Ambitious - but rubbish

About being stuck in the past. Again.

2011-09-25T03:51:00.006+01:00

It seems that the overall theme to my life right now seems to be "being stuck in the past". Or maybe being constantly caught up by my own past, or limited by it. And by my past I specifically mean the fact that I have been through many years which were dark and troublesome. I had my first depression at 10, I lost my mum at 12 and moved on my own at 15. My depressions and anxiety haunted me all through my teens, finally culminating in me being admitted to a psychiatric emergency ward at 22. After that I spent 3 months living at a psychiatric institution and was diagnosed with one and half personality disorder (Borderliner PD and Avoidant PD). I was in therapy for a long while, and was given medication that worked. I've come a long way since then, from a girl who could barely get out of bed every day to being in school studying to becoma nurse. But.

I'm in therapy these days, which might be why I feel so haunted by it right now. But it just keeps cropping up everywhere. As I've mentioned before we are writing essays in school, and all three of them has very much touched on very personal aspects of my past.

Most of my family are also evidently very stuck in my past. They have never been the best at giving me acknowledgement for the good things I do, or even to focus at the positive at all, or let me know if they were proud of me. They might notice the positive things I do, but they very rarely say it to me directly. But they are good at pointing out and focusing on the negative. If I don't answer the phone I must be dead - because of my past. If I postpone an internship to give myself some time to get through losing my soul brother, I must be depressed and headed for the institution again. It couldn't be a rational and wise decision based on the fact that I was emotionally worn out and grieving, and so I needed not to force myself through an internship that to me is very intense and demanding simply because I wanted to avoid hitting the wall and getting completely burned out. No, no. It had to be a sign of me giving up, of failing. Again.

Lastly, I've applied for some jobs lately. Partly because I know I won't get an internship spot this semester because they don't have one to offer me, so I will have fuck-all to do between October 15th and whenever school starts up again next semester in January. And partly because I want more work experience. A lot of students have a part-time job in addition to school, mainly because they have to to make it financially. Student funding and loan in this country isn't enough to get you through University if you live on your own. I'm lucky, I'm on rehabilitation money from the government and therefore am a lot better of financially than most students, so I haven't needed an extra job. But that hasn't been the main reason for not working - I haven't worked out of consideration for myself. School can periodically (like now) be a very rough thing, at times there's a lot going on with exams, lectures or essays, and at other times we have internships which I will claim are a lot more intense than having a full time job, and I know just about every student at my school will agree with me on this. And I know myself pretty well, after years of therapy and analysing my own personality. I need time on my own, to a greater extent than others. And I know that I spend a lot of my energy just maintaining an everyday routine, having to motivate and argue and coax myself into doing the things other people find easy or do automatically. "Emily, do your laundry. Do your dishes. Make a proper dinner. Get a workout done. Brush your teeth. Keep in touch with your friends. Pay your bills. Say yes and go to that party, you need to be social every now and then." Its just who I am, it's a result of my personality disorders, of years and years of isolating myself and not functioning properly. Basically I'm still working on learning how to do the things other people have known how to do since they were 18. And thats why I haven't gotten a job; between trying to get through school and managing my own everyday life (and mental state), I was worried a job would just be too much. Overload. Too many balls in the air. So I have been reluctant to take that risk. But this week I found a few classifieds about small weekend positions suitable for nurses or nurse students. The positions are at Sanderud, a large psychiatric institution about 30 minutes from me. They deal with all kinds of psychiatry; psychosis, drug-related, geriatric psychiatry, you name it. But here comes the past and kicks me in the teeth again; I was admitted to that hospital. Just for 6 days, in an emergency ward, until I was transferred to the long-term institution where I lived. And they might have policies against hiring former patients. And even if they don't, the people hiring might have some serious issues with hiring someone like me. Of course, having been a psychiatric patient yourself can be seen as an advantage in a job like that, at least I do; I've been in their shoes, in a similar situation, I have some insights and experiences that most people don't and therefore can show some genuine compassion and understanding. But they can also view me as a liability, an unstable person. Or they might just simply be prohibited from hiring me due to policies or guidelines.

The thing is, I value my past. Most of it was absolutely shite and parts of me wish I never had to go through all the crap I have. But I know that it has a huge part in making me who I am, for better or for worse. And I truly believe most of it is for the better. I have learned so much, about communication, about how people work, how life works, and how I work. It's made me wiser, better at giving advice, more compassionate and it's given me a lot of invaluable experiences. If I didn't have that past I probably would have been a much shallower person. So I can see the positive side of it. I just wish other people would too.

“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it’s our job to invent something better.”
- Chuck Palahniuk.

“When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours?” - Franz Kafka

About writing a paper

2011-09-25T02:37:00.004+01:00

The near week that has past since last time I blogged has been a rough one, at least emotionally.

In school we are currently writing these essays. We are supposed to write three in total, and on mid-october they will randomly pick out one of the three to be handed in as a major exam. Each paper is supposed to be around 3500 words, and we are given a specific patient situation/case and a "problem" we have to answer for each of them. I'm finished with two ; the first was on general psychology and the 2nd was on "overall rehabilitation". It's funny how I've drawn on just as much personal experience as nurse literature in writing these papers - I've been an admittet psychiatric patient and I've been in rehabilitation, a lot of the aspects we've been lectured on or read about, I have experienced. "I've been there, maaaaan". Some times it feels very paradoxical, before I was on the other side, I was the patient. Now I'm supposed to be the helper, the one with the answers, the knowledge, the provider of help and support.

This monday we were given the patient case and problem for this last paper, and this one hit particularly close to home. I've been dreading it ever since the semester started, because I knew the topic of this last essay was going to be "care for the dying patient". And to make it even worse the case had to be about a terminal cancer patient. It's already been 10 months since I sat by Mats deathbed, but its very much something I struggle with every day, and why I am in therapy again. In many ways I struggle more with it now than I did in the first few months after. And now I have to sit here and write an essay where I have to describe the illness they call cancer, its symptoms, why it kills, I have to write about pain and pain management, what the term "palliative care" entails and describe all its aspects. When I was with Mats I was a next-of-kin so to speak, I was as close and personal to the situation as humanly possible, but now I should try to look at palliative care with professional nurse-goggles. Of course I will meet dying patients, and cancer patients, in my work as a nurse in the future, I have to learn to deal with it. And I have the dubious advantage of having had personal experience with it, giving me invaluable insights into a very difficult subject. These are all things I could try to take comfort in, things that could make writing this essay easier. But it doesn't. Every time I sit down with this essay, Mats is constantly on my mind. Or, more specifically, my last weeks and days with him - I relive them over and over, the emotions I had, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the mood.

To top it all of they've made the "problem" for this essay as wide and general as they possibly could. I could probably have written a doctorate based on the case and that problem. So I have to narrow in the paper, leave things out, and I still haven't quite managed to figure out what. All aspects affect each other, and to me they all seem as important; the physical, the emotional, the social, the spiritual. And I have a lot to talk about on this subject, a lot of thoughts and opinions. Oh well. I'll get through it. It's just making my life very hard right now.

About never letting the past go.

2011-09-19T17:44:00.002+01:00

My brother and I had what you might call an encounter yesterday. You would think we had grown out of that sort of thing, me being 26 and him 38. Maybe some siblings will be eternally different and never will. Anyway.

In short the situation boiled down to that I was asleep and my phone on silent (at 7pm, which admittedly is an odd time to be asleep). My brother had an iPod charger cable that he wanted to give to me, and he was driving past the town where I study. Suddenly I'm woken up by someone banging on the front door, and my dog goes bananas. Before I get time to get clothes on the banging continues on the frigging windows, first at my bedroom, then my livingroom. Was someone dying? Was the earth collapsing? No, he just wanted to give me that cable. Jeez. "I've tried calling you three times!" Well it was on silent, and there was a reason for that - I was sleeping!

Yes yes, he was just doing me a favor, wanting to be nice and handing me a cable I'd forgotten in my home town, even I can see that. But the niceness kind of vanishes in the fact that he seemed prepared to bloody tear down my house to get to me. I would have surived without that cable. No one was dying, no crisis was happening. I just had the audacity to not answer my phone, because it was on silent and I was comatosed. If I had rung his doorbell, banged on his windows and then shouted angrily at him for NOT answering his silent phone when he was asleep, he would've been slightly cross as well.

But here comes my point - whenever I bring up the argument of not having heard my phone, they bring up the "but we were worried, something might've happened!"-argument. Geez louise, what did people do before mobile phones I wonder? And then it really comes - "well, considering your history..." Ah, there we have it. I'm crazy. So god knows what I might get up to! I might decide to carve an intricate pattern into my lower arm with a sharp knife, or swing by my neck from a rope? Ugh, I never even tried to commit a serious suicide attempt when I was at my absolute worst mentally, for chrissake. I've come one hell of a long way in the past 4-5 years. But apparently I'm the only one who can see that. How about showing me some fucking respect, giving me some credit and even more importantly, show me some actual trust? Trust in the fact that I have the capability of doing something with my situation before it gets so bad that I'll fancy ending my life, that I'm more stable and predictable than I was 5 years ago. "So, is my history going to follow me and haunt me forever, then?" I asked my sister. "Yes." Too bad. I just won't accept that.

I understand that I have been sick, that I probably was a huge burden and source of endless worry and frustration back when I was really sick. But that doesn't give you the right to use that against me any more. All I am trying to do it put the past behind me, all my wrongs and mistakes, and live my life as best I can. But you can't seem to forget the past, so how am I supposed to?

About the cure for the common cold

2011-09-15T00:29:00.004+01:00

Yes, I'm still here and alive, to the great disappointment of some of you, apparently. Anyway.

I've just had the manflu, transmitted to me via internet courtesy of Wulfy, or at least that's what I suspect. Now, so far no one has managed to cure this ailment also known as the common cold, because the cold is a virus. And viruses (virae? viral infections?) are notoriously impossible to kill for reasons I could explain to you in intricate detail, but I won't because it'll bore the pants off you, and I wouldn't want to do that (well I would want to bore the pants off some of you but that's another story).

(By the way, fun fact about the cold! When you have a cold lots of little cold-virus-particles hang out in your sinuses. A virus particle then injects part of itself into one of your own cells, whose normal job it is to be for example skin or musocal tissue or cilia. This poor cell gets mindcontrolled to stop being whatever it is and to start producing new virus particles instead. It continues to do so until it gets so full it explodes, destroying the cell and all the new virus clones spread out to the surrounding cells. So that whole thing of having a stuffy nose, feeling like your whole head consist of phlegm that keeps dribbling out your nose? Yup, snot is basically blown up bits of cells and virus trickling out the only way it can. But, I digress.)

Now, the cure! I tried running 18 minutes on that elliptical thing, thinking logically that evil might chase off evil, but that didn't work. So the next day was spent moping in bed. But then I made a smoothie and et voila - it's gone! So here's the cure:

A handful of tropical fruit mix
Some raspberries/strawberries
A dash of rice milk
A splash of orange juice
A few drops of lemon juice
A pinch of cinnamon (no really)
And a tablespoon of flax seed oil (oddly accurate, that one)

Mix/crush with a blender of some description, and nom. If you have a sore throat use frozen fruits and you'll have a lovely icy slush to soothe the throat as well.

Also - eat spirulina. It's literally the most nutritious food known to man, and don't be discouraged by the fact that it's a blue-green algae because it comes in pill form. Consists of 60% complete protein (compared to beef or chicken at 25%), complete meaning that it contains all eight essential amino acids (and 10 other non-essential ones). It's also rich in Omega 3, 6 and 9, it's the highest know source of vitamin B12 and beta-carotene and provides other nutrients such as vitamins E, other Bs and minerals like calcium, iron, phosphorus, iodine, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, chromium and potassium. It also has chrolophyll, other phytoutrients and powerful antioxidants. And to top it all of this microscopic life form doesn't have the usual tough cell walls found in normal plant life, making it very easy to digest and absorb. There's a reason it's called a "superfood".

About exercising.

2011-09-08T20:23:00.005+01:00

As I'm already on the object of body glorification (or rather the opposite), I might as well stay on the subject. Because for as long as I have had issues with my weight, I've also had a wish to get more exercise in. "Wish" might be the wrong term, come to think of it. More lik "it's been hanging over me like some cloud of doom", one of those eternal demands you put upon yourself but never seem to get around to fulfil. "I should work out more. I should eat healthier. I should stop smoking." And I should exercise more. Not just because I want there to be less of me, but also because it makes me feel better. I get more energy, more focus, I feel less heavy, is reduces stress hormones, makes me sleep better and can lower my blood pressure.

So what's the problem? Well, for one I am incredibly lazy. My mum claimed that I was born tired; I came out, yawned and went to sleep. And that's pretty much how it carried on. As a baby I was so docile and apathetic my aunt has in later years admitted to thinking there was something seriously wrong with me. "All you did was just.. lie there, and look around at things!"

I have succeeded in exercising, occasionally, but only for a limited period of time. Growing up I tried a lot of different sports, if this was of my own volition or me caving in from parental pressure I can't remember. I swam for many years, I even have a prize or two proudly displayed on my piano (they're basically glorified drinking glasses, and my sister used them as shot-glasses at a party once...). I did Tae Kwon Do for a year or two, and I loved that form of exercising, but when all my friends quit of course I did too. I had some feeble attempts at handball and football, but soon realised that having astigmatism ("optical defect in which... oh, google it.) made me practically incapable of catching a ball with my hands, or hitting a ball with my feet. Astigmatism should be the term for "always getting hit in the head with the ball". Plus, I'm just not a "team" kind of person. I had a summer I did nothing but cycle - everywhere, miles and miles every day. Until I got so tired of it I wanted to chop my bicycle to bits. The year I went to "folk high school" I was very active - but it's easy to be when you live on campus and people knock on your door every day asking if you want to come work out, and the gym + swimming pool is in the neighboring house.

I guess that's my other problem, besides my inherent laziness - lack of motivation. I can be so good for a period, if I am working towards something, like looking good for a holiday or an event. But if I hit a rough spot, get depressed, get extra work at school or have a heavy internship, I just.. fail. I also have a slight impulse defect, being I give in to them way too easily, and the impulse so skip the workout and remain seated tends to win quite often.

The key to getting exercise done is finding a form of workout that you like. Said my therapist. I couldn't agree more. He promptly suggested youthful stuff like pilates, aerobics and zumba. This is where my illustration for this blog post comes in. Because that is how I feel in those sort of classes; like a hippo in a tutu. A huffing, puffing, sweating, red-faced one. Seeing all the other slim, happy, fit people bounce around me like they were made of air is very demotivating. And those manicly perky instructors always inspire so much hatred in me you could bottle it. The sheer idea of going into a gym is in general a very icky thought. I know they are there for people to get into shape and start a better life, but have you noticed that when you go there everyone seem to be in perfect shape already?

I would've loved to start doing Tae Kwon Do again. But I tried that a year and a half ago, and learned the hard way that I have exertion asthma on top of everything else. TKD is just too hard and brutal for me, I need to get myself into better shape first. And gyms are, in addition to being icky, very expensive around here. I could always swim, but that's not cheap either. My neighbors have an ellipse machine that they never use anymore, it just gathered dust and took up space in their living room so they asked if I wanted to borrow it. So I said yes. It's the least horrific of those kinds of machines - treadmills, step machines, cycles.... This way I can workout at home, whenever I want. I can be as pissy and angry and moody as I want, I can listen to loud music and yell at myself or the wall and sweat without grossing anyone out. And to be honest, sometimes getting a workout done really is that much of a challenge. Sometimes I get so frustrated at how tiring it is, how uncomfortable everything is, the poor shape I'm in, that I end up in tears. Or throw things around in a tantrum. Maybe I'm fighting some of my demons, who knows. But I will at least try to get it done. I started out with 12 minutes, upped it to 15 now, the goal is to reach 20 within october and then up it to 30.

Wish me luck. Or kick me in the backside. I need both.

About weight.

2011-09-06T19:18:00.002+01:00

My body is my arch enemy. It's badly constructed, things keep getting broken and it keeps malfunctioning.

First of all I'm short, but no one informed my back about that. So, I ended up with the back of a person who is about 180cm tall. While I in reality only measure in at 154. On a good day. After 8 hours of sleep. As a result my body consist of about 75% upper body. Which surely isn't the right porportions.

My body was also designed with a funky feature called PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Say that 10 times after half a bottle of whisky, I dare you!) This is a medical condition that, without going into too much detail, messes with my ovaries somewhat. The result is a hormone imbalance which comes with an array of delightful sideeffects. Thin hair, thin skin that scars easily, striae (stretchmarks) and depressions to mention a few. But the real kicker is the overweight. And it's not normal, everyday "oh I'm a bit too pudgy and should lay off the cinnamon buns" kind of overweight. It's the kind that makes me gain a pound by just thinking of pasta, or indeed anything else that might contain carbohydrates. And, in stead of all the adipose tissue being distributed evenly over this poor excuse for a body, it all gathers in the middle. Causing me to look like I am four months pregnant. Or like I really, really, really love beer. Oh,and it gives me a hump. Yup, like The Hunchback. Lovely condition, this PCOS, isn't it?

