......21 today! I hope she has a great time in India on this very special day :D
Me myself~ I will be attending my 2-hour golf training, maybe even go out on the course for the first time this season! Yaay. Wish me luck.
Unfortunately the weather here is really depressing, gray and murky. The kind of weather that makes you want to crawl into a hole and hibernate all throughout the season. Talking about depressing, gray and murky I've recently started reading (don't brick me!!) Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. Of course- the entire series has already been spoiled for me by my friends but I'll give it a shot either way. Fate is to blame as Gustave Flaubert expressed in his book, Madame Bovary (don't read it, it's one of the slowest books you'll ever read, but it does give you a good insight on life...but still. The "Slow" part overpowers the insight-part.) I saw the Twilight book dangling on a shelf and decided it was Now or Never, I even leaped for the shelf (almost tripping over my own foot) and grabbed the book! When I went to the reception to check it out of the school library the librarian laughed and said I literally placed that book there, 2 minutes ago!!
So there you go, Fate is completely to be blamed.
-->So far I've read 3/4 in 2 days. Not too shabby but I started reading it with high expectations. If anyone wants to read a decent love story (a realistic one at that), they should read a little love song, by Michelle Magorian. While I'm still rambling about nothing in particular, I went to a golf-convention yesterday with my father(Haha I'm beginning to wonder if Sci-Fi convention would've actually sounded a tad cooler than "golf-convention"). It was quite fun, dad burned around 800 kr on ...Well let's not mention that. And I got to spend the afternoon with a happy dadddy yaay! When we left the convention we passed a skating ramp, for the first time this year it really felt like Spring! Kids were playing around, the sun was shining, flies were ...humming? And I even saw a ladybird!! [which I almost stepped on! :( ] All that was missing yesterday afternoon was a fat lady joyfully singing in inaudible notes~~ Oh how Opera can be mesmerising. As was yesterday night's melodifestival! (Sweden's finals for the Eurovision song contest), an Opera-singer is representing Sweden this year and I couldn't be more content with the outcome! Gooo Malena Ernman!
And with all this said, it is time I got off my cushiony chair, head to the kitchen- probably with my Twilight book in my lap and have a nice Sunday breakfast with my sleepy parents. Adios!

Tick tock tick tock

I am currently sitting up with my computer, trying to be as quiet as possible-
The clocks on my walls are tick-tocking out of sync with each other.
It's as if they're telling me to hurry up.
Go to sleep.
Tomorrow you will start anew.
As the pendulum of my teddy-bear clock rocks back and forth in its infinite sequence, I think of everyday life in itself. Its own regular pattern.
Waking up early on a weekday morning, after procrastinating the actual "getting out of bed"-process for nearly 10 minutes- finally deciding to drag yourself to the bathroom. Sometimes even imagining you got out of bed when you are in fact still in bed, procrastinating as usual.
Pop the bread slices in the toaster and wait impatiently for the toaster to give a jump.
Tock.
Your toast is done.
Eat it under silence- looking your worst for the day.
Spacing out during breakfast and realising you've spent 20 minutes eating breakfast.
(that means you have 10 minutes to get to school- when it actually takes 15 minutes to get there.)
Run to the bathroom, get changed, get made up, grab your books and run out through the door.
--
After a tiring day at school you find yourself feeling, somehow, amazed at how fast yet another day has almost come to an end.
Hop off the crowded (smelly) bus and exhaustively make your way home.

Once home you start on the essay that was due yesterday- impressed by how efficient you can be (but also- conveniently forgetting how painless the work done is- once it's time for another essay.)

When you're eventually done with the essay that failed to save on your portable hard drive you heave a sigh and send it to an e-mail that won't open the file at school.
(Thus the perfect reason for yet again- handing in your essay 5 days later than asked for-even when it's done.)

Eventually realising that you're sitting up at 1:30 am in the morning of a school night- "Ah I have 7 hours of sleep tonight- Yay!".
Scuttle off to bed- waking up wondering why you still feel sleepy.
Thinking "I owe myself another 10 minutes before getting up.."
---
This is my day in a nutshell (a rather exaggerated day if I may say so myself- I usually hand in my work in time- I promise, Grandma!!).

