mickan in world

 Just read through my last entry and read about what I called a temporary break.. well.. though long; here I am again. Haven't given the blogg a thought for six months but suddenly there was time and the thought came crawling into my mind. Of course by now the blogg has lost all it's few readers.. truth be told I only wrote for you guys for a short while in the beginning.. I've written this largely for myself.. ego as I am.. but if you ever come to read this.. well, hello!

Since I last wrote, wow, the world has turned, the sky tumbled falling, the sea rose and the stars fell... and it all deposited me where I started: In Båstad. Nothing and everything..

My life this first year at Trinity has been so hectic, so active and so mindblowing that I don't even know if i did anything at all.. I know so many people that I don't even know where they came from.. 74 new "friends" on facebook.. haha lives are measured in facebook cause it shows the content of lives on display..

.. why are people never content.? Or are we only content when we're truly loved? I'm lucky to have friends and family.. If I had them close that would have been all I need...sometimes I find myself longing for something else... then I go for a jog and the sky is blue, the water is glittering down by the foot of the hill, it's downwards sloping and I put my arms out and fly and there is nothing missing in my life.. I can't wait to go to Jämtland with Naomi and Fia.. two best friends and the most beautiful nature on earth.. and all there is to do is talking and excersising.. I need it to function.

If I could wish for one thing in my life right now it would be a little romance.. a fling.. But I'm working to much to have time for it.. I never have time for it..

I wonder if it will take me six months to write again..

The gap in writing that has occured is not due to a lack in living. Rather the opposite actually. I was pondering the end of this blogg for a little while. Felt too busy living life to write it. But I'll give it another chance....

So much has happened since I last wrote I don't now where to start... maybe just here:

Current whereabouts: Trinity Halls, Dublin, Hillary Term Freshman Year BESS Trinity College.
Current activities: Coking lasagna and writing my blogg while simultainiously trying to do my statistics homework.
Current mood: Bright, getting frequent happy-vibes from being at the absolut best place and best time I can possibly think of.
Curent Health: Splendid apart from aching muscles from boxing and football.
Future prospects: Having a bunch of people over for lasagna and celebrating Henry's birthday, football game tomorrow, London with dad next weekend.

Mixed feelings in leaving Sweden on New Years Eve. I had an amazing holiday, everything I could've wished for. FAMILY, time-off. reading the newspaper and I met up with basically every FRIEND I could think of. What more can one ask? Oh, maybe ice skating, got that too!!

Linda, Jossan, Vicki and I came over here for New Years and we had a few days of party and pleasure in this the city of cities. The Bergholtz sisters left on the 4th and me and Linda headed north for a splendid weekend being the Bells in Belfast City. Despite of pityfull weather, overcome by wellies, we enjoyed ourselves like kings and eachothers complany like sisters. It was really sad to say good bye to her on Sunday.. but hopefully I'll see her for easter.

This week has been hectic, filled with party, boxing and already a shitload of work in College.. already left behind I feel. But I got two of my exams back and I am more than pleased by the result which keept my spirits up.
On Monday i tok my bike to school for the first time and it was brilliant! Saved half an hour in every direction.
On Thursday the bike was stolen. Eventhough parked and chained to a pole on a busy street someone managed to knick it. Little naive Swedish girl, who hardly even locks her bike at home , was confronted with foreign reality. And it made me angry!!! Argh,..... still boiling!

Well, well.. yesterday I took it easy and watched a movie with Hanna and today I have a bunch of people over for lasagna and celebrating Henry's B-day. Hitting the bottle and the town tonight. Yeha!

Now.. back to statistics..

I am going through a very confusing fit.. I keep loosing everyhthing, and forgetting things and I find my thoughts escaping to the most unlikely of places... are my cups falling out of the cupboard?

head in the clouds....

... might it have something to do with me studying 24-7?

