Californication

This is pretty much how I imagine my mini-vacation to The Golden State – a night in Vegas, a couple of days in LA (where my priority is getting sprinkled with some fairy dust at the happiest place in the world) and then a couple of relaxing days – including what I am expecting to be an amazing 4th of July celebration in San Diego. Best of all? A whole week with the smartest, funniest and probably coolest person in the state! Can’t wait!

By the way, ever heard of those kinds of people who plan ahead? You know, the ones who actually know what they’re going to do next summer? I wish someone would donate one of those to be my vacation-planner. I mean, who the hell buys a transatlantic plane ticket two weeks before leaving? And keeps changing her mind about time of departure up until the minute she presses buy? And who is now thinking the whole “getting to the airport on time thing” might become a bit of a stress factor, I’m talking minutes margin here... Oh well, nothing to do about that now!

Oh and lastly, is it only me or is Red Hot Chilli Peppers like the official California mood setter band? All their songs sound like hot sun and hot surfing duds…

Relaxing working weekend

I think I might like pink – and tea…

Today I slept late, I know, call the newspapers! I used to be able to sleep all day, I love sleeping, it’s one of my greatest skills, but lately (more exactly since I moved to this light bulb of an apartment) I can’t sleep past 6 in the morning, so right now I’m celebrating every time I sleep past 8. The celebration for sleeping to 9.30 this morning was some really great banana pancakes.

The recipe is very easy – unless you don’t have any sugar or buttermilk or enough wheat flour… But being the stubborn person that I am I made some changes and voila – banana pancakes! So here goes.

^{100 gram wheat flour}

^{100 gram spelled flour}

^{3 tablespoons muscovado sugar}

^{2 teaspoons baking powder}

^{½ teaspoon salt}

^{350 ml milk (it might be better with just 300ml)}

^{25g melted butter}

^{2 eggs}

^{Half a banana}

Mix the dry ingredients together and ad the wet ingredients. Don’t mix too much and don’t use an electric whisk, you can actually just use a fork – and don’t worry about the lumps, they actually make better (fluffier) pancakes. Bake on a skillet – turn when the top side is filled with small holes and looks like a sponge (hmm, there must be a better way to describe that…). A word of caution – as you’re doing several pancakes at once (I have room for two or three on my skillet), don’t try the “flip in the air” maneuver… Oh yeah! The banana goes in (cut up in small pieces of course!) just before you turn the pancakes on the skillet!

Well then, I guess that’s my contribution to your relaxing weekend. Now I need to get ready, cause some of us won’t spend the weekend lazing around in our PJ’s – oh no, some of us have to tend to sick kids and worried parents. Gosh I’m glad that’s me!    

Happy days – are here to stay…

Two dear friends have graduated as doctors in two different countries less than a week apart and I’ve been lucky enough to share that with both of them. Apart from that I’ve met a beautiful baby girl, caught up with a high school friend (her mother) and spent some well needed quality time with mom and dad. All in all a really great week though with some really horrible weather, I guess it’s to be expected in Sweden.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about things that make me happy and I’ve actually kept the positive attitude going and thought of things almost on a daily basis. It’s not like I didn’t notice it before, but it gives me a little rush to find these things in really random otherwise mundane situations. So here goes, some more tricks to get me happy.

Falling asleep with my head on my moms tummy – I know, I’m 28 (ghaa!) but this is like heaven to me.

Getting out of wet shoes and into warm socks.

Holding, cuddling and just being near babies, it melts my heart and makes me believe in fairies again. I don’t think I’ve ever been sad or unhappy whiles holding a baby.

The first bite of a really good chees pupusa (it’s like a tortilla with filling and it’s marvelous!).

Walking from the plane to the arrival hall in Arlanda Airport – they have these pictures up of famous Swedish people and I always get the first feeling of coming home right there.

 

Three things I’ll always associate with Sweden – moms tortillas (or pupusas), really good strawberries and “studenten” (high school graduation!).