There isn't much I can do about this. Ironically the only cure for PCOS is to lose weight. And losing weight is three times as hard for someone who has it. The hormone imbalance causes us to have a quite apallingly bad metabolism, and we are nearly "allergic" to sugar and carbohydrates. We just can't handle our glucose, and we handle fluctuations in our bloodsugar levels as bad as a diabetic. But as they go into insulin shock, we just get fat and cranky.

I've been grieving over my body and my weight for many years now. I've always felt fat, but looking at photos from when I was 20-25 kilos lighter Ican't help but think "seriously, what had I smoked?" I looked perfectly fine. Now I weigh an horrific 84 kilos, which is 25-30 too much. I feel, to varying degrees, very uncomfortable in my body, when I am out and about I feel... just wrong. I look at myself in the mirror and sometimes I can't help but think "Who are you? This isn't me. This isn't who I am, no on the inside."

And it's not just my vanity that makes me hate the extra weight. My mother was overweight, and being on cortisone for her asthma most of her life just made it worse. She died of a heart failure at 45. My brother had two (small, but still!) heart attacks at 30. Clearly people in our family aren't constructed with the best of tickers, quality wise, and being overweight isn't going to prolong my heart's life span (or, as a result, my life span). "They" say that the tummy fat is the most dangerous kind, but then again "they" say a lot of things. Discovering that I had a high bloodpressure that needed medicating at 25, and heart arrythmias, didn't exactly soothe my nerves.

And honestly, I'm tired of being heavy. Of feeling awkward and uncomfortable. Sick of sucking my gut in. Sick of having no energy, of hating clothes because nothing ever looks good on me, of hating on skinny girls who can stuff their face with whatever they want. And I'm so. tired. of. obsessing. about. food. I've changed my diet a lot over the last year, eliminating a lot of carbohydrates and dairy out of my diet. Now I eat mostly proteins, meats, eggs, I have a home-made high-protein granola, I make berry or fruit smoothies with rice milk. And I've added things like coconut oil, flax seed oil, lots of cinnamon and spirulina tablets (yay for superfoods!) I feel better for it, I have more energy, my blood sugar is stabilized somewhat, and I am a lot less sick. But I'm not losing weight.

My extra kilos get unfairly blamed for a lot of things, probably. Somehow my overweight is in my mind inevitably linked to me being a miserable, lonely wanker. For some reason I have some notion of life being so much easier, simpler, happier, if I had just been designed a bit differently. Take away 20 kilos and a pregnant beerbelly and I'd be happier, healthier, have more friends, everything would've been perfect. And I would definitely have had a boyfriend.

Which is probably a very unfair way of thinking about boys. And people in general. Because I really want to believe that people aren't that shallow. I should give people more credit. I want to believe that my weight has nothing to do with how many guys talk to me out at the pub, or how many friends I have, or whether or not that person I have so much in common with and love talking to, would fall for me. But evidently people are shallow.

In some ways I have to believe that. Because I can't face the other alternative. If I'm miserable, reclusive, lonely and single because people simply just don't like me, that it really all comes down to my personality and it's completely unrelated to my beergut... I can't deal with it.

I can't be fat and have a horrible personality. Life just can't be that cruel.

The Laughing Heart

2011-08-31T00:13:00.003+01:00

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
- Charles Bukowski

This poem touched me in an incredible, profound way. Maybe even more so because I saw it read by Tom Waits. Sometimes I can't help but hear songs, or poems, words in general, and feel like they concern me more than others. Like I was meant to hear them, and take them to heart.

I must admit, I'm not much of a poetry reader. I do have my favorites, like old Haféz-poems or poems written by one of my absolute favorite Norwegian writers Lars Saabye Christensen. I should read more poetry.

About finding the meaning

2011-08-30T20:55:00.004+01:00

The meaning of life is supposed to be one of the great riddles of human kind. You know. The question. What does it all mean? Why are we here? Whats the meaning of life, the universe and everything? Many have tried to come up with an answer, and so far "42" is as good a guess as anyones.

You know what? I've figured it out. What the meaning of life is.

The meaning of life is to find meaning in it - any way you possibly can. What gives a human a sense of meaning in their life is probably as varied and diverse as human kind itself.

For me life has meaning when I learning new things. And when I can pass on what I know, what I've learned and experienced, to others. The meaning of life is to see new places, meet new people, to laugh, to simply be, as much and as happily as you can manage. The meaning of life is making a difference in someone elses life, however big or small that difference is. But most important of all, the meaning of life is love. As simple as that. Finding someone who loves you for you, for everything you are, someone who is safe, someone who feels like you're home, like you are right where you're supposed to be.

See? I've figured out the meaning of life. At least, the meaning of my life.

Weekly recap #1

2011-08-27T15:00:00.002+01:00

In short: Not the best of weeks.

Monday I had an appointment with a study coordinator at school, and set up a plan for how I will finish this bachelor degree, seeing as I am "behind" on my internships. According to the plan I'll be finished with everything by summer 2013, exactly one year "late". I'm glad it won't take longer, but the thought of two internships in one semester next year is very daunting. I just hope I can hang in there and get through it.

Also got a mail from the student organization, who owns and rents out the house my apartment is in as well as the neighboring house. They'd been "made aware of me keeping a dog", and requested an application asking for permission to keep one. I've only had her here for two years already, so god knows who suddenly has objected to it now. Worst case scenario is they kick me out on my arse, or make me get rid of her.

Monday night I went to this choir practice, having been told that I had to do a singing test and that this was just "a formality". So imagine my surprise when I was basically tossed out of there after 10 minutes. I'd actually looked forward to join a choir, all though my experiences with it has been very limited I've really like doing it when I've had the chance. Apparently they had way too many "alts", which is the darkest of the female singing voices, and had no room for me. My chronically poor and tested self-confidence can't help but think that I sing so horribly they couldn't imagine having me in the choir.

Wednesday was one of those mandatory school days where we were divided into groups and had various workshops around our current theme "rehabilitation and people's health". I didn't particularly like the one where they forced us down into the gymnasium with some overly-perky, energetic instructor to do various strengthening exercises for 20 minutes. In everyday clothes. Not only am I in appallingly bad shape and weigh as much as your average manatee, but I also have a problem with er... perspiration. (Too much info, yeah yeah) It's mainly a horrible side effect to some medication I am on. Utterly humiliating. And I'm still sore.

Our current school assignment is this 3500 word long paper on "overall rehabilitation". We have a patient case and a "problem" to work from. This is the fourth one we are writing of these types of assignment, and it's not as daunting anymore. Having been in the governmental "system" of rehabilitation for many years I'm familiar with it and definitely have some views on how a patient should be met and treated, and some views on how to rehabilitate "the whole person". It's strange how I seem to draw as much experience from my personal life as I draw from my actual lectures and literature in this education. Our next paper will be on "palliative care", or "care for the dying patient". Yeah, yet another subject where I have more than enough personal experience to take from. Not particularly looking forward to that one.

And to top it all - the Dr Martens I ordered yesterday which I was so psyched about turned out not to be in stock after all and the order was cancelled. So much for trying to cheer myself up.

About socializing

2011-08-24T19:06:00.002+01:00

Here's something I probably shouldn't admit, but will anyway:

Being social is hard.

It can be exhausting, it wears me out and can make me paranoid and nervous. To varying degrees, I will admit; there are certain times or in groups where being social is easier and less stressful than other times, it all depends on how well I know the people surrounding me. Or maybe it depends even more on how well they know, understand and accept me, how much we have in common, if we share the same humor and how much alcohol is in my bloodlevel (this last one is a particularly sad but true fact).

The reasons for this are many and probably complex and deeply psychological. Maybe it is because I have somewhat unusual interests. Or maybe everyone has, they're just better at hiding them and acting normal. Maybe people are just better at smalltalk than me, I'm bad at hiding when smalltalk bores me, at that point I just sign out of the conversation. I'm not the girl you'll choose foor a night of drinking alcopops while chatting about which fake tan works best and share mean gossip about the other girls at school. If you fancy a Dr Who marathon, or a game of Risk, or need someone to watch that Tom Waits live DVD with over an unknown amount of beers, or a pyjama-party in your "killer-rabbit" slippers while we make oreo cheesecake and I dye my hair purple, I'm your girl. It's just who I am, being "different" is part of my personality, but sometimes I really wish I could just be... plain and normal. Fit in. Have long blonde hair and be fashionable and host Tupperware parties. Maybe I'm not even being different, I'm just... specialized and specific.

My biggest problem is that I just don't know about people. I never know where I stand with them. I don't understand them. I always wonder what they say behind my back. It sounds paranoid, but after a few sudden, metaphorical punches to the face that I didn't see coming in the last few years, this paranoia has just grown. In fairness it can't be worse than the shit I keep telling myself, but getting it from someone else is always that little bit worse because it just confirms the suspicions you already have about yourself. This is probably mostly true about girls, because in general they tend to be conspiratory and sneaky and sometimes just flat out mean, cold bitches. Boys tend to have a more direct approach, more honest (and sometimes more violent), but at least you know where you stand; a few real punches, not the metaphorical ones, and you either make up or you try your best to avoid each other for eternity. I prefer the direct approach.

So I tend to keep to myself. Because it's more comfortable for me, but also because I can't help but think that it's best that I spare everyone else my odd company. I read an article once about people having "social sensitivity", and I fall into that category. Some people just are like that, and years of being depressed and isolating myself has made me used to having a lot of "me-time". Despite this I often feel lonely, and wish I was more social. Or, that being social was easier, that I had more good social times, and less of the stressful ones. But I would chose staying home alone over having a bad time in some social setting.

Who knows, maybe I wouldn't have been this way without internet. Because on this computer, I socialize all day, and being able to talk to my friends online probably fulfills the little need for socializing that I have. Talking to someone online entales less commitment, somehow, less severity. Online I can adjust how much I talk to people, and when, and finding people with mutual interests and hobbies is much easier. People are often more honest online as well, more direct, more open about who they are, what they're all about, and that way you can find out whether or not you can get along with that person a lot quicker than in real life. And to be honest, just about everyone I would count as my true friends today, bar a person or two, are people I "met" online. Most of them I have met in real life on one or more occasions, and spending time with them is always a lot less stressful than being with everyone else.

I do like people. I like that we are so diverse, so different and unpredictable and strange. But that is also what makes it so scary for me to relate to them. It's not your fault, it's probably all down to my own attitude towards myself and the people around me. Just... don't give up on me. I'll come around.

About being a snotball

2011-08-22T15:31:00.002+01:00

For someone who is ridiculously prone to colds, flus and infections in all concievable forms, I have been blissfully free from them for a record breaking time lately. In fact I don't think I've even had so much as a cold since November 2010 when Mats passed. It's probably my change of diet that gets the credit for that. Smoothies, good fatty acids, proteins, lots of antioxidants and very little carbohydrates. Sugar is the devil, I tell ya.

Now, cue the irony of life. I'm supposed to attend my first choir practice today in a local choir. So naturally I've developed a cold that has reduced me to a phlegm-infested snotball with barbed wire for vocal chords. And I'm supposed to do a "singing test" as well, mostly just to determine what voice type I am (you know, soprano, mezzosoprano, contralt..). I know that I usually am a contralt, which is the deeper female voice, but with my throat being in the state it is I will either be thrown out on my arse, or stuffed with the guys in the rear singing bass.

FML.

About inspiration

2011-08-22T00:51:00.003+01:00

This song was the inspiration for writing the last blog post.
I heard it in the car today on the iPod, not having heard it in years, and it struck a chord in me, no pun intended.

Magnet - Believe

Walking in with open eyes
Fingers crossed, throw the dice
Not enough room in here for compromise
Turning water into wine, or turning sober and left behind
One chance, out of my hands, and it all starts making sense

I’m gonna do this like I know what I’m doing
I’m gonna do this my own way
‘Cause I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe in
Might as well believe in me

I don’t need to see the light
I just want to get this right
Cool, calm, not alarmed, and not uptight
‘Cause I’ll remember to forget whatever it is I won’t get
I’m already a junkyard of ends that never ever met

I’m gonna do this like I know what I’m doing
I’m gonna do this my own way
‘Cause I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe in
Might as well believe in me

‘Cause I know on my part,
There’s no one else to blame
So when those hummingbirds start singing out my name
I’m due to pay my dues, I’ve nothing I can lose

I’m gonna do this like I know what I’m doing
I’m gonna do this my own way
‘Cause I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe in
Might as well believe in me

About believing in yourself

2011-08-21T22:48:00.006+01:00

Hi, my name is Emily and I am a borderliner.

"Borderliner" means having borderline personality disorder (hereafter shortened to PD), also known as emotionally unstable PD. I was diagnosed with it at 22, and being so gave me a lot of answers about how I "work", what makes me think, react or feel the way I do, seemingly out of my control all of it. A few years of good therapy and finally finding medication that worked has made me a lot "better". That's the good part of it being diagnosed "early", you can work your way out of it, at least to some extent.

But I will never be miraculously cured, it'll never be completely gone. Having developed this PD has influenced my life and personality to such an extent that it will always be with me. And in some way I'm even thankful for it - having gone through this therapy has taught me so much about myself, my family, about social interaction, about roles, about human psychology, about life in general. It has also made me more aware of what goes on inside my head, given me more insight into myself - for better or worse I suppose.

Being a borderliner means hating yourself. Doubting yourself and your self worth, being convinced that everyone around you dislikes you, or if they by some miracle dont despise you they will leave you eventually when they get sick of you. All you can focus on are the things you can't do, your failures, your shortcomings, the things that went wrong. Every human has to deal with poor self-confidence to a lesser or greater extent, but borderliners pushes it to the extreme and turns self-destruction into a sport. And of course, all the things they think about themselves eventually becomes true. Because who can bear to be with someoen that self-destructive and depressed in the long run? Their excessive focus on all the things they fail to do becomes so prevalent they become unable to do anything at all. They lash out at people as a form of self-defense, and are impossible to relate to. And if they do let you in, let anyone come close, they hang on for dear life until they smother that person to death. An evil downward spiral, a self-fulfilling prophecy and a catch 22.

The fact that I am aware of these things in itself means that I have come a long way. Being mindful of your own destructive thoughts and how they do nothing but push you further down is one of the key aspects of having this PD that borderliners need to figure out. Because what good does it actually do anyone to beat yourself up that badly? It will never help you or motivate you to change your situation, it will never enable you to do the right thing, all it will is make you feel more depressed and worthless. The day you stop beating yourself up about all the things you didn't manage that day and in stead focus on having a new chance tomorrow, that is the day you start makign progress.

Now, I have become so much "better" that I started school. I've finished two years of my bachelor degree in nursing and just started my third and final year. But the fact that I am still at it, without failing an exam or without dropping out, is frankly a bleedin' miracle. One would think that a university where more or less all the teachers are nurses with many years working experience is the last place where you would hear phrases like "oh but you have a mental history, you can't be a nurse." And I have been told that. In many different ways. I was threatened to leave my first internship, otherwise they would fail me. "The patients have enough to cope with, they don't need your problems as well."

You could ask why on earth I decided to go into such a intense and social occupation where you get very close to people, when I probably have more than enough things to deal with on my own. And I'm not even going to argue, it's a valid point. But I have grown up around illness all my life - my mum had heavy asthma all her life that eventually took her life 13 years ago, I've been plagued with bad mental and physical health all my life, and my best friend whom I only got to know for 4 years had cancer three times. My mum was also very passionate about helping the weak ones in the society, she worked with mentally and physically disabled people and taught me from a very early age to have respect and compassion for people who are different in any way.

My most important argument for wanting to become a nurse is that I want to help people, because I find meaning in it. Being a nurse means that you can come into work when having a bad or just very boring day, and make a difference in someone elses life. I can make them feel better, heal them, help them, make someone smile, and when I do I forget about myself for a while, about my own troubles. It puts life in perspective and reminds me that my life has a meaning, that I am here for a reason.

Despite having had people reassuring me that I am a good person, having grateful patients who has told me I am a good nurse, the nagging doubt stays. Should I become a nurse? After my traumatic first internship, where I was basically told that I should find myself another occupation pronto and was told how unlikeable I was, that nagging doubt has always been there. When I started school I was "just" worried about whether or not I was going to make it through school, and I frankly didn't consider my own abilities. I've proved to myself that I can make it through school, but what about life after school? I don't have any ambitions (that word again..) of working full time, I honestly doubt that I will be able to, I need time to myself and social interactions can make me pretty exhausted, plus keeping general upkeep in my own head takes more time than it does for the "sane" person. But what if my personality disorder is so obvious and bad that I just can't do it.