On the topic of seriousness: It might be lacking at times but it is absolutely inevitable if success at Trinity is the aim. Things might look, feel and even smell like a dance on valleys of roses but there in the end it is only hard work that will pull you through. Reason for these words of wisdom: two weeks until exams. Gah!
Reasons for gasp: four hours of studying Business... yawn.
Reason for yawn: yawn.

It's been a good but relatively studyish week.

Monday held hours in the library and boxing. I'm pondering over my Sociology essay.. I'm writing on different theories of the masculin dominance in society, mainly Marxist theories and it really is rather interesting but "How do you wright an essay in University in Ireland!?".. hm, a question that needs answering..
I didn't do very well in boxing, mind distracted.. not a good move in boxing, aouch.

Tuesday was actually rather lovely... I didn't have soccer so I was home early and then I actually had a... humdidum... date. You can spare your questions (if you have any) cause I'm not gonna answer them I just wanted to point out that even single girls have a little romance... and a quite nice time... *cheeky smile...

Wednesday; More boxing and attempted studying...

Thursday: Hang out at Naomi's and Fia's for hours, had exquisit broccoli-cheese pasta made by Naomi and dessert from Fia's café. Then off to the Celt; hugged by ambiance, music warmth and friends; the Celt will always be my Dublin haven... providing a break from life, the universe and everything.

College, then Tesco (grocery shopping) and four hours of studying business constituted the first part of my Friday. Now I'm off to make meatballs for Naomi and Fia. A night in over movies, meatballs, popcorn, gossip and Bailey's is the plan. Heavon is a place nearby.. Tomorrow's football tournament makes for an easy night tonight...

On the matter of nothing: I have to work on my pokerface.

By the way: Travelling parents; stay away from Marijhuana, maffia and dodgy lambchops.. and Enjoy!!!

Life's picked up the pace since I last wrote. I didn't think it was possible but now time is moving in f(x)=3x^7 or whatever power function you can think of. I am tremendously happy but sometimes I just have to sit down, close my eyes for ten seconds and breath.. just breath.. "Suck in the air!" as my boxing coach says it.

Monday held just boxing. I went back to the boxing gym for the first time and sparred against the coach. It was really fun! Right now we are two girls in the boxing club and about 40 or so boys.. intriguing. We'll see how it goes. The other girl (Yvette ) is lovely so we'll train together. I hope to go my first fight sometime in January (now don't gasp too much, girls don't punch too hard and I will be no Million Dollar Baby). But it made my day that the coach thought I was good (he even said I was fit haha!). Took an easy night and tended my bruises (again joke haha).

Tuesday was football practice and studying. Wanted to save up time, energy and money because both Regina and Maria was over visiting this weekend. Great craic! I'll get back to that.

Woke up Wednesday to awful, Irish rain.. pouring down. Studied all morning and then went into College to play Maynooth in the first game of the University Cup. Very important game. It was a semi-fun game in the rain but I played okay and we won 4-0. Not too bad after all. That means we are now in the quarter final.

I went home for changing and showering and then back in again to meet up with Regina at the Celt. Great to have her over!!! And to see her in her right backdrop at the Celt. Smiling like a sun and with the whole room's attention. It is a shame she had to move back to Switzerland right before I moved over. We had a great night at the Celt with Anja and Marina, good old gang back together.

Thursday was long and tiring as Thursdays are here. But Maria coming over was a big plus. We made spaghetti Bolognese and caught up on old times. Then of course off to the Celt with a good crowd. I almost have to start keeping the Celt a secret, cause once you brought someone along for a Thursday it's hard to ever loose them. As it is now it's almost hard to hear the music. But of course good too. Conor was there and the whole Hounds of Chulainn, Regina, Maria.. just like passed times a year ago and I enjoyed it. Maria and I had ourselves a bit of a dance at Doyles on the way home. Another "local"; it's getting fairly obvious which my favourite bars are...

Friday I was dead tired after a busy week.. Maria and I went to the Pav for the usual Friday hang-out and people joined one after the other after their last lecture. After a while we were a good bunch of friends.. Really nice tradition, so relaxing, just very, very nice. It came to a good few hours.