Get ready for it

“I came to win, to survive, to prosper, to rise – to fly”

Indeed, things falling into place does feel like flying.

A couple of months ago I mentioned a letter I had to write to the University of Copenhagen, a letter motivating why they should accept me on this course that’s very important for me to get on. I’ve heard it sometimes might be hard to get in because it’s quite a popular course and it has people coming from different countries, so I was a bit nervous about not getting in – but I did! I found out a while back and now the admission fee has been paid and I’m officially going! I only need to figure out the living situation in Copenhagen for the three weeks in august – but let’s not focus on the problematic stuff.

The topic of the course is “International Health” and it’s all part of a bigger plan that’s been growing in my mind for many years now. Over the last couple of months I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want and what I’m doing to get it. In the career department I’m on the right track, but on the personal department I’m definitely lagging behind, I’m not where I thought I’d be at all and I’ve been feeling quite sad about that. The thing I realized though is that when I say “personal department” everybody, including myself, assume I’m talking about a future family – and it’s a fair assumption, but it’s not completely true. I’ve always imagined myself traveling more, working abroad, and contributing where I can, right now I think that part of the personal side is missing. I haven’t focused on it for so long that I almost forgot it was there. All those thoughts resulted in me applying to the course and writing what appears to have been a kick ass motivational letter! I’ll share an abstract from it with you…

I was born in El Salvador to parents that during my early childhood were forced to become political refugees and move to Sweden. Though not having experienced the turbulence firsthand, my parents did raise me knowing the consequences of war and making me aware of how poverty, political instability and lack of proper healthcare can affect people’s life. Growing up knowing this I determined early on that if I could, I would one day try and help people in these circumstances. Being a doctor I now feel I can do just that.

Hotter than a pepper sprout

I’m not sure you know how hot a pepper sprout is – my sister does after our last visit to a Thai (?) restaurant – but I imagine it’s nothing compared to how hot it is right now in my apartment. All windows are opened. I’m wearing a thin loose cotton shirt and underwear, that’s it, I can’t handle more and I’m still waaaay too hot. The best part of this place is definitely the light – the worst, the windows without drapes. I thought I’d found a spot on the hardwood floor in the hall for a while, but now that spot is also drenched in sunlight and I’m considering moving into the bathroom, preferably the shower. I know you’re not supposed to bitch about the sun in these parts of the world, in a matter of minutes it can be gone and it can start snowing (well maybe not snowing, but you know what I mean…), but I’ve always said spring is my time of the year – bright, warm and without risk for hyperthermia.

Still, there are some great things about this time of year, among other things the overwhelming amount of green. These are some of the greens and blues I’ve seen the last couple of days – and a bowl of “koldskål” which I really can’t explain what is, but it’s good and it’s refreshing!

Sunny side up

I’m really good at focusing on the negatives – I remember when I wrote for the university paper we had a whole page dedicated to bitching about everything and anything. I never had a problem contributing, then at some point we figured we needed a page for everything that was great – and let’s just say we used a quite bigger font on that page…

So today while on the bus to work I started thinking about the things that make me happy – and to my surprise I wrote for the whole bus ride and there was just an endless stream of tiny beautiful things that make my heart swell and my lips curve. I thought I’d share some of them with you.

The smell of newly cut grass, or wet pavement

Spending an entire day reading a really good book – forgetting to eat, drink or shower!

Getting an IV in on a really difficult (that means chubby, wriggly and uncooperative) tiny human

Baking something really tricky and succeeding – I have to admit, I do a little dance in the kitchen every single time just to celebrate!

Hearing my daddy laugh really really hard

Brunch with my girls!!

Laughing with my sister – this very often include sharing one set of headphones, singing out of tune, laughing at other people and to some extend being really mean with each other…

Oh, well – I’ll share some more at another time. I have to get back to my Mad Men episode! (And yes, still at work hoping that all kids in the surrounding areas are safely tucked into bed and don’t wake up until tomorrow after eight!)