People are generally better at seeing the limitations than seeing the possibilities in situations. And I absolutely hate how much this diagnose, with all it entales, have limited me. In an ideal world where I still had my mum and my best friend, and no history of depressions or mental problems, where could I have been, what would my life have been like? But there is a part of me that doesn't want to believe that this diagnose limits me. That just refuses to accept that fact. "Damn it, I can become a nurse and a damn good one," it says. I wholeheartedly believe that people who has been through rough times, depressions, personal loss and trauma, are better equipped to show genuine understanding and empathy. Some things you just can't learn through reading it in a book. And I also believe that those who have struggled, but who can put it behind them, or learn to live with it, and can find a way to use it for something good; those people become the best nurses. But will I be able to put it behind me, or at least learn to live with it?

I realise that I can be moody, and that I am very much an "individual", and can be viewed as an odd one. I have particular interests that aren't necessarily of the most feminine persuasion, I dress funny and I have my own opinions. And I don't expect everyone to love me, or even like me, because that will never happen. But the impression I got from my first internship was basically that I was a horribly unpleasant and unlikeable individual, to such an extent that I would never be a nurse. And the borderliner within me can't help but wonder if maybe they are right, and that I have a major blind spot where I thought I had some insight into myself and how people view me.

Keeping myself motivated, staying positive and believing in myself is hard in the best of times. Lacking a major support system makes it even harder - my family are practical realists who are a lot better at pointing out the limitations than seeing the beforementioned possibilities, and I don't have a pile of friends around me offering me support. (But, the few I do have are probably the ones keeping me going <3) Add in the fact that my own teachers and mentors at school as well as my case worker at the employment department are questioning my capability to be a nurse as well, and it becomes apparent that me still being in school is a miracle. Sometimes I think the only reason I'm still at it because I just can't face another failure, I just can't give up on something one more time. If I did it would be the death of me. And if I did, Mats would make lightning strike me down. Repeatedly. I have to finish this, so I can say that I have at least finished something.

There are probably as many opinions of what makes up a good nurse as there are nurses around - people value different traits and abilities differently. Nurses can have such a huge array of jobs, from psychiatry to geriatrics to working in an ambulance or behind a desk. The fact that it is so hard to define what makes up a good nurse, and that there are so many ways of performing this occupations, is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it is impossible to measure whether or not I am a good nurse through what feedback I get from other people, because what will get you praise and approval one place might get you trouble in another place. Some value efficiency and keeping the time schedule, some value good patient contact, some value good medical care. On the other hand, the fact that it is such a diverse occupation must mean that I will be able to do it in some form or another? And I just have to keep believing that somewhere out there is a place who will want me, a place where I could do a good job and make a difference in people's lives, despite my obvious limitations.

About a new start

2011-08-21T22:21:00.002+01:00

I've been thinking about starting this whole proper blog-malarky up again for a while. Tumblr is great and all, but it's not the right arena for long wall of texts, and every now and then I have a huge rant in me that I need to get out. Plus, I miss writing.

I am painfully aware that I probably disclose too much information about myself when I talk to people. It makes people uncomfortable, I know that as well. They didn't ask for my life story. I can't tell you why I do it. Maybe I'm trying to get some sort of acknowledgment or attention or maybe I just want to be pitied, maybe all of the above. My story is a sad one, and sometimes I wonder if that's all, if that's everything I am and what makes me me - my story. If that's all I have to offer in this world.

So by blogging, my rants and ravings about what goes on in my mind will at least only go out to the few who actively came on this blog - if they come on here they asked for it. And maybe it'll make it easier to keep my mouth shut in the outside world.

I promise I won't just write about the sad things. And if I do I'll try to throw in the old joke here and there.

Tae kwon do, class #2

2010-02-16T13:58:00.002+01:00

I survived yet another tae kwon do class. How did it go? Well, this summarizes it pretty well:

Sunday is planning and organizing day!

2010-02-14T22:57:00.002+01:00

In six days I'll be in the O2 again, seeing Depeche Mode! I'm leaving for London in 5 days, and this lazy Sunday has mostly gone by writing mails and messages to various travel companions, and making various arrangements.

Me and a few girls are going to an afterparty directly after the gig, and since the club can fill up fast and we have to get there sharpish we decided to splash out on booking a taxi with a chaffeur service. Directly after the gig the taxi company will call me and arrange a meeting spot, and we will be picked up at the O2 and driven straight to the club. It only cost us 25 quid or so, well worth it considering the tube that normally services The O2 will be closed on that date, and the only way to get home from North Greenwich is via riverboat or various buses -which will be a nightmare considering it 24,000 people.

Finally I can relax, knowing that everything is booked and prearranged. Hotels in London, Denmark and Düsseldorf are booked, as are flight tickets, concert tickets and afterparty tickets. I have sorted how I'm getting to and from the airport in Norway, Denmark and London, as well as taxi from the O2 to the afterparty. When I arrive in London my concert ticket will be waiting for me at reception. Honestly I'm pretty good at this whole travelling lark, if I do say so myself.

Tomorrow I am starting my internship, luckily we have a short day, we will be given our work schedules and a tour, that's pretty much it. And I have tae kwon do class in the evening. Will definitely take it easier this time, trying to avoid getting as asthmatic as I did on Thursday - I can still feel it, the smallest amount of exertions causes me to cough, I've ended up throwing up a few times today. Not good. Luckily I'm going to the doctor on Thursday.

Harsh wake up call.

2010-02-12T07:55:00.008+01:00

As you probably have figured out, just by reading this, I survived Tae Kwon Do class. But just barely.

A usual class starts off with a rather hefty warmup, which means running in circles while doing various things (touch the floor on command, wave yoru arms around, jump sideways etc etc). Today we also did things like using our belts to hold each other back while trying to run forward, doign that wheel barrow thing, stuff like that. And my physical condition and endurance is virtually non-exsistant, and I knew that, but I still feel really embarassed about my poor shape. But what really scared me was how heavy my breathing got. Seems I can't deny it anymore, I have asthma, at least of the exercise-induced kind. Being short of breath is normal when you exert yourself, but coughing, wheezing and feeling your bronchi constrict, isn't. I vowed to myself as I ran around panting that I would quit the damn smoking. Luckily, the master, Patrick, is a really sweet guy, and he told me while we were running around that I could ease off, take everything in my own pace, just walk if I felt like it. I told him asthma runs heavily in my family, and that I more than likely have it too, plus that I haven't exercised properly for 4-5 years. I always feel like I have to explain myself, give some kind of excuse. But the fact remainds that I am in piss poor shape, and I really really hate the warmups. I get dizzy, can't breathe, I sweat, I feel like I have no energy at all, and about 5 minutes into class I felt like I had a Gollum inside of me, screaming:

"why are you hurting us??! We could be home, in our preciousssss ssssofa, watching Dexter! We don't want to do this anymore! It hurts us, it's uncomfortable, we're sweating, we can't breathe, we have bloodtastes in our mouths and everyone else is running past us! This is embarrassssssing!"

After the horrible warmups comes the parts I like - we usually do a series of stretches, and then we start with the fun stuff. Kicking, punching etc. We learned the beginners fight "pattern" today, I remember most of it from last time and I love doing them. It's a series of 18 movements, different blocks, punches and kicks, it's supposed to be like an imaginary fight in which you attack and defend yourself from enemies. After the patterns we spent the rest of class doing various kicks on kickbags (which kinda hurts after the 20th kick). These are all parts of the training that I love, learning the routines and the movement, feeling the difference in the power of punches and kicks as you learn to do them correctly. Classes usually end with some strength exercises, push ups, sit ups, stuff like that, and I'm not fond of them either but I'd take that over warmups anyday.

But I remember now, why I used to love Tae Kwon Do. The patterns, the routines, and the feeling you get afterwards of having used your body, exerted yourself. Now I just hope I will have the motivation to keep it up. I like the taekwondo-club, the trainers are authoritarian, as they should be, but they can still joke around and be friends, which makes it a bit more relaxed and casual. All martial arts require a fair bit of discipline, in TKD we have to bow as we enter or leave the training hall, you should obey commands and not fiddle around, pick your nose etc until you're given a command much like that "at ease". The TKD-club I trained at 7 years ago was much more hardcore, we did pushups on our knuckles on bare asphalt for crying out loud. I'm not that hard-core. Patrick said he recommended me staying in bed or in the sofa over the weekend, as I would most likely be unable to move. He has a sense of humour, which is good.

Tae Kwon Do practice turned out to be a harsh, unexpected wake up call regarding the state of my lungs. I expected the shortness of breath to ease off when the practice ended, and that it would go away completely after a while, but I spent most of the night wheezing, coughing and feeling like I didn't get enough oxygen. Of course this gets worse when I lay down, so I ended up propping a duvet and three pillows under my back, and let me tell you - sleeping in an almost sitting position is not fun. Not that I got much sleep, either. Seems I will be giving my doctor a call and ask if there are any meds I can take before or after training to help ease my breathing, otherwise these classes are going to be even harder than I imagined. If that's possible.

2010-02-10T17:00:00.002+01:00

In 10 days I'll be back in London, hopefully standing in front of these two gorgeous men. Yay!

Also, I never went to that Tae Kwon Do practice, had a hefty migraine that morning and felt groggy all day. But I AM going tomorrow, I've even invested in a sports bra to prove it! Am sort of looking forward to it, actually. My neighbor Johanne said she'd come with me, partly because she's curious about the sport, but mostly to be a moral support for me.

I've been sat here with medical calculus problems the past two days, trying to get my head around it. I have an exam on friday, and I have to score 100% on it, or I'll fail. Luckily we get 5 attempts. It's not the math in itself that's difficult, it's mostly add and subtract, divide and multiply, and usually with easy numbers. The problem is managing to recognize what is the amount, what is the dosage and what is the strength of the drug. For example " 1ml morphine with the strength 20mg/ml is added 3 ml of fluid. What is the strength of the diluted solution (mg/ml)? I think I've got it now, finally. But I guess only the test will let me know for sure.

Countdown calendar is back!

2010-02-07T20:47:00.002+01:00

In just 13 days I'm leaving for London and the last leg of my own little Tour of the Universe! Squeeee!

Bad, bad blogger.

2010-02-07T19:27:00.003+01:00

As some of you have pointed out to me over and over, I have been a horribly bad blogger. What to blame this time?

The excuses
Well, first of all I've had the traditional Great January Winter Depression. Most people gets excited by starting a new year, they like new years eve and am generally positive. I am not. Maybe it's just the innate pessimist in me, but I find starting a new year kind of exhausting, it takes me a month or two just to built momentum and get going. Hence the winter depression, which always renders me totally apathetic, steals all my creativity and leaves me sad and lonely.
Secondly, I've been in some post-pre-Depeche-Mode concert euphoria that has made me totally useless, I can't seem to keep focused on anything for more than 30 minutes straight. I had these grand plans about writing long and great blog posts after my concerts, bragging about how great they were and what I had experienced, and show off photos. And they were great, but when I come back I'm always so tired, drained and lost for words I have no idea when to even start.
Thirdly, I had two exams in January, and am supposed to have a third one in less than a week. I passed the practical one, and anatomy, which is great news. Am not so stressed about the medical calculus I'm having on Friday, I have 5 attempts on it and right now too much is going on. Am going to try to pass first time though.

The Internship
In a week, on February 15th, I'm starting a 10 week internship at a nursing home in my home town. Now, I've worked in nursing homes before, I've even worked in this particular one, hence this shouldn't scare me at all, but it does. It's been a few years since last time, and even though working with diapers and other disgusting stuff didn't bother me as much as I thought it would back then, I'm horrified at the idea this time too. I already know that geriatrics isn't my favorite field, and isn't what I want to work with, I'd much rather work in the other end of life, helping babies rather than old people who many of them are just waiting to die, it's too depressing for someone who is melancholic by nature. I have infite respect for those who work in nursing homes. Maybe it's just the prospect of 8 hour working days 4 days a week that scares me. School days are shorter, and not nearly as physically demanding as a day in a nursing home can be. But on the other hand it will be a nice change of pace from sitting in an auditorium or playing around with plastic dolls, hospital beds and needles.

The Martial Arts
Tomorrow, however, I am going to do something I've been thinking about for 7-8 years but always chickened out from: Start training Tae Kwon Do again. I trained it for a while back in high school, and in elementary school, and it's the only sport I ever found remotely fun to do, that and squash. Starting up again scares the shit out of me, I'm terrified, I can just picture all the running and sweating, being surrounded by young people who are very fit, gracious and healthy. But as the trainer said in his mail: the physical fitness will come, the point is to just get started. About once every hour I decide I won't go. But then I change my mind again. I want to do this, and I should do this, for my mental and physical health. It will make me stronger, have more energy and maybe give me more self confidence. *chants self-motivational mantra*

The Tour of the Universe
In less than two weeks I'm leaving for London, departing on early friday and coming back late on sunday. While I'm there I hope to fit in some general sightseeing and shopping with Julie, a pleasant dinner and drinks with fellow Depeche-fans, a Depeche Mode gig on the 20th plus subsequent afterparty. I'll get back home late on Sunday, work for a day and then be off again very early on tuesday morning, this time heading for Copenhagen and ultimately Horsens in Denmark, then zooming down to Düsseldorf until Sunday. This is going to be epic. But I am already terrified of the post-tour-depression that'll hit me on Sunday the 28th. Because that means this is over, the tour is over, no more last chances to go to a gig on some impulse. They'll go back home, rest and relax and Mart will hopefully write songs, and all will be quiet from Depeche for a year or two. And god knows they deserve it. I just need to find something to fill the "void" while they're on a break.

1!

2009-12-14T09:28:00.000+01:00

1 day left until London and Depeche Mode!

Dave is ready for take off, and so are we. Done packing, I just hope I get some sleep before I have to drive to the airport.
And might I add:
OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

2!

2009-12-13T03:06:00.000+01:00

2 days left until London and Depeche Mode!
Sigrid is coming today!

3!

2009-12-12T02:18:00.001+01:00

3 days left until London and Depeche Mode!

4!

2009-12-11T19:20:00.000+01:00

4 days left until London and Depeche Mode!
They're getting warmed up now. God knows what Mart's warming up for...

5!

2009-12-10T19:20:00.000+01:00

5 days left until London and Depeche Mode!

6!

2009-12-09T19:05:00.000+01:00

6 days left until London and Depeche Mode!
I'm gonna do like the boys and start packin' now.

7!

2009-12-08T19:17:00.000+01:00

7 days left until London and Depeche Mode!

ONLY A WEEK!

8!

2009-12-07T02:34:00.000+01:00

8 days left until London and Depeche Mode!
Mart has an impatient.

9!

2009-12-06T18:57:00.001+01:00

9 days left until Depeche Mode and London!

And it's blog post nr 200!

10!

2009-12-05T01:21:00.000+01:00

OH MY GOD, we're on single digits! Mart and Dave are over the moon!

11!

2009-12-04T01:14:00.000+01:00

Even Dave's lighting up, now :D

12!

2009-12-03T01:13:00.000+01:00

Mart still looks excited <3

13!

2009-12-02T01:12:00.000+01:00

My christmas wish list

2009-12-01T04:38:00.007+01:00

In an ideal world - this would be under my Christmas Tree this year:

Backstage Pass to Depeche Mode

A Gretsch Anniversary

Tickets to see Arsenal at the Emirates

A compact superzoom camera

A Labradoodle (Or a Golden Retriever)

A foosball table

14!

2009-12-01T01:11:00.002+01:00

15!

2009-11-30T01:10:00.000+01:00

16!

2009-11-29T01:08:00.000+01:00

17!

2009-11-28T01:06:00.000+01:00

Mart and Andy is looking forward to it, at least :)

18!

2009-11-27T01:04:00.000+01:00

19!

2009-11-26T01:02:00.000+01:00

20!

2009-11-25T00:59:00.001+01:00

Dave is tired of waiting and has pulled up a chair.

21!

2009-11-24T00:58:00.000+01:00

22!

2009-11-23T00:56:00.001+01:00

23!

2009-11-22T00:56:00.000+01:00

My own personal christmas calendar!

2009-11-21T00:42:00.000+01:00

This year there is ONE thing I look forward to more than christmas eve, and that's my Depeche Mode gigs. Hence I've made a Depeche Mode countdown calendar!

Bazinga

2009-11-10T22:43:00.005+01:00

Total word count: 23,723

Ugh, I'm a terrible blogger. But there are so many things distracting me these days I can barely find the time to eat food. Yes, I still cough. Yes, I still spend way too much time on Tumblr, or DMMB, or IM'ing with people from New York or Australia or some other ridiculously far away place.