We were all quite knackered so Hanna, Maria, Jenny, Christine and I decided to take a night in. We got some nice Friday food at Dunnes and settled for a traditional Swedish Friday dinner; tacos! Haven't had tacos since I came and it was lovely. Then we watched Constant Gardner (God, I love that movie!) and thus all was well.

Saturday I spent a good few hours over Math. It is difficult. I recognize some stuff from Math C in Hersby but that was one and a half years ago and this is much more complicated. I will make it but it will take some serious work. It's not helping that most of the Irish already did this in high school and therefore the teacher is going fast as crazy. Amandine, my Belgian friend, comforted me by saying that the stuff (Differentiation) we're doing this week they took 3 months learning in high school. Don't know if that is comforting or not?

Well, Maria and I went into town and we caught half an hour of the boxing championship that's on in Trinity this weekend. Barry, Conor's brother was fighting for UCD and we got to see him win. Then Maria went off to meet up a friend and I met up with Conor over coffee. Got to see his new teeth; he can take them out and put them back in again. Very fascinating!

Saturday night was the last night of the big Fresher's theatre production that the theatre society puts up every year so a bunch of us arranged to go see it. I met up with my friend Pranesh and we defeated the rain to go see the Co-op as it's called. Really good comedy, everyone are beginners and there is a lot of improvisation and hilarious, unexpected sketches. I laughed my head off when suddenly, in the middle of a scene this guy walks on in nothing but a towel and says "I was just looking for the showers, have anyone seen them?"

The Co-op was on until rather late and afterwards all of us headed to Doyles. We had a great night! Good crowd, good friends, good music... the only down was me falling down the stairs to the bathroom. This was before I had a single beer! Tried and failed heals one might say. It came to quite a late night..

Sunday morning was throbbing and rainy. I did laundry and drank a lot of water. I went into College to catch some of the finals in the boxing and then I had soccer practice. Met up with Regina to say goodbye, she's leaving tomorrow, and then went grocery shopping (very much needed). Now I have some more maths to do and practice my presentation for tomorrows Business seminar. I am very tired...

Tomorrow is Monday.

Yesterday they turned on the Christmas lights at Grafton Street. It is very pretty. They tell me that I will see you all in not to long.

Even the good can be a bit too much at times. Old Swedish saying. In my meaning very much true. Even lovely Dublin can be a bit much after a while. Too much fumes, too much studies, too much of the same people and too much running around, too crowded Luas and too much to do. Then you take a break and when you're back again you remember why you love it so much.

This week is reading week (no lectures or tutorials) so Hanna and I thought we'd take the chance to get out of town for a bit. We got an invitation to Westport to stay with our friend Eòin (pronounced Owen) and to go to the Oireachtas na Gealge (Irish festival). Very tempting indeed and we thought why not?

Westport is five hours away by bus on the complete other side of Ireland, namely on the west coast. It is a boggy, beauty of a land with marshes, sheep and windling roads. There is also the Croagh Padraig, the holy mountain, where St. Patric pondered religeuse matters and which Irish pilgrims climb barefoot. Someday I'll climb it, but this time there was not enough time.

We arrived late Friday and met up with Eòin who took us straight to a concert with the blablabla Cajun Band(?). Great craic! The festival promotes Irish language and it took about ten minutes before this artsy looking guy came up to me and Hanna and started jabbering away in Irish. This happens at times and it is always a bit of a mess because in the noisy room it is darn hard to hear if people are speaking Irish or just some heavily accented English. It's not really polite to go: "Excuse me, but what language are you speaking?". Evidently Hanna and myself started speaking Swedish to eachother (thought that would make him realize we didn't understand nada) which just rendered him very impressed at the level of Irish we were at; he didn't understand a thing. After a while we overcame our communicational difficulties; when we all finally understood that English was the shit, and Hanna and I realized that he wanted to interview us for some TV-thing. So if you happen to put on Irish TV one day, just look out for us, ok?