ALL OF US- usually complain about our day/lives, I think it sounds something like this: "Oh I wish my days weren't always following the same routine- day in- day out. I feel like a robot. How dull."
So when something different finally happens-(the car runs out of fuel- the homework that was due two days ago was actually handed in on time- the neighbour said hello for once (("What does he want? Probably shoved some of his garbage into our bin..."))-or the light bulb breaks) how do we react?
We get angry and upset. But why?
--
Even though we love to complain about something we are all too familliar with, we don't truly dispise this exhausting routine. It may sound boring when you count up the regular steps of your everday life- but in the end, you can smile and say "I wouldnn't trade anything for it in the world." because you realise, things are fine just the way they are.

Artlet

In our daily, stress filled lives we all need an outlet, something to lessen the pressure of work and duty every once in a while.
Some like to go on relaxing walks, some like to jog away their frustration, and others take to a -lazier- less taxing activity, like drawing.
I belong to the /lazier/ last group.
Drawing is like getting sucked into another dimension, I think this can be said about any other outlet you may have, though. You become unaware to your surroundings, but definitely not in a bad way [most of the time].
I think it's also important to not have "Watching tv-shows/movies, playing computer games" as a stress-release. (Haha I think I need to take my own advice sometimes).
I have a friend who is absolutely in love with photography. She loves escaping to the vast outskirts of towns, venturing into the woods and secluded areas. I wish I enjoyed that too, but the ticks in the woods, and the silence in a meadow would kill me eventually.

Gerascophobia

Today I was able to contact a very dear friend of mine whom I've known ....since I was born!
Even though our discussion didn't last for as long as I'd wanted it to, it was definitely encouraging and helpful. We talked mostly about the future- what we expect, as well as hopes and dreams for our own futures.
(Although this might contradict my previous post, I'll push on anyway..) In about a month, I'm going to be 18- another milestone to add in the archives. I'm finding it more and more difficult to accept that I'm reaching this "independent, responsibility-prone"- age, Hey, I might be having a teenage-crisis (ha-ha). My big concern is what I'm going to do with my future, (again, this contradicts my previous post), I've always been a headstrong girl, knowing what, where and when, knowing what I would do next.
I suspect I've been shielding this anxiety from myself for quite a while, but since I can't be a little girl anymore, it's been showing itself bit by bit lately.
My plans have always been to complete high school and move straight into university.
Unfortunately for me, there are gazillions of universities I have to pick through, and even more courses to study.
My priorities have been shifting around lately, and now I have no idea what I want anymore. Can it be that I'm a Hypengyophobiac (fear of responsibility) or Maybe I have Gerascophobia...(fear of aging).

the Battle of time

Something struck me a few seconds ago.
It compelled me to run back to my hibernating laptop and start writing this very post.
I realised that today was Thursday (already!), which meant that I only have another 3½ days of doing whatever I want all day. Sleeping and waking up whenever I feel tired and energized. This thought left me extremely stressed up and miserable. How am I going to make up for lost time once school starts again?
Granted that we only have another 4 months of school until Summer vacation kicks in, there is still a lot of work (at least on my part), to do before I can kick back and relax. I have mock exams in May, projects to work on before that and numerous tests I have to do well on in between. Before I know it, the Summer is going to pass by like a gust of wind tugging at my scarf in late autumn and a year from now, I'll be taking my mock exams once again, and only a month later- my real finals.
After that I'll be ready to shoot off to university.
My head starts spinning once I think about my future, and I tend to do so- oh every once in a while.
While I rush through all these thoughts, running them through over and over, my mother will console me, as she always does. To get to step 3 I have to pass step 1 and 2. "Why not focus on what's going on NOW?"

These days, people are much too stressed about what will happen in the future, that they tend to forget about what's going on now.
A student will worry about his or her job in the future, forgetting about their studies now.
A woman in her prime years will worry about her tiny grays peering out,that she will forget that she's beautiful just the way she is.
A parent will worry about how fast their child is growing,how to pay for their child's college funds and will miss their early days as adorable pudgy toddlers.
No matter what, we all worry about what will come. That's only human.
But what we need to do every once in a while; is to pull the emergency lever of the accelerating train, take a step back, and realise what we are missing. Maybe the train has been going so fast that, if we hadn't pulled that lever, we would never have seen the beautiful sunset just outside the window.
Maybe you would even have missed this beautiful spring in Japan-->

Over the years...!

Yay I managed to spiffy up my blog a bit.
I've realised that I've changed a lot over the years. (Wow big surprise, I know).
I managed to get hold of some pictures from a few years back...2005! Who would've known I would still be as girly today. Hah I can't believe I was just 14 there.. I think this was during my "MORNING MUSUME ROCKS MY WORLD"-phase.