And now my mate has even gotten me into NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. "The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. "Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins." I had an insomnia-induced writing kick a few nights ago and wrote 12k words in a night. Total word count suddenly reached over 23k. No, I won't tell you what I'm writing about. Most likely no one will ever read it but me. But these days it's my escape, it's cathartic, it's things I need to get out of my head and out of my system. Might seem utterly pointless, but it isn't.

School have been suffering a bit lately due to me being sick, sleeping badly, my energy levels being non-detectable, the level of confusion rising and my motivation taking a down-turn. I am, however, desperately trying to give myself a kick up the backside. In an effort to make anatomy and physiology a bit more understandable, I've taken up my sisters advice and ordered coloring books on Amazon. Might sound childish and utterly useless, but - drawing and coloring makes you use additional parts of your brain while you study, supposedly making it easier to remember. So far in the lectures we've had to draw simplified drawings to explain physiological processes just as much as we've had to take normal notes. At this point, considering the utterly useless book we have in this subject, and the fact that the exam is 2 months away - I need all the help I can get.

My most recent obsession is The Big Bang Theory, by the way. I've watched all the episodes up until now in like.. a week. I love Sheldon. Bazinga.

I take it back

2009-11-02T18:27:00.001+01:00

Yup, I take it back. Bacteria most certainly does not rule. After my little spout of the flu in late september I hoped I was finished with my share of diseases for this winter, or at least for 2009. While I had microbiology I learned that getting the flu destroys something in the alveoli of your lungs, making you much more vulnerable to secondary respiratory bacterial infections. If course, by the law of sod, this HAS to apply to me much more so than it applies to everyone else - and I've now been coughing for over two weeks. Finally got to see a doctor today, and he suspects I either have whooping cough cause by pertussis, or an atypical bacterial pneumonia caused by mycoplasma or chlamydia pneumoniae. Will get the answer in a week, in the meantime I will have to make due with a rather large bottle of cough syrup including morphine. Why can't the bacteria just leave me alone so I can go to school and study?

Bacteriae rule.

2009-10-26T21:16:00.003+01:00

Got the results from my microbiology exam today - my first serious attempt at a "university"-grade exam. *does the victory dance and smokes the victory cigar* Safe to say I'm a happy girl.
Did you know that from the total amount of cells you have on your body, only 10% are you? The rest of you are bacteria. You're only 10% human - and 90% bacteria.

Horribul.

2009-10-23T04:12:00.003+01:00

Know I haven't been the most prolific blogger the past week, mainly because nothing is happening apart from my intense urge to sleep around the clock - which is normal at this time of year. Secretly I think I was a bear in my past life, and the hibernation thing still kicks in.

But now, ironically, I can't sleep. Hence I roam teh intarwebz. I found a few interesting things, hence I need to rant.

Firstly: I just discovered totally randomly that someone who knows someone I am friends with ONLY because she’s a DM fan in the US has grabbed one of my lolmodes as a profile picture. Bizarre experience, seeing a thing you made and posted thinking maybe about 20 people would read, turn up as a profile picture for a random person.

Secondly: I just did something completely stupid. While on YouTube watching an interview with Martin Gore, I saw in a comment someone mentioning a Martin/DM forum which-name-shall-not-be-mentioned-ever-again. Curiosity took over (the same curiosity that killed the cat, I presume), so I registered and entered it. MISTAKE. The name-which-never-shall-be-mentioned-ever-again should’ve been a warning in itself, but no, I didn’t pick up on that. The forum was split into sections regarding Martin (mainly), Alan, Dave and Fletch. With dubious forum thread titles such as “fanfics”, “Put it away, Martin!”, “Martin’s girls” and “Martin’s Red Light District”, I went through these emotions in quick succession: Digust, awe, stunned disbelief, nausea, utter surprise, repulsion, embarrasment (for them, not me), relief (for me, not them), revulsion, being grossed out, shock, outrage, indignance and sheer pain. I felt utterly desecrated, filthy and damaged. I learned a few things though.

I have too much respect for Martin to openly discuss his “girlfriends”/family/divorce/one night stands/”scandals”/drinking/drug use/whatever. (Besides, how much of that is actually true?) Nor do I particularily want to see a gazillion pictures of his kids and or him in private settings, I feel like such a creepy fucking stalker.
I am normal. Way more normal than I imagined myself to be. By that forums standards, I am actually a sane, non-obsessive and balanced individual. This is the only good feeling I am left with, however.

I went into that forum hoping to find some cool pictures, either ones I liked or some I could put captions on. It turned out to be a slap in the face. I DID try to close my eyes/ignore the ominous threads I DIDN’T want to read, and focus on the threads that were supposed to be normal pictures, but the sheer amount of BATSHIT CRAZY made me come to a conclusion: no amount of pictures in the world is worth this crap - I had to get out of there. (And, I’ve never EVER seen forum people use THAT many smileys, either…)

Sadly, I dragged sisterofnight with me into this mess, and for that I am eternally sorry, but we did discuss it and realised what the forum did for us, and that was give us a warning about fangirlism: “Is this how you want to become? This is the path you are heading. Turn, now! Flee, you fools!” It’s like when you show smokers cancerous smokers lungs. It gives you a wake up call.

Yes, I love Depeche Mode. And I adore Martin Gore, I will forever admire him AND think he looks bloody good. But I am never, ever, ever, ever going back to that forum. Ever. Because it’s sheer evil.

Perfect!

2009-10-16T18:26:00.001+01:00

Just heard that Nitzer Ebb has been announced as the support for Depeche Mode from January 9th and through February. This means that I'll get to see Nitzer Ebb AND Depeche four times in two months. I'm about ready to explode with teh happy. This is going to be four absolute perfect nights.

Joy!

2009-10-14T17:07:00.006+01:00

When I came back to my apartment on monday night, I found this in my mailbox, and almost collapsed with an overdose of happee. 3 Arsenal shirts and the Depeche Mode ticket for the O2 show on December 15th.

Mart illustrates teh happee.

Mad hatter v 2.0

2009-10-13T11:44:00.008+01:00

A while ago I wrote about the mohawk-hat I was about to knit. Well, I finished one. Which I gave to my friend, and she felted it on her own. Then I made another one, tied 340 knots to make the mohawk (!), and threw it in the washer downstairs. See, the thing about felting is, it's kind of a high risk sport, you can never ever be sure of the outcome. And lo and behold - my first attempt came out way to felted, and way too small. Hrmph.

All right, fine. I'll make another one. So I did, and threw it VERY tentatively in the washer at my dad's last night. This one turned out slightly under-felted (if that's even a word), but hey... I'm kind of pleased anyway.

We look good, don't we? Yeah, we do ^^
(And yes, that's an Arsenal shirt)

Tumblr stole my life!

2009-10-12T01:04:00.008+01:00

This all began about a week ago, when I'd run off to Sisterofnight, my fellow Depeche Mode fangurl for some much needed relaxation and red wine to prepare for my microbiology exam.

The first evening I overdid it on the red wine, however, and have no clear recollection of going to bed. I will, hoever, never forget waking up and spotting this over my head. Safe to say, after taking a minute to wake up, I burst out laughing so loudly my head almost exploded (but that was more the red wine's fault, really).

Via twitter, a fellow fan instantly named this sort of thing a Lolmode, and via another tweeter I stumbled across a site with the not-so-subtle name of Fuck Yeah Martin Gore. This was a Tumblr-site (filled with 50+ pages with pictures *hirr hirr*), and this site in turn introduced me to the world of Tumblr - which basically is a simplified blogging, but a slightly more complicated way of tweeting. Think of it as a mini-blog meets Twitter and Twitpics. Naturally, there's also a Fuck Yeah Dave Gahan and a Fuck Yeah Depeche Mode site along with tons and tons of tumblr-site devoted to and revovling around every and any thinkable obsession or interest you may have.

After our weekend of red wine and fanatism ended we started talking about making a tumblr-site of our own, where we could post our various blurbs and outbursts - an outlet for our obsession, you might say. This sort of disappeared in everything else we were yapping about, though.

About 3 days ago, slightly hungover (yes, again...) and horribly bored I was browsing through I Can Has Cheezburger, the eternal and neverending source of Lolcat pictures. This is a habit I have, a way to pass the time when I really have nothing else in the world to do (besides stuff like the dishes, or the laundry, or cleaning the floors. Ew.) And when I saw a certain picture of a lolcat, my little fangirl brain instantly referenced it to a picture I'd seen of Martin Gore a short while ago. Of course I had to get hold of both pictures and make my own little "Totally Looks Like"-picture. Et vóila, my career as a Lolmode-maker was born.

Realising that making Lolmodes actually was really fun, I made the Tumblr-site Master and Servant,

and started to produce more captioned pictures. The activity of finding pictures to caption, thinking of captions, making the actual pictures and posting them to Tumblr, along with reblogging/liking other tumblrposts, and trolling on the depechemode.com-forum about the damn Lolmodes has now completely taken over every aspect of my life - I can't seem to be able to do anything else. Not even blog. Hence the lack of blogging lately. Hopefully, this newly found obsessive hobby will die down somewhat, and I'll be able to return to normal. *awaits sarcastic comments*

It does, however, seem like people like these Lolmodes, and laugh at them, which makes me really happy for some reason.

The simple things...

2009-10-07T21:26:00.003+01:00

Just went for a long, late night walk with my dog. And Martin. (On the iPod). Felt I had to, to compensate for the forced bath. (Of the dog, not Martin.) Unbelievable how much fun can be had with a broken plastic chair leg. An enormous football pitch really isn't that dark in bright moonlight. It was actually kind of beautiful. Autumn isn't that bad either. I love being out in the cold, so my cheeks get all pink and frozen. It makes me feel alive and a part of the world. I forgot that for a while. Amazing how much company there is in a beautiful voice. That's me, a sister of night.

Food for thought

2009-10-06T21:28:00.007+01:00

Pictures like these are the reason why I want to become a nurse, go back to Africa and make a difference in this world. Taken from World Press Photo Archives.

"Do you ever get that feeling
When the guilt begins to hurt?
Seeing all the children
Wallowing in dirt
Crying out with hunger
Crying out in pain

At least the dirt will wash off

When it starts to rain

Soap won't wash away your shame

Do you ever get the feeling
That something isn't right?
Seeing your brother's fist
Clenched ready for the fight
Soon the fighting turns to weapons
And the weapons turn to wounds
So the doctor's stitch and stitch and stitch
And stitch and stitch and stitch and stitch

Surgery won't improve your pain

It all seems so stupid
It makes me want to give up
But why should I give up
When it all seems so stupid?

Do you ever get the feeling
That something can't be done?
To eradicate these problems
And make the people one
Do you ever get that feeling
Something like a nagging itch?
And all the while the doctors stitch
And stitch and stitch and stitch and stitch

Hope alone won't remove the stains (shame)

It all seems so stupid
It makes me want to give up
But why should I give up
When it all seems so stupid?"

New diagnose

2009-10-06T16:28:00.002+01:00

I have sadly recieved yet another diagnose to add to my list of ailments and disorders.

"DMOCD, or Depeche Mode Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, is a hereditary condition in which the sufferer feels the need to constantly listen to music and watch videos by the British electro rock act Depeche Mode. The known effects of this obsession include singing their songs non-stop or acquiring every Depeche Mode-related item possible.

Symptoms may also include spontaneous arm/hand waving, loud outbursts such as “Let me hear you sing it!” and “Oh yeah, that’s right!” and a fondness for anything black or sparkly and the number 101, as well as constantly posting on the Depeche Mode Message Board (or the DMMB for short), buying the best seats in the house for concerts, decorating your car with various Depeche Mode-related merchandise, voting for the band on radio stations, awards polls and getting fans to join in voting, etc.

Some devotees can also develop carpal-tunnel syndrome in one’s right hand (this is common particularly among many female sufferers) from right-clicking to download any and all pictures found under various “best of” posts on the DMMB. There can also be an increased awareness of hot flashes when looking at certain pictures of their favourite band member. Bruising may form as well, as the sufferer may sometimes fall off their chairs - this again is particular to female sufferers.
When meeting a band member, the inability to speak (laryngitis is always a good excuse!) due to awe OR uncontrollable screaming, hugging or kissing when in the presence of a group member OR simply passing out is very common. This particular characteristic is documented in the 101 DVD when group member Andrew Fletcher touches the hand of a female sufferer.

Sufferers can go weeks - if not months - without listening to any other bands…unless it is out of their control i.e. public places that play music within their facilities.

Research has found that various Depeche Mode songs can also invoke strong emotions in sufferers. This is particularly evident at live shows and the uncontrollable urge to do the “wheatfield wave” when listening to Never Let Me Down Again… regardless of where the sufferer is!

WARNING: THIS DISEASE IS HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS, ESPECIALLY IF THE SUFFERER IS EXPOSED TO A DEPECHE MODE CONCERT OR ANYTHING RELATING TO THIS BAND!"

Got this text in my mailbox from a fellow sufferer of DMOCD. I lol'd.

One down...

2009-10-05T14:45:00.005+01:00

Today I've had my first exam as a nurse student. The subject was microbiology and hygiene, and as the geeky sod that I am I love this subject - for some reason I find disgusting bacteriae, fungi,m parasites and nasty viral infections very interesting. (Maybe because I'm one of the most infection-prone people walking the earth.) Seeing as we started school on August 18th, an exam on October 5th seemed really daunting, but I discovered quite quickly that my years of not studying hadn't resulted in my brain completely rotting out, I was actually able to obtain and remember information.

So how did it go today? I am hoping for a B, honestly, but we'll see. You can obtain a maximum of a hundred points, and I reckon I got about 80 or 85. Unless I get a kind judge that tips me over into the 90's and gets me that A. If that happens, I am so going to get a copy of the bloody exam along with the grade and slam it on my doctors desk - the moody bastard that looked at me sceptically saying "why do you think you'll do any better at school this time?" Or maybe not, I don't want to be a person who holds a grudge. Or maybe I will, just in this case.

The last 20 minutes before the exam started was probably the longest in my life, the clock seemed to tick backwards, that's how slow time seemed to move. I should probably count myself as blessed, I don't get exam nerves until the morning of the exam, but then I get them rather bad. About 15 minutes before exam start, some random woman's phone rang in the classroom - the ringtone was a crappy midi version of the "Just Can't Get Enough" intro. I smiled to myself, thinking it was Depeche trying to calm me down, wish me good luck and show they had faith in me. Silly, I know, but it helped.

Now I am off to buy food and have myself a glass of wine... or three. Tomorrow at 8 we're starting with anatomy, physiology and biology. Time to format the hard drive and start all over again...

Temporary insanity

2009-10-01T23:39:00.008+01:00

I am going to claim temporary insanity. Just bought another damn Depeche Mode ticket - am now going to see both shows at the O2 in London. Got a seat in block 101 now, which is symbolic enough, and might be bloody good tickets actually, seeing as it is more or less ON the side of the stage. And bonus - it's on Mart's side! And no, I didn't pay and arm and a leg for it, that I actually wouldn't have done, insanity or no. Ended up paying about 10 quid more than normal sell price, which I can happily live with. Oh well, I'll get less time to throw away money around London, that's the upside. On the downside, I will have to be rather efficient in my sightseeing and Christmas shopping since I'll be busy both nights.

Oh you beautiful man, you. Shiiiiiiiny.

Speaking of Mart, if you're a fanatic with an itch you want scratched, go here. Be warned, you might end up spending a few hours here, though.

I cry

2009-09-28T19:43:00.009+01:00

Isn't it weird how disconnected you can feel from people around you, close to you, people you can see, talk to and touch? Or, how you can feel like you connect with someone you've never had the good grace to meet? That you have some sort of understanding and common ground, even though the only way you can feel it is through words, music and distant impressions? Some people just have souls that reach out to you, guide you and watch over you, regardless of wether they know you exist or not. He doesn't know I exist, and I am aware of that. But I know he does, and to me, in my life, that has made a world of difference. I am forever grateful and and will always have endless love for him.

Lamb - I cry
One day I met a precious soul
Whose words had touched my heart
His poetry resounded so
It tore my soul apart
But when I tried my thoughts to speak
Emotion made my mind so weak
And time stood still for years and years
I bathed him in my tears

I cried, I cried
Tears of joy tears of pain
I cried, I cried
Tears of love again and again

Some people turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I really want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emotions reign
My tears flow just the same

I cried, I cried
Tears of joy tears of pain
I cried, I cried
Tears of love again and again

Gonna burn so completely I leave no trace

Though so many out there would laugh in my face
For wearing emotion so close to the skin
Condemn me they might if to love's such a sin

Counting down to exam day...