A month in a minute

One month down and not even close to insane. I must say, I’m just a little tiny bit proud of myself. I am however extremely annoyed with the store that has my computer – they said up to three weeks for the repair, and that was last week, and I still have no clue as to when they might return it to me.

In the meantime I’ve been missing writing and blogging – it’s weird how you get used to it, writing about your day and your thoughts. It gives a kind of outlet for all the thoughts that otherwise just get stuck in your head for days on end. It’s also a very good distraction from the rain…

Well, let’s see if I can summarise shortly the last month – work, shopping, seeing friends, work, celebrate my birthday, hours of skyping with my sister, work, planning trips that don’t result to anything and work some more. I guess that’s pretty much it. The best part is not freaking out about my birthday. I think I did for my 25^th and I was afraid I would again, but I’ve been way to busy and there as been way too many other things to freak out about that turning 28 just wasn’t that big of a deal. I always get a bit sentimental around my birthday; I miss my family and having someone that goes out of his way to make it a nice day. Sometimes I get that panicked feeling of time running out or having missed so much in my life that I can’t get back again, but this year wasn’t that bad. I know I keep underestimating my friends and I know I shouldn’t and that it probably even is a bit insulting to them – but I was so utterly surprised when they decided to come over for dinner on a regular Tuesday to celebrate me. I didn’t want to do anything because I know people are busy and I don’t want my birthday to be an extra stress factor, but they wanted to come and I guess that makes them wonderful friends and me an ungrateful “don’t-know-what-you-have”- bitch, but what else is new?

Anyway, we had a wonderful evening with girl-talk and some wine and I felt like a young girl of 25. I can’t even believe I once freaked out about turning 25 – what a stupid little girl I was, luckily now I’m a mature sensible woman of 28!

Smile if you've found your way

Comparing these last few days with the last couple of weeks is like comparing day and night. I walk out of the hospital with a smile on my face every afternoon, I wake up before my alarm goes off in the mornings and feel rested and ready for a new day, I read in my peadiatrics book twice a day for about 45 minutes and I just keep finding things I want to know more about. It's amazing and also quite new to me. I've always liked my job, sometimes even a lot - but this just feels right you know? I'm aware of the fact that I've bare been there two weeks, but still, I don't think it'll change, I think this is it, it's what I'm supposed to do. Just wanted to check in and here and make sure it didn't look like I'd been hammered completely to the ground by the hard weeks I had before. I won't be able to write a lot though cause I finally had to face facts and get my computer to the mechanics again - hopefully they'll keep her and give me a new one - but for the time being I'm laptop-less. It's quite the experiment I've got going here actually - no laptop, no tv and no lights, any body want to bet on how long before I officially go insane?

A bright future

Ever heard the saying (well song actually, but still…) “the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades”? Well my apartment is so bright I’m seriously considering putting my sunglasses on to just sit in my living room – I’m taking it as a sign that the future I’ve started in this place is going to be fabulous, and trying to ignore the fact that it’s causing me a migraine…

Oh and no, the chairs don’t usually stand that close together but I needed a kind of chaiselong while trying to sit as close to the balcony without actually having to go out into the eye of the storm that usually blows up here, and this turned out to be a pretty good solution – that’s until the future decided to blind me…

The second act

The last two weeks have been like a trip to hell and back. I know people go thru worse, trust me I see them go thru it on a daily basis – but still, for me this was a really crappy time and it’s stupid that I feel like I need to defend that.

The thing about changes is that you get a really good look at what’s constant. Every time my life turns a new corner and I feel like everything is changing I realize I’m almost always dealing with the same or very similar things as last time. It’s both uplifting and devastating, depending on the constant. Never ever having things in order on time, having to depend on other people to help me out and always feeling indescribably alone – it’s devastating. Always managing to get things done somehow, finding someone who can and will help and realizing I’m only as alone as I want to be – very uplifting. The second part just takes a little more effort to get too, I need to keep reminding myself that it does come and to not jump off a cliff (or walk in to the woods as my sister and I say…) after part one.