The rest of the night was a blast. When the blablabla Cajun band (!?) where through we headed to the pub and had us some lovely Bulmers and gossip with Eòins hillarious bud Thomas and then the four of us headed for the one club in town: Mojo. The mojo was on at Mojo and we got the grow going to disco beats and old goodies. At 4 o'clock we found ourselves happily exhausted in Eòin's kitchen eating pizza and massaging our feet.

In the morning we woke up to find the family gathered around the breakfast table. Eòin's mum cooked full Irish breakfast and we smiled like little suns at everything and everyone. In town the festival was on with a barreldancing competition, which basically is: So you think you can dance?" ....In that case try doing it on a barrel. With the one difference that the contestants could actually dance. Traditional dancing of course. 

Hanna and I went for a coffee at a lovely little coffee shop and as we sat there giggling about who comes in but not Eòin's ex. boyfriend and his new boyfriend. We were readily introduced earlier on so we had a nice chatt, and then Eòin joined us and the laugh was on.

After dinner at Eòin's grandma's (I miss my grandma!!!) he took us for a ride around town. A bit of a drive and then down to the harbour. Westport surely is very pretty. Hanna and I was presented with the choice of pub or mass for the hour to come. We chose pub (don't judge us) and had a real good time at Matt Molloys. Another concert was on at Hotel Westport and Eòin got us in for free. This one was absolutely amazing and we were spellbound for two hours eventhough most was in Irish.

To finish off the weekend and the festival there was a big bash at the Plaza hotel. As usual Eòin got us in for free and the craic really was on. There was a trad band and Cailie (trad Irish dancing) and we picked up the steps rather fast. It was such amazing fun and we danced and danced until our feet were beaten, brused and aching. I couldn't stop smiling.

Sunday held a boggy walk and a long journey home. It is good to be back though in my little room at Halls. I've gotten a fair bit done today and I had a good boxing practice. Taking it easy tonight because we have a game tomorrow. Wednesday mum is coming over. It will be so good to see her, can hardly wait!

Oh, just remembered I've forgotten to wright about Halloween. But too tired now. I was Superwoman and we had a good laugh.

Some words of wisdom:

Do remember to forgett
all your worries and regretts.
Live while you have life to live,
give while you have love to give.

Dear diary,

It's been a while since I wrote last and that can be explained only by the lack of time I'm experiencing at the moment. As you know I love being busy and keeping occupied, and thus I am not too anxious about my current situation, the truth is though that I am glad the weekend's here so that I can enjoy some much deserved rest.

This week has held much leisure but also a fair bit of work. My tutorials have begun and I must admit that even though they only amount to four extra hours they made the week a fair bit busier. I am also struggling to keep up with the reading; it is not too hard, it's just quite a lot and it takes time. Time is precious.

As I mentioned before it's been quite a lovely week despite the fleeing time.

On Sunday the sun was shining bright and I felt I needed a brake from the city's hazzle and noise. Hanna and I took the opportunity to take the Dart out to Howth. We enjoyed a lovely excursion and some exercise and after a brisk climb we enjoyed a succulent picnic on the hilltop gazing out over the rough Irish sea.

Monday held a bit of an indoor party (as in not leaving the house) with my housemates, something we have all come to enjoy sincerely. But it was Tuesday which held the event we've all been waiting for: The Freshers Ball. It wasn't a formal gathering in the sense that a gown was required, but it was an amazing party at Tripod, a top Dublin venue, with amazing bands and a great TCD crowd. I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though the pre-party was almost as good with our whole bunch in house 80.

Even though I was not too spunky on Wednesday I was still in a sari. Actually a quite nice costume for my friends birthday fancy-dress party. I had a bindi and everything. That night wasn't too heavy though since the Warden broke up the party at 23.15. I wasn't that sad about it to be honest...