2009-09-28T16:27:00.005+01:00

Song of the day: Depeche Mode - Shine

I've been fever- and painfree for a while now, but I'm still not feeling quite myself. As per usual after the flu, I get this horrid cough that lingers on for weeks, causing me to not sleep very well at all. As a result I didn't fall asleep properly until 6 this morning, overslept and missed my first lecture of the day. In 7 days I'll be having an exam, so part of me felt that I should've been there, but I'm not getting much out of zooming through diseases, viruses and bacteriae with the speed of light - writing notes and studying on my own works much better, so that's what I did for four hours. Not sure how much of it that's actually sticking, though - I'm having trouble keeping umpteen different contagions and their diseases apart. I'm confident I'll pass, that's for sure, but I think I can forget about that A I've been aiming for. I blame the swineflu.

What else is going on? Not much, honestly. Oh, wait! My fellow devotional and fanatic fangirl Sigrid, who went with me to Arvika this summer, has decided to come with me to London in December, and has booked the flight, a hotel room and gotten herself a ticket to the same show I have! I didn't think it was possible to look forward to that trip any more than I already am, but apparently it is! Now I have someone to obsess and discuss and go "fap fap fap" to after the concert! Now, if only she hadn't brought to my attention that tickets for the show the previous day are available on Ebay at not-so-horrible prices... *grumble*

1.	fap	6970 up, 740 down
	September 8, 2007 Urban Word of the Day The onomatopoeic representation of masturbation. Often used to suggest that something is attractive. Did you see those Natalie Portman pics? fap fap fap

Also, today, I became a member of Arsenal Norway! And my livingroom now looks like this ^^

Shake the disease. Again.

2009-09-24T23:14:00.004+01:00

Still alive, but just barely. Managed to contract the flu. Might even be the swine flu, I don't know, the doctor couldn't check because the laboratories don't have the capacity to check anymore. Will resume blogging and posting when I'm capable of being awake for more than an hour at a time, and coughing without loosing a lung. This is so typically me, isn't it?

My mailbox is nice to me!

2009-09-18T12:14:00.006+01:00

The past few days my mailbox has been very nice to me. That's the way I choose to percieve it anyway. You could argue that it's me that's been nice to me, since I have paid for this stuff after all. But that doesn't sound as fun as having a nice, giving, loving mailbox. To quote the great Adam Savage -

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Yesterday I got my tickets for the "intimate" DM-show in Horsens, Denmark. Boy, those danes are fast - I only bought the tickets on Monday. Getting quite a collection of these tickets now, and my paranoia and concern for their safety grows exponentially each time I get some in the mail. What if I have a break-in? Or a fire? Maybe I should get a safe? Nah, too expensive. Put them in dad's safe? No, that would only lead to questions like: "What?! Are you going to all these concerts?! How much did all this cost?!" Not tempting. I'll take my chances and keep them at home, out of reach from my dog. My mailbox did also provide me with another few records for my collection - The Singles 81-85, and the Stripped single. These are almost as precious as the tickets, mind.

My mailbox have to be in a good mood, because today it provided me with two more packages. Both contained shipments of yarn from the US. Finally I can start knitting the mohawk hat with the yarn I'm supposed to use! I'll make two black ones to start with, one for me and one for a fellow Depechist girl friend of mine. And, if I can be bothered, I'll make a black and grey version of the hat seen on the cover - which requires a whole pile of intarsia knitting. Which I hate. time will show. The white and blue slightly furry mohair-yarn is intended for a stripey, comfy sweater which is supposedly very easy to make. We'll see about that, too. With all of this lying in my living room waiting for me, they sort of dictate my weekend activities. Seeing as I have yet to celebrate my birthday properly, I will, however, consume at least one bottle of wine tonight, be it alone or with some classmates (or maybe even the beforementioned Depechist, if she can come, yay.)

My dog, however, doesn't give a flying f*** about knitting, records or my birthday. All is well in her world as long as she gets to kill my Chtulu Plushie. Having a dogs life does seem tempting sometimes...

Regression

2009-09-15T13:18:00.011+01:00

Like idol, like fan? Any similarities are purely coincidental. *cough*

While everyone is talking about the financial crisis, recessions and depressions, I am my self coping with a regression of my own. I'm slowly, but steadily, regressing back to the 80s. Not in a "I'm going back to teats and diapers and milk in a bottle" sort of way. I mean more generally, as in going back to the 80s as a decade filled with weird music and even weirder clothing. By now you all know about (and am sick of hearing about) my slight obsession with a certain band, but in the last month I've been stuck on the old, poppy, 80s Depeche. Now, bands like that during the 80s could have rather extreme and experimental images, and I guess at least some parts of Depeche would fall nicely into that category. And, of course, me being all young and impressionable gets inspired by such things as Martin Gore's somewhat outrageous bondage outfits of the 80s. Relax, I'm staying well away from Mart's harnesses, chains, black leather shorts and handcuffs (well, about the handcuffs... Nevermind, let's not go there). But I have gone rather retro in my shopping of late, buying very bleached jeans, a bikers cap, hats... Well, see for yourself.

This is why days off are useless to me: I end up being restless and bored, go out on some impulse to the mall and end up with this:
Slight shopping spree... Leggings with "rivets", leg warmers, a large singlet and some large comfy tops, a vest, a hat and a few leather armbands ala 80s.

In other news
I'm mostly preoccupided with school these days, studying hygiene, microbiology, how to isolate contagions and so on. Yes, I'm weird, I love microbiology, and take pride in knowing silly words such as meticillinresistant staphylococcus aureus, hyaluronidase and Escherichia Coli - AND knowing what those are. My class consist of somewhere between 150-200 students, we're all divided into two major groups A and B, which is then divided into groups of 15 people who tend to do practical lectures and assignments together. Yesterday I was suprisingly, by popular vote, given the "honorary post". Basically I'm the groups representative, they can come to me if they have something to adress or if there's a problem. It's nice knowing people trust you with these sort of chores, but I will forever wonder what it is about me that invokes peoples trust. When I was in Africa a few years ago, some of the girls started calling me "mummy Emmy", so I might be some sort of maternal figure. God knows.

More tickets?!
Yesterday 9000 Depeche-tickets were made available for purchase. They're doing two shows in Horsens, Denmark in late Febuary, and in the context of this tour the shows are rather special in the fact that they will "only" have an audience of about 4500 each night, as opposed to their normal crowd of between 20 and 100 000. These "intimate" concerts are held in what is supposed to be one of the best acoustic musical halls in Denmark (but that might just be the arranger boasting). To me and a fellow Depeche devotional I've met through forums, this sounded too good to be true, so we tried to get tickets. I hate doing that, by the way. Sitting by the computer, watching the time, counting down, pressing refresh, just waiting for that exact moment the page makes the bloody tickets available. Thankfully I was quick enough, and got my grubby hands on tickets for the tuesday show. A very nice mate of mine had agreed to help me out, and tried to get tickets for monday - and the real kicker is that he got in queue and had tickets. But, as he tried to press the blasted "pay" button, which should've directed him to a site where he could fill in (my) credit card info, this happened in stead: he got an error message saying his payment was rejected, which is especially mind-boggling when you consider the fact that he hadn't typed in anything, and in the end he got redirected to the front page, and fell out of queue. Tickets for both shows were gone in 12 minutes, so I guess I should shut up, thank my lucky stars and quit complaining.

Mad Hatter 2 - post felting

2009-09-07T19:10:00.003+01:00

Turned out too small, as I knew it would, but otherwise it's all right. Since I didn't use quite the right yarn, the mohawk got a bit more compact then I wanted it too, but that'll probably be better once I get the proper yarn. Need to find someone small-headed I can push this mohawk hat on, though, don't want it to just be left lying around.

Mad hatter!

2009-09-05T22:50:00.003+01:00

Am soon finished with the mohawk test hat! Needs some more 'hawk fringes and felting, which will make it look more like an actual mohawk and less like spaghetti yarn flopping around. Am pleased with how it's turning out tho - but felting can either make it brilliant og totally ruin it. Ordered proper yarn today, too - can't wait!

Weekend!

2009-09-04T14:16:00.003+01:00

... the collection grows some more...
Gotta stop buying these, soon...

Yay, it's the weekend, I have friends and a cousin coming over for a party, I feel on top of everything at school AND my vinyl collection grew a bit more today! All is well! The only thing this weekend is missing is an Arsenal-match. Cheers!

That time of the month...

2009-09-02T15:22:00.004+01:00

Seeing as I am a hormonal, candy-munching girly-girl with a breakout of acne these days, a post like this one was sort of inevitable. I apologize in advance.

So, what makes a moody house-elf with the cramps happy? New shoes, of course! And lo and behold, a large box of them arrived in the mail today. I bought them at Delia's, on clearance, and paid about 110$ for them - including shipping and horrible customs this came closer to 220, but that's still not bad for 3 pairs of shoes. Should be set for winter!

Another thing that arrived in the mail was this book, and I have already started on a test knit on the mohawk hat. It's not the right gauge needles or the right yarn, so it'll probably come out all wonky and the wrong size, but it's nice to have some practice before starting ruining proper yarn. If it turns out all right, I have a few more to knit for friends, and I'll probably end up living in my hat all winter! Along with my perdy new shoes.

Sad?

2009-09-01T20:56:00.005+01:00

This is what I do with my spare time. Very sensible, no? Yay for Sunbird. Click the image for a larger version, fool.

Yes, I plot in the Arsenal matches too.

Progress!

2009-09-01T18:45:00.006+01:00

A year ago, being up, out of bed and dressed by 12 would count as a personal victory, and the start of a potentially very good day, both mentally and physically.

Fast forward to today and I was sitting in front of my computer (as I also was more than likely to do a year ago) and I was thinking to myself "bah, I feel like I haven't lifted a finger today. I'm useless." But when I started to recap what I'd done during the day, and this was what I came up with:

New curtains!

Was out of bed by 9.30, and babysat a puking dog
Washed 2 machines of laundry, and hanged it up
Moved all the furniture around in my bedroom, and tidied up
Vacuumed said bedroom, and the hall
Did my homework
Made dinner
Hanged curtains in the livingroom and bedroom
Hanged posters and a picture
Walked the dog
Threw out the trash

A year ago this list would've been an insurmountable mountain, and not something I would've had the capacity to do within a day. And today I didn't even think about it, I just did. Amazing how far you can come in a year. Now I just gotta keep this up.

New posters! See a theme to this room, yet?

New crib!

2009-08-26T21:03:00.005+01:00

After living here officially for well over a week now, it's time to properly present my new place. Finally gotten around to tidy up the place, and gotten a few posters and such up. More pictures at Facebook!

The guys have moved in, too...

And it continues...

2009-08-25T20:53:00.005+01:00

A while ago I wrote about my new audiophilism (?), and the purchase and arrival of my turntable. Now, some of the vinyl has finally started to show up! Some I've bought at online auctions rather cheap, some are reissues (like construction time and Velvet Underground), and a few of those I found in my own basement. It's not much, but even Bill Gates started somewhere...

And the collection grows.

Harsh realization

2009-08-25T19:21:00.005+01:00

I just uploaded some new pictures of myself, and came to a sudden realization. I probably look like one of the following:

A) The lost and very secret love child of Martin Gore and some unnamed hobbit girl, who, not knowing of her parentage went and ahead and became a Depeche fan with a tendency to have cold ears like her dad. (Disturbing image, innit?)

or...

B) a fanatical hobbit who went bonkers in Depeche's merchandise store, and then went snuck off backstage (ssssneaky hobbitsesss...)to nick Martin Gores hat for good measure (and being a true fanatical).

In any case, I'm a weird looking thing. But not cold on her ears.

Old flames...

2009-08-24T19:45:00.004+01:00

I'm blowing life into an old crush by listening to The Cure these days, despite being less emo than I've been for years. In any case I think The Cure have been wrongly labelled as emo (or, which is more likely, the "emo" label has been ruined by 14 year old self abusing angstridden teenagers). I, for one, hear a lot of love, hope and joy for life in The Cure's songs. This one, "The Only One", I stumbled over last night, and I absolutely love the lyrics in all it happy, naive kinkyness.

(The Cure and (I suspect a slightly intoxicated) Martin Gore <3>

Oh I love oh I love oh I love
What you do to my head
When you pull me upstairs
And you push me to bed
Oh I love what you do to my head
It's a mess up there
Oh I love oh I love oh I love
What you do to my heart
When you push me back down
And then pull me apart
Oh I love what you do to my heart
It's the best oh yeah!

Oh I love oh I love oh I love
What you do to my lips
When you suck me inside
And you blow me a kiss
Oh I love what you do to my lips
It's so sweet in there
Oh I love oh I love oh I love
What you do to my hips
When you blow me outside
And then suck me like this
Oh I love what you do to my hips
It's the beat oh yeah!

You're the only one I cry for
The only one I try to please
You're the only one I sigh for
The only one I die to squeeze

And it gets better every day I play
With you
It's such a scream
Yeah it gets meta every day I say
With you
It's so extreme
Yeah it gets wetter every day I stay
With you it's like a dream

Oh I love oh I love oh I love
What you do to my skin
When you slip me on
And slide me in
Oh I love what you do to my skin
It's a blush on there
Oh I love oh I love oh I love
What you do to my bones
When you slide me off
And slip me home
Oh I love what you do to my bones
It's the crush oh yeah!

You're the only one I cry for
The only one I try to please
You're the only one I sigh for
The only one I die to squeeze

And it gets hazier every way I sway with you
It's such a scream
Yeah it gets mazier every play I say with you
It's so extreme
Yeah it gets crazier every day I stay
With you it's like a dream

Now, off to find someone who can provide this feeling. Anyone?

It's official - I'm a nurse student

2009-08-23T14:58:00.004+01:00

I promised a few people this wouldn't happen, but lately so much has happened I haven't blogged for a while.

Firstly, I am done moving in, and love my apartment! I have tonnes of space, it's quiet here but not too far away from the centre of the city, and I have a bathroom that was renovated this summer. Will post some pictures when I've tidied up properly, this first week has been stressful and it already looks like I've lived here for months!

Secondly, and maybe more importantly - I've started school! We officially started Tuesday, but this week has mainly consisted of introductions, getting to know people and social activities, meaning lots of partying for many of us. I've done my fair share, and been way beyond "slightly intoxicated" three times this week. And I've even met a few nice fellow students!

On Thursday the second year nurse students arranged a "baptism" for us first years, officially baptizing us as nurse students and nurses to be. How? "Get your socks and shoes off, clamber into a river and get a bucket of water down your neck" (see illsutration). Silly, but a fun thing to have done.

As for the studying, I have already started all though proper lectures haven't - and I am rather proud of myself. The past year or so, and especially this summer, I've been absolutely terrified of what was to come: starting school again, moving, studying, trying to learn something. Upon hearing that our first exam in microbiology is held as soon as October 5th, my first thought was to just run from the place screaming for mummy. Luckily, I didn't (first impressions and all that), but went and bought the microbiology book, and started reading! Am soon through the first couple of chapters, and it actually seems to stick, but even more importantly - I seem to understand most of it. And, as a bonus, it's sort of interesting to learn about microbes, bacteria, virus and fungi. Disgusting and enough to make you real paranoid about washing your hands, but interesting.

I promise - moving and starting to study won't cause me to stop blogging. I might be a bit slower, that's all. Will blog more about other... stuff, later this week.

Blood, sweat and...

2009-08-15T21:45:00.004+01:00

Today has been my second day of moving, and I had requisitioned two trailers, two cars, one dad and one brother for the occasion. I'm a hoarder, I admit, I get obsessive over stuff, and since I've lived by myself since I was 16 I have accumulated a lot of stuff over the years - books, DVD's, CD's, knick knacks and furniture. This time around I've also bought myself a rather big sofa bed, which was just another addition to the huge b ookshelf, the TV, the table and everything else that had to be moved. Safe to say I am pretty beat, but in more than one respect. Being the complete and utter numpty that I am, I am no stranger to doing clumsy things, I knock things over (including myself) all the time, and I break a lot of stuff, but I rarely hurt myself. Today just wasn't my day, however. It all started off with me carrying something that managed to make a bad scrape on my chest, and as I was walking down the last step to get something from the car my right foot decided to do something completely different from what the rest of my body had planned, resulting in me toppling over and planting two knees and two palms on the asphalt. The left knee and right palm broke the fall for me, with bloody results. Three incidents of bleeding in the space of a couple of hours, not bad! Safe to say I left the rest of the heavy lifting and the building of my new TV desk over to my brother and father - when your day starts off like that you better take a hint and just sit the hell down and keep still before you get seriously injured. And I've had enough surgery for a while, thanks.

It's here!

2009-08-15T20:00:00.001+01:00

Today I got a truly wonderful piece of mail which made me squeal with joy - and scare my dad :)

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

2009-08-14T13:07:00.006+01:00

Cardboard boxes full of goodies. And a very curious dog.

Just had another frantic un-wrapping session on my livingroom floor, after picking up both my new turntable AND a shipment from a norwegian record store containing many of the Depeche remastered re-issues of old albums, and my first vinyl record! It was only fitting that the first one I got to hold in my hand was Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream, an album that has meant a lot to me, shaped me and the way I listen to music. And it's one of the very rare albums I don't get sick of, I can pick it up after a few months and I can fall in love with it all over again. And the great thing about all of this is that I didn't pay much for it - the cd's were €6,70 each, the vinyl about €15 and the turntable came to about €70! Now, enough blogging, it's moving day!