Today was the first day without unpacking and without boxes everywhere, the first day of me officially just living here – and also the first time I had a guest, I guess you can call this the start of part two.

Supressing the bitch in me

There are so many different aspects and roles to play in this one job that even though I thought I had seriously considered it before going in there really is no way to be prepared. You know that people are going to expect a lot from you, and that what they expect still can’t reach what you expect from yourself. You know that there will be horrible losses, horrible mistakes and tragedies in your proximity on a nearly daily basis – sometimes even caused by or at least not prevented by you. You know you will feel inadequate at least a couple of times a week – or being in a very competent surrounding, a couple of times a day. You know you need to have patience, with yourself, your colleagues and you patients. You will have to take a reprimand, fair or unfair, from a superior and try and turn it into a lesson you can use in the future. You will have to take shit, yours or others, and bite your tongue, swallow your nasty retort along with your tears and move on to the next patient.

Today I had to learn that swallowing your tears is a really hard thing to do, and even though I could manage while talking to the patient, I had to admit to myself that I am still a new and unhardened doctor, and for the first time in my working life, take a couple of minutes in the ladies room too collect myself and dry my tears. I get that people who talk to you in the condescending and degrading way that these people did to me today are just afraid and nervous. I get that it’s their way of staying in control, getting all the facts, caring for their loved one. I really do understand that, and I knew it going in to this kind of work, but somehow it still doesn’t help in the moment, at least not yet. Maybe one day I’ll learn not to be affected, to get goose feathers and just let it slide off when patients yell or are disappointed or whatever. I know I can be patient and understanding, and damn it I know I’m good at patient care and the “soft” aspects of this job! I’m just not sure about the whole being a silent punching bag thing though...    

Late night baking

Tomorrow is my last day at work! Yes, we have indeed reached nr. 1! As soon as I get up tomorrow I will start on an hourly countdown starting at T-28 hours, I might even update the blog just to let you know what hour I’m on, I mean, just in case you don’t have anything else going on you know…

Anyway – I’ve been cleaning and packing just like the last couple of days and I’m starting to see an end to this whole misery. I need to pack my bathroom and some clothes I still might wear over the next couple of days, but other than that I’m done. Oh, well, I do have some stuff left in the kitchen – but seeing as just a couple of minutes ago I had to rummage thru three boxes to find an ingredient to my cinnamon buns I might just wait until Friday to pack my whole baking-kit.

You might wonder why I’m baking a day like this, and trust me, I’ve asked myself a couple of times during the last hour and a half. I made some lemon and poppy seed muffins to bring to work tomorrow, last day and all, but it turns out that when my recipe says 32 small muffins they actually mean miniscule! I got 18 out of that batch – and I don’t have anymore poppy seeds to bake more! So now I’m baking cinnamon buns to supplement the muffins. The thing is, they need to raise twice each time for at least 30 minutes, so as you can see the whole – “packing all day being dead tired so planning to go to bed at a reasonable hour plan” – is not likely to happen. Oh, well at least I like baking these buns, it’s weirdly relaxing to kneed a dough, much more so than whisking a batter for muffins… I should have made these from the start…

The pictures are pretty self-explanatory, except for the last one – I’m not baking anything chocolaty today, but I’m taking on quite a challenge spanning two days starting Thursday, so I’ve stalked up on my chocolate supplies. I must say, of all the impressing things I do (and obviously I do a lot!) keeping away from this is probably the thing I’m most impressed about. I just might show you the result of that one – if it turns out the way it’s supposed to that is.

Being the lucky sister of a traveler

 

It’s past midnight after a weekend with two 24-hour shifts, window-washing and packing a huge amount of books and clothes, so why aren’t I in bed? Well, I’m waiting for a call. A long distance call that I’m not exactly sure when will come.