I think most people have some kind of "phase" that they, after a few years- look back at and laugh, when only a few years earlier, they would've found it completely sound and definitely not something to laugh about.
<-- 2007
I've also learned that, as you "grow older" (I sound like a middle-aged lady now), you tend to forget about "fitting in", following "the norm". I guess you turn into a salmon...? They swim against the current. (Oh yes, another lame simile)- but you'll learn to appreciate it.
I think that for once I can admit that I'm quite happy with every single factor of my life. Puberty is definitely no joke- but we all learn something through it.

As I consoled a friend in need, I realised, not only was my blurted-out-crap creative, it was to an extent pretty true. As a teenager you tend to follow the mainstream groups, stereotype yourself and "jump off a bridge with the others"- if you will. But after the first.. 4 (?) years of teenage life, when you're "almost all grown up -sob sob-", you've evolved into someone almost completely different.
I used to be quite introverted in middle school, mostly because I hated it there, kids could be so cruel. Especially when it came down to peer pressure. If you weren't "one of them" you were better off at a freak show. When I find myself thinking of those 3 years of literal hell, I feel a sense of pride. What did they have that I didn't have? I used to think to myself, but now I've grown to realise it wasn't what they had, it was what I had. Determination.
I also learned to pity those kids that I used to, pretty much, hate. It wasn't necessarily because of their personalities that they were bullies, it was because of their weaknesses.
2009-->
I still see some of these kids that I so intently used to despise. I couldn't be any more indifferent to them today, but I also notice that they're pretty much as they used to be. Under peer pressure, wearing the latest clothes (even if they look hideous in them), the same over-done make-up and using those fake voices. It's a shame that they won't come out from under that polished, "perfected" shell.

Something that my parents always used to console me with was,
"You have 3 years with these people, you've showed them where you stand, and that you have a mind of your own. After the 3 years are up, you won't ever have to put up with them again. You're in school for one reason, securing a proper education for your future. Anything else can go to hell."

The G word!

I am currently obsessed with Gordon Ramsay's shows!!
Everytime he has one of his fits is just, the highlight of the show. I can't help it-really. Especially Hell's Kitchen <3333333333
So yes, shout out to Gordon Ramsay, the hottest chef out there right now.

Technology

Have you ever thought how lazy people actually are? (in general of course)This is something I've always been pondering about. Why do we have technology? Why do we have phones to call people instead of going to see them and talk to them. Well first of all it's practical, rather than marching half-way across the globe to Australia taking what, 5 years? I can take a flight and be there in about 20 hours. What I find ironic is that people would say "20 hours on a flight is way too long-why do I have to spend almost an entire day on a flight?" Well if you rather take a boat that would get you there in 6 months, go ahead. But then again, nowadays people have made such enormous progress in the discovery within technology that time is the most precious thing. Time and money.
And making the most money in the smallest amount of time.
Ramble ramble ramble~~

New Year New Year

Finally, year 2008 has come to an end.
Evaluation: In the year that has finally come to its end I've definitely endured a lot of pain and drama- I could probably enlist this year as one of the worst ones yet. In early 2008 I was addicted to an online game- which led to an all-time loooow in my grades and by the time I managed to untangle myself from the game, it was too late to fix my failing grades. I doubted myself too many times this year- I shed way too many tears than necessary, I think I've shed every single (negative) kind of tear there is to shed. Towards the summer I indulged myself in golf- golf and golf. Things were starting to look brighter but then- he came along and ruined a few weeks of my holiday. My best friend was out of town for 5 weeks and by the time she got back I was gone for 2- for the first time in a very long time: I was unable to meet up with her, and as she had no access to Internet whatsoever I had no way of interacting with her over the break.
End of August- school started again, I had worked my butt off the last week before the beginning of term to do a second test in math and physics for my school grades- fortunately I got rather high marks and was able to pick up from where I had left things.
Some subjects went well, some were decent.
And then..
Well- all hell broke loose. I let myself get carried away too many times, behaving like a spoiled brat and blind to all surroundings, I lost a good friend, and also- momentarily- my only best friend.
I dwelled in my past and felt alone and cast-aside while I was actually surrounded by people who cared and loved me.
I wanted my knight in shining armour to whisk me off my feet- but at what costs?

Looking back- I believe I've learned a lot from this year, but unfortunately I had to learn all that first-hand.. I hope 2009 brings me more joy than sorrow, and that I will be able to use the knowledge I gained from past mistakes.
I hope that I won't be as irrational and naive as I was last year.
Happy New Year. About time the new one came along..