Yesterday was a Thursday and what is a Thursday without a pint at the Celt? Before heading out though, me and Henry, an English friend, actually hosted a small dinner for some friends form here. I made an exquisite broccoli gratin and Henry performed magic with chicken. Succulent!

Today held something very special. I don't know if you are familiar with Ian Paisley but over here you wouldn't find anyone who doesn't know who he is. He is the first minister of Northern Ireland and quite an outspoken unionist (not a big fan of the Republic of Ireland that is). Well, he was speaking at Trinity which is quite a big thing since he's only set foot in the Republic twice before. And I was there! It was all thanks to Clare (my roommate) who got lucky and got a ticket in the draw (demand not equal to supply), but she couldn't go so I got her ticket. It was really interesting although I thought it would be a little more bloodshed (figuratively speaking of course), everyone was remarkably civil. But as the bloke beside me stated: "These are new times. If this was held a couple of years ago there would surely be at least one bomb in the room." Don't be scared parents; the security was rigorous, Ian Paisley even brought his own crew of life guards (there were more than 10 of them).

As a contrast, afterwards I went to the Pav (College bar) and met up with a whole bunch of my friends. It's funny we haven't even known each other a month, we get along great. Speaking of great: Things in general are great. Great, great, great! Great.

Have a great time now friends!

It doesn't take very long in a new place before you start to make out some future "patterns" for what it's gonna be like. Take my schedule for example; It onlu took one week to make out that I'm gonna hate Thursdays. I'm in at nine and have one tutorial and then four lectures in a row including Math & Stat and two hours of Economics in the same lecture theatre.. mon dieu! And that's just before lunch...But that'll probably be the day I hang at the Pav (Pavilion Bar, college pub, right y the sports fields) and catch up with the classmates over cheap cans of beer.

That's roughly how this Thursday looked anyway. But I had an extra soccer practice too (so much fun!!!) and then I met up with Hanna at the Pav, had a few cans with some engineering students and then headed over to meet up with Naomi and Fia at the Celt for the usual Thursday pint and music. A pint later Hanna and I decided to go to a student party at th Citi Bar. Really good fun appart from two things: 1. The music. Irish clubs still play Vengaboys and Sean (da) Paul. 2. Two euro tequila (well it was great fun at the time but waking up for my Math & Stat class Friday morning wasn't pleasurable). After getting a bit sick of lemon and salt we headed over to appartement 14 in house 30 of Trinity Halls, cause that's where it's all happening apparantly (atleast we keep ending up there).

Friday held a non wanted morning but I got up and actually kept awake and on my toes the whole of my one lecture. Then I went and bought the Economics book which broke my heart and dug a deep hole in my wallet. It did make up for it a bit in the first chapter though, which I spent most of the day reading, where I learnt that: "The opportunity cost of more goods and services in the future is less consumption today." Which in extent means: Buy and read the bloody book and you'll earn loads of money in the future (ain't that right Hugo and Bengan?). It better keep what it promises cause it was darn expensive!

In the afternoon I had an hour with my precious little sister before she returned to the land of our ancestors (eh, Sweden that is). We had a lovely time over giant Mocha mugs on Starbuck's (her treat) and discussed all things homey. It was quite sad to say good bye (eventhough we are killer e-mail wrighters) I wont see her til Christmas.

I had a big task to performe on Friday aswell. An ancient task. I had to get food. Empty, empty cupboards equalls empty, empty stomach, didn't have to study Math to figure that out. So I went to Tesco and did some major shoping. Draging home vegetables, fruit and tins for a whole week almost killed me though, much more work than the boxing actually.

And then I had a dinner party for Naomi, Fia and Hanna. Made mum's famous lasagna and it was thuroughly apprecieted by the half starved student/ hostel habitants.

Very niiiice and then we watched movies in house 30 (surprisingly). I'm starting to see the pattern of who my friends will be too.

Love love love

Today I studied and Naomi came by.