I don’t often consider myself a lucky person and most times I don’t think I have anything that’s really special in my life – just a bunch of ordinary things and events. But then I think of my sister and I know I’m wrong. I have this one person who gets me more than I sometimes want to admit she does, a person who knows all those things I can’t express because she’s been there thru everything in my life. A person who makes me laugh like a snorting pig and then tells me I do and still make me laugh even harder because of it. The only person I have ever intentionally hit and still feel like punching once in a while when she does something utterly stupid. The person in this world that I’ve said the most horrible things to, and who has actually found a way to forgive me.

We’ve been in different countries for over eight years now, and I’m still dumbfounded when I think of it, but it’s always felt like we were right next door to each other because we keep so much in touch. Now she’s gone and left the continent and just like last time she did, I know we won’t be able to talk like we usually do. Just thinking about it makes every problem I have seem ten times heavier because I can’t unload on her as much. At the same time though, her courage and guts has – as always – the same effect on me as a real hard kick in the ass. I’m so impressed of what she does and how she shapes her life to be what she’s always wanted it to be, I really wish I could be more like her. So I’ll try not to be sad and take as much advantage as I can of this boost of energy and inspiration she throws my way so that I can follow my dreams, just like my little sister.

It is really very simple, just a single pulse repeated at a regular interval

I have washed and packed clothes, I’ve brought stuff up from the basement and sorted through it, I’ve washed the kitchen windows, I’ve taken pictures of clothes I want to sell and put them op on a trading site (which has been a hassle seeing as my computer still isn’t very cooperative) and I am now very close to loosing my mind. I’m so bored, and I have this kind of bubbling feeling of wanting to jump up and down and scream a little, I’m not even sure why exactly.

I haven’t heard anything more about my uncomfortably rapid approaching move. I need to know by Friday so I must say I’m getting just a tiny bit worried. I haven’t called the movers yet because I can’t decide which day to move, but seeing as I’m so late booking they’ll probably not be very flexible anyway. Things are kind of becoming huge in my head and I can’t finish one thought without the next one hopping in and interrupting. I need some air. I need to learn how to stop time so that I can just sit down, breath and make my heart stop pounding for just one second.

I need a house in the countryside where I can escape, but maybe I should just start by getting a roof over my head before I start thinking about summerhouses… you know, the practical approach.

Click on the picture for the source.

Finding your way home

I’ve spent the last couple of hours in a café in my new-old town. I have now composed a pretty darn motivating letter to the University, I have written a couple of e-mails and I have drunk a liter or two of tea. The headache I had when coming in is slowly disappearing and instead I feel relaxed and productive. I’ve missed the life in this city. I know that no matter what I’ll never have the life I had when I lived here last time, I know I’ll miss my girls being close by, but I like the city all by it’s own merit and I think I can be happy here, at least for the next 12 months – after that, well, you never know do you?

The apartment hunting went pretty ok today. I’ll know more by the end of the week and hopefully that will be that. Now I have to find some big strong dudes to move all my stuff for me – and figure out how to be in two places at once…

Oh, here’s the floor plan for the apartment, just in case you have some input in how I should furnish it if I move in.

No day but today…

This is the day – this must be the day – the day I find myself a place to live!

I’ve already made a list over things I need to get done in the next 10 days, among other things packing, cleaning and sorting. On the top of that list is getting a place to put all my stuff after they’ve been cleaned, sorted and packed, so by the end of the day I hope to be able to cross that off the list. Let’s keep our fingers crossed just for good measure.

Being a girl/woman (Jesus – what are you supposed to call yourself these days!?) I am of course extremely apt at multitasking so this day I intend to also write a very important letter to the university of Copenhagen. The tricky part is that it’s supposed to be a motivational letter so I need to think about why I want what I want. Easy peasy…  I’ll get back to you when I figure that one out.