And the collection grows...

My passion - for music

2009-08-11T21:55:00.003+01:00

"I am not passionate about anything other than music. I bore my friends to death with music! I often invite friends to come and stay with me, and I get drunk and I play them every one of my favourite records. At the end of the night, everybody is crawling into bed, and I’m still left saying, 'But you have to listen to this one!'

This might as well have been something I could've said - it sounds just like me! If someone asks me about music, things I like, if I can suggest something that sounds this way or that, I tend to go overboard. And when I'm drunk I usually get started without having to be asked questions at all.

Sometimes I'm baffled that I didn't go into music in some form or another; performing music, making it, editing it, music management, something, anything. I have admittedly entertained the idea a lot over the years, but always been deterred by the uncertainty of it all. What's the chance of me getting into the music business anyway? Where do you even start? Wether you work as a songwriter, am a member of a band, a manager or a roadie on some tour, there aren't any step-by-step plans to follow to become successful, even to get a shoe-in, it often seems to come down to either luck or being at the right place at the right time. "Start making the tea, and you might be in the band."

You see, I know myself well enough to admit that I never could be an artist of any kind - I love playing music, I miss playing the piano and want to get better with a guitar, but I'm just not creative enough to come up with original ideas. Nor am I diplomatic, pushy or confident enough to become a manager - sure, it's OK if you're a manager for a made band, but being a manager for a band trying to make it? Gods, no. But being a mixer/editor seems like a really interesting job, being given ideas which I can help shape into something. And I would probably give up my dog, my firstborn and my soul to be a roadie for Depeche Mode. Being a roadie for any kind of band would in any case be one hell of a way to travel around and see the world, besides: I'm a tinkerer and can definitely see myself surrounded by tons of cables, amps and electronic equipment. Oh, the dreams...

I would hazard a guess that becoming a musician means you have to be committed, good at what you do, devoted, lucky and a bit mad. I have infinite respect, and in some cases some envy, for musicians and bands, people who dared to risk a lot, in some cases everything, and devote their life to music, and made it. Me, I'm a coward, I'll admit, and will have to settle for being a music lover and periodic fanatic. But, if my attempts at becoming a nurse fails (which I sincerely hope it won't), I'm going to take a huge leap of faith and do a bachelor in music production.

Who's quote is it? Martin Gore, of course. What I wouldn't give for a day and a night with that bloke - just to see if he's the kind of guy he seems he is, or I think he is, in any case. Maybe I would discover I'm a horrible judge of character. Or maybe I'd make a cup of tea and be made a roadie.

Note to self

2009-08-10T17:18:00.003+01:00

Remember this combo:

Pineapple, mango and banana chunks
Rice milk - vanilla flavor
Pineapple juice
Dash of honey
1 ts coconut oil

Looks horrible and sort of gooey, tastes like heaven on a summer day. NOM!

Audiophile

2009-08-07T15:04:00.003+01:00

When I was 15-16, I had a boyfriend whose father was what I'd call an audiophile and a true music lover. He had long hair and a scruffy beard, worshipped Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers band and all things called southern rock, had an entire wall covered in shelves with vinyl and a rather huge hi-fi stereo that probably cost more than everything I own put together. I loved the guy, and called him Papa Bear, and I think he liked me, mainly because I bought him a psychedelig poster of Jerry Garcia that promptly ended up on the wall of his little music corner. And he introduced me to the world of audiophiles - those who has to have the best sound equipment, the best sound quality, and absolute, positively HAS to have everything on vinyl. Know the type?

Now, music has plays a huge part in my life (no pun intended), more so in mine than in many others I suspect, but I've never really been into the whole sound quiality thing. As long as both the left and right headphone is working, and I can hear the music, it's usually fine by me. But lately, something has changed. It all started with a mate (oh how I love to blame this mate) who got a hold of some FLAC-files. I've never even thought about the difference between FLAC's and MP3s, but thought I'd give it a go. But then I realised I had crappy headphones, and had to buy a new pair of those, too. As I've described before, the difference is huge, and the other night as I couldn't sleep due to my previously explained health problem, I listened to lots of Depeche (of course, what else) FLAC-files, with the headphones, and sounds came at me from places I've never even noticed before. That's when I turned over to the dark side and became one of them. The Audiophiles. The very minority that which I've ignored, scoffed at, even laughed.

And the result of all this? I've bought a turntable. And a cable with gold plated RCA connectors (not as expensive as it sounds, I might add.) This doesn't exactly make me a hardcore audiophile, I bought a cheap turntable (about 70 quid), and my headphones are also rather cheap (about 45-50 quid), but for me they're serious upgrades. And I've rifled through some of the vinyl I knew was hidden downstars, not touching the holy grail which is my sisters MJ collection, but I did find a few other things I am going to nick; some old Elvis records, and one of Edith Piaf! And, of course, I went ahead and bought a few online - and I won't give you a penny for guessing what it is. That's how I start my vinyl collection - Elvis, Edith Piaf and 11 albums of Depeche Mode. Now to find the nearest vintage/vinyl store... It was about I took this music addiction of mine sort of seriously, no?

Shake the disease

2009-08-07T14:09:00.004+01:00

Earlier this morning I came back from a night at the hospital. And no, not that cancer hospital, but a normal one, and I wasn't there for anyone else, but for myself. Why? Well, I had a spot of surgery.

Well, it's a rather unpleasant story. I managed to get something called bartholinitis. If you have a morbid curiosity, go look it up, but I take no responsibility for what you may see or read if you do so. In short it's an inflammation of a gland in my.. uhm, private area, va-jay-jay, call it what you like, and normally these things take care of themselves. But of course not so in my case - last weekend pain and swelling ensued, and I got a doctors appointment, thinking I'd get some antibiotics and it's all go away. But no. The doctor sent me to the hospital to see another doctor, and she promptly told me that I had an inflammation abscess and they had to open it up and get the inflammation out. "Fine," I thought and envisioned some local anaesthetic, maybe a scalpel and an unpleasant but minor procedure in my not too distant future. "We'll do the surgery later tonight, and you'll be under mild anaesthesia, you'll be asleep." Whatnow? Surgery? Asleep?! Oh, brilliant. After about 6 rather long hours they slapped an IV cannula and a hospital gown on me, and took me down to surgery. I remember thinking something along the lines of

"how do I always end up in situations like these?"

Attack of the ninja squad
Being wheeled in to the surgery room was like being ambushed by a highly trained squad of ninja nurses, they were all over me like ants in an anthill, attaching monitoring equipment, adjusting the operating table, measuring my blood pressure, holding my oxygen mask, asking questions, calling the doctor. Points for effectiveness, I'll give them that! Then I was given some "powerful painkiller" or other, the effects of which I got to enjoy for about 5 seconds ("weeeeeee"), because after 4 deep breaths I was out like a light. I can't even remember slipping into sleep - one second I was focusing on breathing, the next second I was out cold.

They crudely woke me up about 30 minutes later, the surgery was over, all went well, but they suggested I might stay the night at the hospital. By this this time it was almost midnight, and I was kind of woozy after being in a mild coma for a few minutes, so I stayed, and was wheeled into a room where a sweet old lady which I'd met earlier that night, lay in her bed. Of course, as per usual, this woman had to be a professional snorer, and I went through 8 rather looooong hours of trying to block out the snoring and the increasing pain. If it hadn't been for my new headphones and the iPod I'd probably torn out the IV and marched out of there after an hour or two.

And now I'm here, in my comfy chair, eating painkillers and two types of antibiotics I've never even heard of, taking antibacterial baths twice a day and generally feel a bit sorry for myself. It all felt somewhat dramatic for what I initially thought was a minor thing, but the doctor told me that if I hadn't come to see her, the infection abscess might've punctured and it could've spread to all sorts of places, I think I even heard the word "infertility" among the possible worst case scenarios but I'd blocked her out by then. As my aunt just said: "That's just you. Only you could manage to get something like this". Yes, you're absolutely right, and I am very painfully aware of it.

I'm booked!

2009-08-05T21:20:00.004+01:00

Today I finally made up my mind and went ahead and booked a hotelroom for my trip to London. No turning back now! After having a few rather lenghty chats with a friend of mine who's been to London several times, I gave up the idea of living close to the O2, seeing as I can just jump on a tube to North Greenwich and I'm there in 20 minutes anyway. She suggested that it would be smarter to stay closer to the city centre/downtown, then I wouldn't spend as much time travelling. Realising she had a good point, I checked out the hotel my aunt and her family stayed at, and decided to book there. It's called the Marble Arch Inn, unsurprisingly located by the Marble Arch and Hyde Park, close to Oxford St. and all things interesting in general. Fine, it's small and "only" rated as a two-star hotel, but for heavens sake, I'm a student, and just staying there for two nights anyway, I just need a bed and a shower and I'm a happy hamster. And, by booking via their own webpage instead of using Norwegian or hotels.com, I paid 90 quit for the room and ended up saving 30 quid. Yay!

Yesterday I got the money from the complaint case I "won" a while ago, and while it was quite the adrenaline rush to see a number that big on my account, a big chunk of it is already gone. On what? Well, a 500 quid sleeper sofa, for starters. And school books, phone bills, I had to pay rent from now until October 1st, school fee, I paid off some debt here and there, I moved some to another account to save for when I go to London/Bergen and possibly Düsseldorf (don't ask, long story, I'll write about it when I know more). All in all, the number decreased rather rapidly. Hopefully I get to save some, too...!

Yesterday when I drove to the neighboring town to buy that blasted sofa, I noticed a rattling in my Koss Porta-pro headphones, which I also suspect I might've slightly busted by playing something too loud, inadvertently or otherwise. Once I'd become aware of the rattling, it quickly drove me insane. Beside, I'm tired of having to cup my hands around my ears to get some proper dynamic sound into them. So I rather impulsively decided that I needed some new headphones to go with the FLACs that are currently eating up my hard disk. I had one requirement - the needed to cover my ears, that was it. I promptly ended up with these Sennheisers, they're called the HD 205 and are supposedly "DJ-style" - they have a funky feature which allows you to tip one of the headphones up so you can listen with just one ear. And, being "DJ phones" they're good at blocking out sounds from the outside. And, honestly, it's like being in a different world, sounds come at me from everywhere. Enough ranting, am off to be an audiophile, will enjoy my new headphones and a pile of Depeche Mode FLACs.

My brag list

2009-08-01T19:32:00.004+01:00

I just found a picture on my mobile phone showing my concert ticket for the DM-show in Bergen in January 2010, a photo I probably took to send to the friend and co-fanatic that is coming with me. And as I spotted the picture I started to think about all the concerts I've seen, and wondered just how many bands and artist I've had the pleasure, or misfortune, to see over the years. Music has been a vital part of my existence all my life, and seeing music live became sort of an addiction after my sister took me to see Michael Jackson at Valle Hovin in 1997, which I think was my first major concert experience, and a bloody good way to start my career as a concert goer, I might add. After that I've been lucky enough to see some of my absolute favorite bands of all time, the ones that come to mind are Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, Kaizers Orchestra and of course, Depeche Mode. The best norwegian band I've ever seen was Kaizers Orchestra when they did a gig at Rockefeller in Oslo in 2005. And the one I'll always remember in silent shock and apathy is The Cure. Let's just say that Robert and company had to have a particularily uninspired day when they were at the Arvika festival in 2002.

I know this is going to look like a horribly long bragging list, but I just have to put it up.

Arvika festival, Sweden, 2000
Moby
Ulf Lundell
Lars Winnerbäck
The Wannadies
Fantomas

Arvika festival, Sweden, 2002
Muse
Infected Mushroom
The Cure
The Wannadies
Opeth
Soft Cell

Norwegian Wood, Norway, 2003
The Counting Crows
The Dandy Warhols

Quart festival, Norway, 2003
Mew
The Flaming Lips
Queens of the Stone Age
Massive Attack
Coldplay
Turboneger
Interpol

Øya festival, Norway, 2007
Tool
Nine Inch Nails
Gogol Bordello
El Caco
Memorial concert for Robert Burås of Madrugada

Arvika festival, Sweden, 2009
The Sounds
Detektivbyrån
The Mars Volta
Nine Inch Nails
Elegant Machinery
Bob Hund
Depeche Mode

Stand alone concerts
Michael Jackson, Valle Hovin 1997
AC/DC, Oslo Spektrum, 2000
Roger Waters, Oslo Spektrum 2002
Kent, Oslo Spektrum 2002 (Support: Melody Club)
Ulf Lundell, Karlstad
Smashing Pumpkins, Oslo Spektrum, 2000
Smashing Pumpkins, Oslo Spektrum, 2008
VNV Nation, John Dee, 2006

Norwegian bands:
Hellbillies
Dum Dum Boys
Morten Abel (3 times)
Kaizers Orchestra (4 times)
Turboneger
Bellman
Grand Island
Postgirobygget

I came to about 42 different bands and about 53 different concerts. Not bad for a 23 year old, eh? Since 2003 I've generally gone to very few festivals, mainly due to either mental or monetary problems, or a combination of both, but the very successful Arvika Festival of 2009 has really given me the drive to go to many more festivals, and see many more live concerts. There are a few bands I hope to see before he, she or they quit, like Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Sigur Ros, Metallica, Bloc Party and maybe Tool again (since their perfomance at Øya was sadly short). But I have plenty of time. Might have to hurry with Tom Waits and Nick Cave, tho.

But for now I'll settle with seeing Depeche Mode at the O2 in December, and again in Bergen in January. *manic eyes*

A scary process

2009-08-01T14:08:00.005+01:00

First of all: I'm out of the hospital, and free as a bird. Being more or less "caged" in a hospital, in a room 3x3 meters, for five consecutive days, gives me a bad case of cabin fever. Considering the mate I'm with, which has been pumped full of chemotherapy, has to drag an IV stand around, has to pee every 2-4 hours, has lost his hair and can't move without crutches, I have no right to complain (plus, I volunteered for it). But I will anyway, because this is my blog and I do whatever the hell I like on it. Being there to keep him company is the least I can do, and I want to be there, but that still doesn't change the fact that I'm bloody chuffed to be out of that hospital, even more happy that I probably won't have to go back there for a while, and particularly ecstatic about not being waken every two hours with the words "we need to take a walk", meaning I had to get out of bed and help him with his IV stand across the hall to the bathroom. My mates surgery, and subsequent rounds of chemo and radiation, will be when I've started school, meaning I can't stay with him for his chemo anymore. And a very selfish part of me is dancing at that thought.

Jailbreak
Right now I'm in the process of doing something criminal and illegal - I'm jailbreaking my iPod Touch. Basically it means "cracking" the firmware that Apple provides for iTunes and the iPod devices, opening it so you can use 3rd party software and "unlicensed" or unoriginal applications. After endless readthroughs of tutorials using quickpwn, which refused to work with my firmware, I got a hold of a program called redsn0w, which is just a little excecutable run through the command prompt. And 1-2-3 voila, my iPod was jailbroken. This process looks damn scary, since you have to first put your iPod into DFU mode and then surrender it to the will of redsn0w, and just watch it, hoping your entire 'pod won't burst into flames. It didn't, and everything works beautifully. I just wish I'd discovered this BEFORE I tried to use quickpwn, and had to restore my iPod, resulting in a total reformatting and loss of everything I had on it. All my apps, my music, the videos, the pictures of Depeche Mode, all gone... *sighs*

Why am I doing this? Because I want to play bloody FLAC on my iPod dammit! FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and is a digital music file format like MP3, WAV, AAV etc. The difference is that it is an uncompressed form, meaning that while a "normal" MP3 file can play music at for example 92kbps, a FLAC plays at 3mbps. The result is music with far far better sound quality. Normally I wouldn't bother much with it, I haven't before, but this is again one of these things I just... get totally caught up in, stuck, hung up, and just HAVE to test it out. And of course it all comes back to DM. I seem to blame them for everything these days. But. On the Sounds of the Universe box there's a lot of dvd material, and over 2 hours of footage from their studio sessions while making the album, which I've of course watched a few times, along with video from studio sessions during Playing the Angel. All of this has made me realize the complexity of what they're doing, the amount of sound plonking, twinking, twiddling, fiddling, playing around and processing that goes into making an album is just immense, especially for a band like Depeche that's always been very "electronic" in how they work, starting as a pure synth band. In short: when you're fanatical about a band in which the main songwriter has a fetish for buying synthezisers and drum-machines on E-bay, you really have to make an effort to get the best listening experience. And I am.

Now, off to download their discography as FLAC tracks. It'll just take 7 hours, and eat up 5gigs on my 8gig iPod...

Useless

2009-07-31T19:44:00.004+01:00

Sometimes I get these insane urges for things that I know I really don't need, if I just give it a bit of thought. Lately, and not surprisingly, I've fallen in love with these "semi-acoustic" hollow-bodied electric guitars, and I have a certain Mr. Gore to blame, all though I've always liked these kind of guitars. Not really sure why. I sort of own an Ibanez acoustic guitar, which has a really nice sound to it when it's tuned properly, but the strings are probably older than me, and I have incredibly and annoyingly short fingers, making acoustics sort of annoying to play. It'd probably be easy if I just had the patience, but I seldom do. Electric guitars have narrow necks, making them easier to play, but some of them just look small and plucky. The hollow body ones just look brilliant, all big and retro-looking, and they have really nice sounds, I love them, and would gladly have one on my wall just to look at it. Which would probably be a shame.

I come from a musical family, my dad can play piano/keyboards, guitars and accordians, even thought he doesn't read notes at all, my mum played the paino, my sister has played both a piano and a guitar, and so do I, to a certain exstent. I actually played classical piano for 7 years at a music school, but after playing the theme from Schindlers List in my mum's burial I just couldn't go near one for years. At school we learned your basic 5 guitar chords, and I got a mate to teach me to read tabulatures, and for a while I plinked and plonked away at the Ibanez for hours, a hobby I've sort of given up on the last few years, sadly. But I'm really good with Green Day's "Time of your life".

Being able to play music is a thing I miss, and from time to time I bench down in front of the piano and play some of the few classical songs I still remember (it's fantastic how some songs can still be in your fingers after you haven't touched an instrument for years), like Für Elise. Or like now, when I'm totally hung up on a band, I search up chords and tabs, find those I can actually manage to play, or the ones I'm hell bent on learning, and I play until my fingers are sore or bleeding. For a while I played so much I actually developed calluses. I miss those calluses, they're really helpful.

Anyway, my point was: I want a guitar. Specifically, a hollow-body, and even more specifially, a Gretsch, because they just look wicked. The one on the picture is the Anniversary which sort of costs a lot, for me anyway, but I'd settle for a Electromatic anyday. Which still costs about 1100 euros. And that's before I've even bought an amp. Seems like a Gretsch is something that'll be on my wish list for a while, under the "utterly useless to me, but I still want one"-category. Why? Well, so I can plonk away on it when the urge arises. The rest of the time I'll use it as an art piece on my wall.

Weird blokes

2009-07-31T00:03:00.006+01:00

Why do I always get caught up on the weirdest blokes... But they make me laugh myself to tears, and they look like they're having a lot of fun. What I wouldn't give to be an assistant or something for these guys. Or a fly on the wall.

The bananas clip
Yes, we have no bananas!

Do you trust me?
"I'm not playin' any more unless someone licks my blood..."

Family Guy
Dave and Martin impersonating Stewie from Family Guy.

The fine print: Filmed by Andy Fletcher, and shamelessly stolen off depechemode.com, I'll admit.

Dumbing down...?

2009-07-30T16:41:00.004+01:00

I was just checking the departure times on the flights I booked between Torp and London, and was rather stumped. The flight from Torp to London took 55 minutes according to the times, and the flight back took nearly 3 hours. And I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. Had I ended up on some lay-over flight? No, same thing on all flights, and it didn't say anything about lay-overs. I mentioned this to my cousin, after having thought about it for a while, mind you, at which she promptly answered: "Uhm. Different time zones?" Of course, she was right. I sort of "gain" an hour on my way there, and "loose" one on the way back. Now I'm scared for myself.

Oh, and Dave/Ibanez pwnz j00 all. There, I said it.

Now that's commitment

2009-07-29T22:33:00.007+01:00

Firstly, allow me to just take a moment to cheer uncontrollably and bounce wildly around with unbridled glee and happiness.

AND - A - WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Now that that's out of my system, I'll return to my calm, composed, eloquent and reflected self.... No, I'm not, I'm still bouncing around. Figuratively speaking, anyway, a cancer hospital at midnight isn't a place you bounce happily around in anyway. What is the cause for this outburst of joy and excitement, you ask? Well, I've turned slightly insane. Or just very impulsive. I have a personality disorder, we do that, we have impulse control issues. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it!

"What I've done this time?" Well, I sort of booked flight tickets. To London. All alone. In December. But it was so cheap! €36 for a round trip ticket from Oslo to London and back. Allright, I have to fly from Torp, granted, and land at Stanstead, but really, who cares, I'll drive to Torp and hop on a train at Stanstead to central London, it'll be fine. I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now, going to London. I've never been to England, let alone London, except when I had a 12 hour lay-over at Heathrow on my way home from Malta. For a girl who writes more English than Norwegian, love British humor and adore Top Gear this is sort of a shame, and should be rectified soon-ish. And now that I actually have some money, I had to seize the opportunity.

"And what will I do in London all alone?" Aah, you see, the thing about travelling alone is that all though it may sound lonely, you don't have to cater to anyones needs but your own. So, after huffing and puffing through London and hopefully finding my hotel (I'll probably stay here) I'm going to try and get to central London to see if I can find Big Ben or something, walk around, stare at people and things, maybe see the London Eye or Madame Tussauds. Hopefully I'll find a brochure or a nice receptionist who can point me in the main direction of something vaguely interesting. Oh, and I thought I could do some christmas shopping! Yeah, that's a good argument...

And what do you know, Depeche Mode just HAPPENS to play at the O2 when I'm there! It's magic, fate, destiny, like it was meant to be! Well yeah, so I got a ticke for that too. *cough* But it had nothing to do with it orignally, honest.

Anyway, that's the plan. A flight, a hotel, a city, a band, then home again. If anyone is dying to join me, you're more than welcome. I haven't booked a hotel just yet...

Finally something new!

2009-07-29T18:26:00.003+01:00

I have finally managed to find some music that actually interests me, and that ISN'T Depeche! W00t! It's not exactly something brand new, I heard about Detektivbyrån before I went to the Arvika-festival, and liked both their music and their concert very much (one of the nicest, warmest and relaxed shows I've ever been to). But I just discovered a"new" song via my wonderful, whimsical and sometimes downright spooky shuffle-button. It reminds me of the Arvika festival, and miss the mood I had while I was there. I spent months and months looking forward to it, and when I was finally there I was downright knocked out by the heat, it was all over to soon and now that I look back I wish I could go back in time and relive it (and probably found some bloody way of chilling my beer). It is weird how I never seem to BE where I am, and live in the moment. I'm much better at looking forward to something, and then looking back at it later. Not a good trait. And the song makes me miss the summer heat and the sun. In short, it makes me happy, and it's a nice change from having Dave or Mart constantly in my ear. Well not litterally, you know, ew, but.. You get the idea.

Black celebration.

2009-07-29T01:16:00.004+01:00

Spending another week at Radiumhospitalet as moral support and company for my mate. He's starting to feel it now, lying in bed more and dozing off occasionally. Not that he is complaining, and seeing the state of a lot of the other patients, he is getting away rather easily with this whole chemo thing. This time. He didn't last time, so he knows how "lucky" he is.

Boy, a hospital can be the loneliest place in the world at night time. Can't imagine how it must be for the patients. Thank heavens for internet. And I can't sleep, as per usual. All though I should be ready to pass out, I was up at 11, which is about four-five hours earlier than I've normally been up the past weeks (shameful, I know), and by then I hadn't slept more than 5-6 hours. Must be that instant cocoa I had - it's some kind of sugar rush.

Oh, hang on, my mate rolled around in his sleep and pinched the IV cable, alarms going off...

Right. Had to give up on my knitting project, before I even had the chance to start. Found a online version of a knitting pattern for a hat, which seems to be sort of incomplete. It's hard enough following english knitting instructions when I'm out of practice as it is, I can't be asked to decipher codes and figure out missing parts too. Will have to wait for that punk knit book from Amazon. Can't wait to make my own "Yarn on Floof"-hat! Just like the one the Martin wore during the Playing the Angel tour.

Without the knitting project, I'm now left with a season of Sorpanos, a few movies ("Milk", "Changeling", "The day the earth stood still"), and a few DM-dvd's for entertainment. Oh, and a few books on nursing. Which I am terrified of. Having horrible visions of me opening the books and discovering they're all in greek or russian, or seeing the letters crawling around within its pages. Maybe that'll be my goal for the week, to overcome my fear of books I need for studying.

Accidentally came over the lyrics for Black Celebration in the car today - heard the song before but never really listened. When I did pay attention, I almost giggled, but in a melancholic way. This song could've been written by yours truly back when I was horribly dark and depressive. But I didn't, Martin did. He always seems to find the words. Simplicity is often the best. I am still horribly dark and depressive, sometimes. But when I am, I know Martin's got my back.

Lets have a black celebration
Black celebration
Tonight

To celebrate the fact
That we've seen the back
Of another black day

I look to you
How you carry on
When all hope is gone
Can't you see

Your optimistic eyes
Seem like paradise
To someone like
Me

I want to take you
In my arms
Forgetting all I couldnt do today

Black celebration
Tonight
To celebrate the fact
That we've seen the back
Of another black day

I look to you
And your strong belief
Me, I want relief
Tonight

Consolation
I want so much
Want to feel your touch
Tonight
Take me in your arms
Forgetting all you couldn't do today

Black celebration
I'll drink to that
Black celebration
Tonight

Why does my short blog-posts always turn out the longest? And sorry for not being able to make a single post without mentioning Depeche Mode. When you're hung up, you just are.

Best smoothie ever!

2009-07-25T11:46:00.004+01:00

Ambitious but rubbish - now also with recipes!

Hi, I'm Emmy and I'm overweight. Fact. Weight, food and my body has been an issue for as long as I can remember, and both the intake of food and my actual weight has been as fluctuating and unstable as my mental health. I lost a fair bit of weight when my mum died, only to gain 30-40kgs in the next few years. Surprise, surprise, that's what happens when you have no regard at all for what you stuff your face with. Which I didn't. My all time low had to be when I tipped about.. 95. And yes, that's kilos. Keeping in mind that I'm about the same height as a tall hobbit (156cm), that just doesn't add up. Knowing in the far corners of the back of my mind that I was heading there again, I went to a doctor, who was kind enough to refer me to a weight clinic, where I'll be a patient for 2 years.

There's no hocus pocus to loosing weight, I know that, I've done it before, I've even done it the right way, by eating less, but more often, cutting out sugar and by exercising, instead of starving myself which many seem to think is the answer. And I am a comfort eater, I'm aware of that; I eat when I'm bored, when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I celebrate something... All right, so if I know all of this, what am I waiting for? Motivation, basically. Hopefully the clinic will help with that.

My point for writing this post wasn't really to tell you all of this, but to talk about my breakfast. My sister started making smoothies a while ago, and got me hooked. Being a picky eater I'm not big on salads and vegetables (unless it comes out of a wok), but I'm all for fruits. Hence I went out and bought a blender, and quite a few pounds of frozen berries and pinapple. Word of advice - pineapples are damn tough when frozen, don't try it in the blender. The wonderful thing with smoothies is that you can stuff whatever you feel like in them.

- Pineapple
- Mixed berries (raspberry, boysenberry, blueberry and a type of ribess (currant)
- Passion fruit juice
- Fresh orange juice
- Yoghurt/some sort of dairy product/soy milk/wheat milk/whatever I have in the fridge.

Measurements? That's for wusses - I use the scientific method of "a handful of this and a dash of that". Best way is to mix the solid stuff first with a bit of juice, and then add liquids later until you have the consistency you like. I'm more of a "mush"-person, and tend to eat my smoothie with a spoon, which probably is all wrong. Oh, and it tastes good with müsli.

Moment of zen

2009-07-25T01:49:00.005+01:00

I've never been much of a hippie, I've never worn my hair very long on my head or other places, I'm far too materialistic, I don't smoke marihuana. I am, however, always been slightly on the alternative side, and never afraid of trying anything new: these days I eat ecological whenever I can, I believe in a spiritual life (and to some extent, ghosts), I've listened to a lot of alternative music, many would say I've tried just about every alternative style of clothing there is, I've done yoga...

Spiritual moments is a very wide term, and can encompass religion, but to me it doesn't. Spirituality to me doesn't include a god, or rules. Nevertheless I just had one of those spiritual moments - a random, impulsive moment that I never would've seen coming, that I didn't know how happened and that I will remember forever.

I was sitting infront of my computer, talking to a mate about a song which I've mentioned before, "Freestate", a lyric that has meant an awful lot to me, it has supported, comforted and guided me, and given me a new way of thinking. And the more I think about it, the more the lyric grows and becomes a part of me - which was what I was trying to explain to said mate. I should confess that I've had 3 beers prior to this, and just watched a Depeche Mode concert dvd - none of which is illegal- but to me it apparently works as some sort of drug. Because in mid-chat I suddenly noticed the pouring rain outside, and had an idea. I took off my socks, grabbed my iPod and waltzed out into my backyard, into the rain, barefoot, feeling the rain soaking my feet, falling on my skin, slowly drenching my clothes. Why? I'm not sure. It might be that I am at a turning point in my life - in the past years so much has changed. I now have a name (or names) for my illness, I have medication which helps, gone through a lot of helpful therapy, worked with myself, evolved and developed, figured out alot about myself, I am starting school in less than a month, moving to a new city, hopefully starting a new life, a successful life, getting new friends, new impulses, doing something that seems worthwhile. But this might have nothing to do with it at all. Maybe I just wanted to feel the rain against my skin, the fresh air, listen to the music, the wonderful lyrics that gave me the kick up the backside that I needed. Maybe it was my way of celebrating the change in me, some sort of cleansing. Or my way of thanking Martin Gore for finding the words that has helped me so much, for making me feel seen, understood and giving me some sort of guidance. Or maybe I'm just more drunk than I think. It doesn't matter. To me it felt transcendental, calming and just right.

I can hear your soul crying
Listen to your spirit sighing
I can feel your desperation
Emotional deprivation

Let yourself go
Let yourself go
Let your feelings show

Picking up the conversations
Deep in your imagination
Tune in to the lonely voices
Talking of their only choices

Let yourself go
Let yourself go
Let your spirit grow

Step out of your cage and onto the stage
It's time to start playing your part
Freedom awaits
Open the gates
Open your mind
Freedom's a state

I can taste the tears falling
The bitterness that's inside you calling
Yearning for a liberation
Emotional emancipation

Let yourself go
Let yourself go
Let your senses overflow

Step out of your cage and onto the stage
It's time to start playing your part
Freedom awaits
Open the gates
Open your mind
Freedom's a state

Happy birthday!

2009-07-23T18:41:00.003+01:00

As it turns out, Martin Gore turns 48 today. Happy birthday, man! Take it easy on the celebrations, you're playing in Toronto tomorrow!

Too much time and money...

2009-07-22T17:55:00.004+01:00

Sounds like a real luxury problem, eh?

When I have absolutely nothing to do, I can't seem to get anything done. The past week or so I've had what should be a rather welcome time of slacking after a month or two with a full schedual, but somewhere in the last 6 months I've lost the ability. I get restless, bored and time seems to stand still. Oh sure, there are things I could do - do about 15 loads of laundry, tidy up the kitchen, do a bit of pre-school reading in some of the books I bought for my upcoming studies, but no - when I have no clear schedual, I can't get anything done. Except what I always do, which is to turn into a confused creature of the night that gets out of bed just about when normal people go home from work, and spend the rest of the day feeling that the day's already over. And with all of this slacking and lack of motivation you should think I finally would have the time to blog more prolifically, but it's the same story: I just never get around to it.

By the way - speaking of studies - I GOT IN! According to my private calculations of my grade point average compared to what it takes to get in, I should be a shoe-in, but you never know - often I tend to pull off things that just shouldn't be possible. Thankfully no distasters struck this time, and I got the official acceptance letter (unceremoniously by email, even!) a couple of days ago. Now, I just wish this horrible vacation deal would end so I could get started, get out of this chaotic house and into my own apartment, and start studying. Sitting here dreading something is far worse than taking the plunge and just.. doing it. If I am going to fail horribly once again, I want to do it sooner rather than later, thanks.

One of the few things keeping me mildly occupied these days is my ongoing Depeche Mode obsession. Honestly, it was about bloody time my Top Gear craze died down a bit, but of course that didn't happen until I had something to shift my focus onto. Seriously, I think all of these obsessions are just a sign that I need to get myself a bloke. Fast. So I can obsess about him instead - hurr hurr. Meanwhile, waiting for said miracle man, I'll have to make do with the blokes in Depeche. Not bad blokes, though...