For the time being I’ll leave you with a video that’s caught wildfire on the net in the last couple of days. I posted it on my Facebook a while ago and being the uninformed silly girl (yeah, definitely girl this time) I am I hadn’t read all the criticism it had received since. Now I’ve read it, and I’ve read a fabulous response to it and I post it again, this time with a more nuanced view of it but by no means any diminished admiration for the creators and their mission, and maybe even a little bit of hope for our generation.

Worth watching…

Keep on moving, don’t stop rocking…

Something strange happened yesterday with the blog – the post I wrote and posted (I thought) yesterday morning is dated as posted today afternoon. Very weird and probably my computers way of messing with me, or the internet lagging or something…

Anyway, today I have not taken a southbound train as it says in that post, today I have taught a class at Uni. As opposed to my last time as a university lector this time was actually great. They even came up afterwards and said so themselves! It was fun and relaxed and I had my shit together – yes, I have also taken up the language of a lector as you clearly see. The only thing was that it was hard, it was mentally draining and even a bit physically exhausting. My head was pounding when I got home – probably because we finished class with the little 13 months old boy whom we examined bawling and afterwards the bus was utterly overcrowded with babbling students. Even so, I hope I can do it again next term – it was really fun and (dare I say it!?) I think I’m actually good at it!

Oh well, my happy mood was wrecked by a phone call telling me that the apartment I was hoping for isn’t available until the first of may. It wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for the little tiny fact that I have to be out of this place by the 31th of this month – yes, in two weeks time. I was so hoping for that place… It had a rooftop terrace and everything. Now I actually have to start looking for real, and fast too. I’m not sure, but I don’t think this call helped my headache one bit.

Well, let’s see if we can’t finish off this post with something positive – FIVE more days of actual work before I’m done! Yup, that’s it, those are the magical words to make me smile even when having to face screaming children, high pitch talking Uni. girls and the risk of homelessness.

If you don’t know (or remember) where the title for this post comes from – please click on the picture above! It’s very fitting I think…

The days in-between

It’s been a bit quiet here for the last couple of days and that’s mostly because my computer and I haven’t been on speaking terms. Right this minute we’re not yelling at each other, but I’m pretty sure it won’t last long, so I might need to start thinking about what I’ll do when we finally breakup for real…

Well the days have passed with fabulous spring sun, walks by the water (even though that’s still a bit of a risk considering the wind…), dining room runway shows with yours truly modeling and admiring two new summer dresses, and baking my first ever Tarte au Citron and sharing it with two unsuspecting victims. I don’t remember when I last failed so miserably with a cake, I suppose it’s meant to humble me… and make me try harder – next attempt will be a five layer chocolate cake for a friends birthday. I mean, it’s never failed me before, so when in doubt – go chocolate.

I think the best way to illustrate how bad the cake was, is to show you a couple of pictures of myself – when I’d rather show you this than the cake, you know it’s bad, really bad!

I have no idea why I can’t smile like a normal human being, as soon as a camera comes close I get this half panicked nervous smile, but hey – it looks better than my lemon cake, so be happy you don’t have to look at that!

Oh, and see the mess on the table behind me? It’s ten times worse today – I should stay home and fix it, but seeing as I unexpectedly got the day off I’m ignoring all my chores and hopping on a southbound train for the day!

I hope you’re having a great day too!

Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch

It’s not like I don’t have friends or other things to do – I actually had plans for tonight… they just kind of changed last minute… So now I’m spending the evening watching The Great British Bake Off and dreaming of making cakes that look like a dream and taste like a little piece of heaven. Note to self; get friends that has the immediate goal of getting fat fast… In the meantime, as not to eat a whole cake myself, I’m restraining from whipping up a marvelous chocolate cake and instead eating frozen melon balls, strawberries and drinking lemon tea – come to think of it, it’s kind of like having a British garden party in my living room!

Oh, and by the way – to get to the sources of the pictures, just click on them!

The countdown begins

I know it’s early but I can’t help it – the countdown has started! As of today there are only 25 days before I start my new job and out of those only 10 are working days. I can’t wait!