I might not have mentioned this earlier, but a month or so ago I got the rather happy news that I'd "won" in a complaint I placed to the local social service offices, meaning I'll get a nice pile of money sometime soon-ish. Now, giving me a wad of cash is never wise in any case, but now all the possibilities has sort of run away with me. All right, I have school books and a deposit on the apartment to pay. And I bought a bunch of clothes for the summer, and that Depeche ticket to Bergen, which means I'll have to get plane or train tickets too. When I move, I might need a new sofa (so I can burn the salmon pink, itchy, horrible one that's probably older than me). And seeing as I am currently using a mates old hand me down computer, I should invest in a new one while I have the chance. The possibilities are suddenly endless, and I know full well that I really should try and save a bit of it too - I might be going to Namibia in a few years time. I am, admittedly, not good at thinking ahead. Not that many years ahead - it just seems like another lifetime. BUT! Suffering from my current obsessive craze, I am contemplating seeing yet another concert sometime in December. Maybe in London or Berlin. Sure, I would probably have to go alone, but I have no issues with that, I actually kind of like spending a few days on my own in a new place, I can do whatever the bloody hell I like without having to cater to anyone elses needs and wishes. (Except for those two weeks I spent alone in Malta, that was a total and utter disaster.) And I could always do some christmas shopping while I'm abroad... D'oh, the endless possibilities. But who knows, it might be their last tour?! They're like.. 47 and stuff! Dave's already been through one surgery and one torn up calf muscle this tour, and they only started in May!

Shh. Stop talking like that. Nonsense. I have nothing but confidence in the health of Dave, Andy and Mart, of course they'll give out another album in.. 2012 by my calculations, just in time for me finishing my studies, and I can celebrate by going to two or three new concerts. But, what if...

Merry... uhm... summer?

2009-07-17T14:03:00.009+01:00

I just had my own, private little christmas eve in my livingroom in the middle of july! One should treat oneself once in a while...

5 years ago I collected CD's fanatically, buying old "classics" and new stuff from bands I liked, basically I spent all my money on it (which isn't much when you're a student). But as internet capacity and my economical sense grew, I quit the habit of CD hoarding and kept to downloading the stuff I wanted to listen to instead, and cramming it into my iPod. I'm not going to go into a discussion about music and pirating. I just know that if I should've bought the albums of ALL the bands and artist I listen to or want to check out, which is quite a lot, I would've ended up as a homeless person with the biggest CD collection in the world. And that's just fact.

For the last few years I haven't bought any CD's at all. Mostly because there's no need for it, I rarely use CD's for anything. I have my iPod, which I listen to in my car, when I'm out walking, in bed et cetera, and when I'm on my computer I have the music on there too.

So, why did I get a big box of albums in the mail today?
Well. This is the part where I'm going to sound like one of them old music fanatics who HAS to have everything on vinyl because it just sounds better, or still collects vinyl or CDs because you can hold them phsyically in your hand. And I must say I see their point. An album you can hold in your hand means much more than files on a gadget ever could. There are a small number of bands in my life that in my eyes are "CD-worthy", meaning they're important enough for me to actually go ut and get their albums. I will more than likely not listen to these at all, they will be put lovingly and tenderly on a shelf as collectors items and my babies, so I won't risk destroying them. It's weird, after 10-15 years of listening to CD's I still have a knack for breaking them, mainly because I swap music a lot and can't be bothered to put them back in their cases. Or I accidentally step on the cases and break those in stead. The majority of the music I listen to will come from my iPod or my computer, it' easily accessible and more portable in that way. But I'll always cherish having the real thing. Hopefully I will have installed so much musical sense into my kids that I will have to hide my (by then vintage) CD's from them, so they won't break them. But secretly I'll love it.

And what did I buy?
All Depeche Mode-stuff, of course: The Sounds of the universe box set, four dvd's and almost their entire album discography, including a few remastered versions of the older albums. That's what you get for being a religious Depeche Mode devotional. Reach out and touch faith!

Business as usual...

2009-07-11T19:39:00.008+01:00

After a few days of endless Depeche Mode ranting, I am back to normal. Well, as normal as I go, anyway. What have I done today? Well, I've worked for 11+ hours as a volunteer marshal for a local street car even at a rally circuit close to where I live. I like to think that I am so idealistic that I would've said yes to this even if cars didn't interest me at all, but I think that might be a lie; me liking cars was a reason why I said yes to do this (although I do believe that volunteering for these things is important, without volunteers festivals and events like these would never ever happen).

These street car events are mostly about styled and pimped out "street legal" cars, mostly Nissans, Hondas, Audi's, BMW's etc. There are, however, a lot of banged up old Datsuns, Opels, Fords and god knows what else making one hell of a racket out on the circuit, most of them are just there to drive and have fun, or drift the hell out of their tyres. And of course you get a few rare and odd ones, like this Ferrari F40, an Alfa, a fair amount of Porsches, a Lotus Exige, Caterhams, a Chrysler 300C with a bloody Hemi in it, and so on.

My work for the day consisted of guarding a gate, checking that people had the appropriate entrance armbands and selling tickets to those who didn't have any. Luckily we were stood at the southern entrance, meaning that people coming through our gate were from the adjacent camp and had their armbands. Ie very little effort on our part. On the downside I spent the better part of 10 hours behind a grassy hill, being deafened by drifting and racing cars, but not seeing anything but the grassy hill. The 250 odd photos I took today I managed to snap during an hour or two where I sneaked away to watch the racing (don't worry, I have sifted through them and ended up with 70 decent ones). Think I might have to go out there tomorrow to take some real photos... *ponder*

Uh-oh!

2009-07-10T18:54:00.002+01:00

My twitter feed just notified me that Dave Gahan injured his leg during the show they did in Bilbao on July 9th, he managed to get a tear in a calf muscle and have to cancel a few shows. Luckily, sort of, they didn't have any shows schedules between July 12th and 24th, which gives him a while to stay off his feet, but still sad for the people who had tickets for the canceled shows. By the sounds of it, Dave is having a rather unlucky tour, being hospitalized in Athens in May, and now being injured again.

Personally I am just thankful they can be bothered to do these tours at all. In 2010 they've been at it for 30 years, releasing 21 albums and doing god knows how many world tours. After Playing the Angel I honestly thought they were going to leave it at that, but thankfully they didn't. Which is a good thing for me, otherwise I never would've had the chance to see them live at Arvika, or again in Bergen, and that goes for most of the younger fanbase. They could've left Depeche Mode for what it is rather easily, and lived happily and comfortably with their friends and families for the rest of their lives. Now I just hope that the rest of the tour will be better for the band, Dave especially, that it doesn't wear them out completely, and that they'll be able to keep it together until Bergen in January 2010. But guys, remember; you're 46 and 47 years old. Relax a bit, will ya?

And to complete my fangirl post of the day I'd like to post some lyrics. They're mushy and a total cliche, but neither me nor Martin Gore cares. Just goes to show how simple things can be said.

I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me supportAnd in return
She'll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought and
With every breath
Someone who'll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don't want to be tied
To anyone's strings
I'm carefully trying to steer clear of
Those things
But when I'm asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
I'll get away with it

Giggle of the day!

2009-07-09T17:09:00.007+01:00

You'll have to excuse me for being a huge fangirl these days, I'm lost in a euphoric post-concert high, and won't be landing soon I'm afraid.

Found this clip the other day and it made me blush, giggle and be very embarrased. No, it's not naked baby photos of me playing with my dolls or anything, but I would've been equally embarrassed if it was. It's a video from a concert in 1982, 3 years before I was even born (!), and it features a couple of very young, innocent looking, kind of clumsy but sort of adorable guys you might recognize. I'm particularily impressed by the lumberjack shirt, the Carlton Banks (from Fresh Prince) type dance moves and the bumfluff on Martin's face... I love these guys, really, but - Prepare to giggle!

Thank you, Arvika!

2009-07-05T21:02:00.008+01:00

Now that I have that Depeche Mode ranting and raving out of my system (well, sort of), I think I can tell abit about the festival in general.

We, meaning me and a friend, left early on Thursday, and had a stop at a shopping centre just across the border in Sweden, seeing as beer and food is cheaper over there, before driving the last bit to Arvika. As we unloaded the stuff we quickly understood that this might be one hell of a walk. I was sure I'd tried to pack as lightly as I could, but when you insist on such luxuries as an airmatress, a party tent and comfy camping chairs, you have to be prepared to haul heavy shit around. When you add the fact that we were stupid enough to shop lots of beer/soda and food BEFORE setting up our campsite, you get... a big pile of stuff to carry. I ended up hauling a 20kg backpack with an 11kg partytent strapped to it on my back, and in each hand I had a big, brown paper bag stuffed with food and drinks. The marshals at the entrance to the campsite nearly applaused me as I arrived huffing and puffing, drenched in sweat, and were kind enough to help me with my backpack and hand me some water. I think I earned some respect, and some of the marshals actually greeted me several times after that.

Luxury camping!
The campsite we'd chosen as a new feature at this years festival; the "quiet" camp. Which really is a bad name, it should've been named "the more luxurious, less noisy camp for a slightly more mature festival crowd". Or something. It was situated on a football field, meaning we had a flat ground, we had access to our "own" showers and toilets in addition to the normal port-a-potties, lots of marshals walking around picking up trash or just answering general questions, it was located much closer to the festival area than the other campsites - in short, the benefits were many, and I was very happy I chose to dish out the extra €10 to live there, well worth it!

The heat!
Now, large parts of northern Europe, at least Norway and Sweden, has had a few weeks of nearly tropical weather, with bright sunshine and temperatures from 20 to 35 degrees celcius. I will admit that I have spent the past 4 months praying for nice weather, the prospect of living at a festival campsite in heavy rain for days really sounded as much as fun as the swine flu, but I might've overdone it a bit. Living outsite with nothing but a cheap party tent to protect you from the heat can be one hell of a challenge, and feel like what amounts to pure torture; you don't have anywhere to run or hide but the shade, and that help only marginally. After a while you realise you just have to accept the fact that you'll be drenched in sweat until the sun goes down, and remember to drink lots of water. The heat also resulted in me drinking a lot less than what one could expect, because we had no way of cooling the beer we'd hauled all the way there, and the idea of being really hungover in that heat made me want to cry the big wet. All in all it was a good thing: I can remember everything, I didn't spend as much money as I might have done, I wasn't hungover and I now have a lot of beer in my fridge.

The Arvika Festival has grown a lot since I last visited it in 2003, with more campsites, more stages, more acts and more visitors, but it is still a quite "small" festival compared to others. And I really love it. The tickets are cheap, the food and beer doesn't cost TOO much, the marshals and volunteer workers are really nice, and there are bands and music to suit just about everyone's taste. This year I got to see Detektivbyrån, Mars Volta, Nine Inch Nails, Elegant Machinery, Bob Hund and Depeche Mode. I regret not seeing Røyksopp, but they played on the day we arrived, and I was so knackered I just had to sit quietly on my bum for a while and enjoy a beer that was actually cold. Nine Inch Nails did a better performance here than they did at the Øya festival in 2007, or so I thought, maybe I just got a better view (and a cold beer). Trent's performance of "Hurt" was the absolute highlight, the level of noise from the crowd dropped to zero, everyone sang along with intense concentration and a focused calm, it was actually very emotional.

Bob Hund
I was positively surprised by Bob Hund's performance. Bob Hund is a band I really don't know how to describe, they're labeled as "indierock" inspired by Velvet Underground, Gun Club, Kraftwerk and the Pixies, but that doesn't do them justice. The vocalist is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever seen, he freaks me out and pulls me in at the same time. He's energetic, hyperactive, eccentric, funny and intense, and the concert was interesting and entertaining to watch even though I don't have much of a relationship with their music. But I do think I will always prefer Bob Hund live, their studio recordings aren't half as interesting.

All in all this was my best festival trip to date. I didn't get too drunk, too hungover or too broke, I learned the value of taking the trouble to carry a few extra luxury items along, had great people for company, I saw some good bands, had a few near-religious experiences and had my best concert and musical experience of my life. Can't ask for more, can I?

My personal jesus.

2009-07-05T00:09:00.019+01:00

Sweden. The Arvika Festival. Sunset. Tropical temperatures. 24 000 people. And Depeche Mode.

March 29th I bought my ticket to the festival, after a month of trying to get someone to come with me. The sole reason was Depeche Mode. I didn't need anything else. Everything else was just a bonus. Almost 4 months of painstaking waiting was ahead of me, and I did the only thing I could do: prayed for good weather. Might have overdone it with the praying, but by 21.55 on july 3rd I didn't care about tropical temperatures bordering on torture; all I could think of was that Depeche Mode probably was backstage, just metres away from me, and that I was about to see them live.

High expectations and long waits are dangerous, they build up to something that might or might not be as good as you think, and either way it'll be over way too soon, and then you'll be in such a state of anticlimax you don't know what to do with yourself. But I didn't care about that either, it was 21.59 and I felt like I was about explode.

I started off way at the front of the stage, but didn't get close to the fence, and typically ended up exactly behind a guy who was approximately 2 metres tall, and that's not even exaggerating slightly. So I quickly retreated out of the honestly rather insane crowd and went to a slope on the side, where I sat down for a while, but eventually got up and got a very good, although a bit distant, view. But then again, all 24 000 of us can't be sweated on by Dave Gahan, no matter how much some of us would want to... Thank god for huge video screens.

Before the show I decided that I wouldn't spend the entire concert with my eye glued to the camera, missing the concert itself because I wanted to take pictures of it. I therefore did a few short burts of shooting with my new compact camera, mostly resulting in horribly blurry photos, but a few of them are sort of ok, as is the short videos I recorded, some of which can be seen on this page. I've uploaded my pictures to Flickr and Facebook also, if you're interested.

How to describe this concert? Where to start? On stage were Depeche Mode, a band that's been at it for 30 years without going stagnant, a band that has such a long string of good albums it's historic, and so many hits it's impossible to fit them into a single show. A band that hasn't broken up, despite drug problems, arguing, feuds, in fact it's a miracle and a frankly rather amazing accomplishment that they're not just still together, but getting on with each other better than ever. They're in a category of their own, and has the best song writer ever in Martin Gore. I was mezmerized, hypnotized, ecstatic, in love, in awe. I couldn't stop smiling.

The absolute highlights for me were the achingly sad Precious, and Martin Gore's live performance of "Home", where his beautiful voice and ever more beautiful piano chords gave me goosebumps, chills and made me cry. The image that will stick with me forever, however, is that of 24 000 people waving their hands wildly back and forth together with Dave Gahan, who waved wilder than anyone, during "Never let me down again". That moment was pure magic in all it's ecstasy. I'm not even sure I believe I was there, and that it actually was THEM I saw on stage, virtually metres away from me.

This concert will probably be the closest I'll ever come to a religious experience.

Thank you Dave, Martin and Andy.

(The moment which made it all worth it: 24 000 people waving their hands to "Never let me down again")

The few rewievs I've read on this concert have been negative or indifferent, describing poor choices in songs, a lack of real hits, a band out of tune, a lack of scenography, people leaving and the whole thing being a gigantic disappointment. Now, I might be biased, or very easy to please, (both, most likely, I probably would've been happy if they'd just stood there and waved for 105 minutes) but I think they're wrong. I already harbor a strong dislike for self-proclaimed all-knowing music critics who think their opinion matter. Firstly; they have so many "hit songs" it's impossible to fit them into a single show, as I said before, and some are bound to be disappointed. The band being out of tune I didn't pick up on at all. And the lack of scenography and special effects is just a result of this being a festival gig; Bob Hund left the stage at 20.30, that left 90 minutes to rig down their stuff, and rig up for Depeche Mode, do line checks, sound checks etc. In short: there's no time for bloody statues or flying doves or huge rigs or whatever the hell they expected. In an arena show they might have hours and hours for rigging up. As for the people leaving; couldn't have been that many, because the entire area seemed jam packed with people, people stood or sat wherever they could.

The first thing I did when I came home was to grab my computer and hit the online ticket service, and the result is a ticket for their postponed show in Bergen, Norway, which was originally meant to take place on July 2nd. The tickets are horribly expensive, Depeche Mode even tried to sue the concert arranger to get the prices down, they've always been adamant that their productions, tickets and merchandise won't be overpriced. Sadly, for my wallet at least, they didn't get anywhere with it. I had two choices when I bought the tickets, the "normal" ones and the "golden circle", which basically is a closed-off section to the front and left of the stage, which has a limited number of tickets, meaning that I won't have to stand in line forever to get a good spot, and I won't get squeezed to death. It cost as much as the entire 3 day pass did for the Arvika Festival, and I more than likely have to go alone, but I really couldn't care less. I now have something to look forward to again! Now, what to pray for? Backstage passes?

Setlist:
In Chains
Wrong
Hole to feed
Walking in my shoes
It's no good
A question of Time
Precious
Fly on the windscreen
Home
Come Back
Peace
In your room
I feel you
Enjoy the silence
Never let me down again

Encore:
Stripped
Personal Jesus

(Depeche Mode - Enjoy the silence live @ Arvika 2009. Pure magic.)