February Panic

Hey, it’s February already! Scratch that, it’s almost a week into February! Where – (I know it’s a terrible cliché but still!) – where oh where does the time go? The third week of Switzerland is coming to an end, and it doesn’t feel like more than a few days have gone by. Do you get that feeling? 2010 started just a little while ago, right? We had the big New Years’ celebrations? Anyone make any resolutions? (I didn’t! Mwahaha!)

But speaking of resolutions, and goal-setting, and such. I’m reminded again how very quickly the time goes. If you’re on “autopilot”, just going through the motions every day, letting it all pass in a blur of sleeping and eating and playing and working, the time will fly. Really, it will catch a jetplane away from you. Worse – it’ll go back on itself and catch a Concorde – haha – ok, so I’m reminded again that because it’s so easy to let the days go by without any control or input from you, one has to take control. Right? Set some goals, prioritise a little, activate some new habits. Imagine what you want your life to look like in a year’s time: because before you know it it WILL be a year’ time! February 2011? You think that sounds like it’s far away? It’s closer than February 2111, but even that time will come quicker than you’d guess.

Time flies, and it scares me a little.

It’s taken a while for me to settle in and get this year started. As you might know, I moved continents three weeks ago (hemisphere, even!) and have since then just trying my best to fit in the household of this new family. With jet-lag and general travel exhaustion I hardly did anything in my free time the first week but sleep, anyway. It feels like … imagine being a dog-walker, and going for a walk with about a dozen dogs. You have all their leashes in your hands, under control, and you feel fine and on top of things. Suddenly, you trip – your feet slip beneath you and you drop ALL the leashes and the dogs run all over the place, in a flurry of chaotic barking. Now, it’s impossible to go straight to order again; you can’t jump straight back to where you were; you have to take it one leash at a time. Concentrate on one dog, chase after it, then once that one is under control, go for the next until eventually all the leashes are back in your hands. Can you imagine that? That’s what it feels like, right now; my life has changed so much I can’t blame myself for letting the weeks pass without taking control, setting some goals … but, I have more of the dogs under control now. I’m sorted. I’ve unpacked my bags, exchanged my money, bought train passes and phone credit; I feel like I can begin again now, set some little goals for the next few weeks.

Most of the things I want to do, the things I want to set goals about, is creative things like writing and drawing. Mainly drawing. I’ve fallen out of practice for at least the past couple of years and it’s frustrating because I WANT to draw, but what I want to appear on the page is not what appears. I need to practice more. Now, I’m terrible at practicing. It bores me, the repetitiveness of it, the lack of excitement; especially when you reach ‘plateaus’ in learning, I mean rapid improvement is fantastic and feels great, but after it’s not quite so rapid anymore…? But I want to practice. I want to improve. And, it seems the only real way to do it is to create habits, to set implementation intentions (more on that later), to set goals, so that it’s not a struggle with procrastination every time, but it becomes routine, to practice a little every week.

Not sure how often, or when, I should set this goal. I have to think about it. (yes, yes, I’m terrible at procrastination too, you’ll discover- I’m working on that as well (or rather, I’ll work on that tomorrow, mm?)) And I have to remember that it IS tough to change habits, it’s always going to be ‘two steps forward, one step back’ and all that. To remember it, and not get disheartened.

Aah I feel motivated right now! I wish it would last, these little moments of motivation and inspiration. Though I suppose you’d get exhausted from such a permanent state…

Thanks for reading, oh visitor! See you soon again?

Eight-Finger Typing

I’ve had a bit of an amusing Saturday afternoon. Well, amusing in hindsight, at least. Have been reminded of my very pithy first-aid skills, but as I sit here by my little fireplace with a purring cat and music in the speakers, well, perhaps I’m also reminded that life isn’t so bad.. “If this is hardship, life is ok..”

Anyway, earlier today when I was making lunch (“Sauerkraut”, yum), slow-cooking in a big pot – well, I lifted the lid a little to look inside and, predictably you’d think (I’m not so great with cooking haha) steam escaped from the gap and burnt my fingers. Fine. I know what to do, it wasn’t such a bad burn, just run it under a tap for a while.

A few minutes later the burn hurt, so got some ice cubes out and wrapped them in a teatowel around my fingers. Still fine, you know? I’ve done this many times before.

Well then it didn’t get better, and while I was working afterwards, playing with the kids, building lego or whatever, I kept refilling my icecubes when they melted, for that little relief, but as soon as they were gone and it wasn’t icy cold anymore, it ached, a lot — and worryingly there were a little row of bubbles on my right forefinger. I was a little concerned about that, never seen THAT before. Ouch. So, this must be a worse burn. I kept running my finger in cold water; kept refilling the ice cubes in my towel- on my walk I dipped my fingers in the snow- anything for relief, you know?

If you know anything about first aid, you’re probably laughing. It wasn’t helping, if anything it was worse, the bubbles looked bigger, aahh! What do you do? Well, google it, of course. And lo and behold, google tells me: initally, run your burn in cold water. After that, despite the pleasant feeling it may give, do not apply ice or ice water – it makes it worse.

Fantastic!

Instead, soothing gel and gauze bandage on top. So then I wandered around the kitchen making pancakes (home alone, haha) with my bandaged fingers awkwardly spread in some permanent ‘peace’ sign, singing very loudly swedish pop and generally laughing at myself– next time maybe I’ll google first?

Oh well. You live, you learn, and all that. At least it was my own fingers I’m experimenting on, and not anyone else’s! Now, I have my little fire, and a gorgeous purring cat in my lap, and so maybe it doesn’t matter much that I’m typing with eight fingers.

Hoping all your fingers are happy!
Jess

Differences

I can’t believe over a week has gone by, passed in a flash of eating and sleeping and working, making fires and catching trains and confusedly straining to understand the language. It’s so much more … exhausting than I’d anticipated! I thought it would be, in a strange way, ‘cruising’ compared to school. That I’d have the energy and time to devote to a bunch of creative things I’ve wanted to do – practice my drawing and painting and such. As it is, I haven’t made a single drawing (apart from the ones I do with the girls, but they don’t count). It’s ok, I will not let the year go by in the same manner, but it seems that it’s not as cruisy as I thought? Someone told me that taking a gap year is so helpful because you get a taste of what working life is like, and that despite what students think at times, working is WAY more difficult, more exhausting than studying at university (and thus gap year students would appreciate their university struggles better?). I can sort of see what they mean now. And this isn’t even proper work, it’s just looking after two kids, and cleaning and such. But still, the 8-6 shifts are tough, in the way that when I get a break I don’t want to do anything but rest and read. Creativitiy? No way do I have energy for that. But, ah, I can hear you laughing: unless you’re in my situation of just finishing high school, you WILL have worked full time, and I’m probably whining for nothing, right? Haha I know. But I suppose everyone has to learn once.

Anyway, that isn’t what I was going to write about. Excuse me. I wanted to muse about the differences between families, because being here for over a week now has pointed a lot of things out for me. It’s really interesting to live permanently in a whole new household, where they have their own customs and habits of things. When you live at home, you take a lot of things for granted about what happens, say at the breakfast table or TV-watching or down-time or anything else; you’re so used to it you stop thinking about it, it feels as if that is THE way to do things, it’s the way things have always been done. But now, seeing the way another family lives, it’s really .. mind-opening. Suddenly I’m not allowed to read at the breakfast table anymore (it’s rude?)– I’ve always found such pleasure in that, I suppose I’ll have to curl up with a book and a cup of tea somewhere else — or for instance, my host-family don’t like watching TV at all. I completely missed that the Melbourne open was on until we visited another house where they where watching it (I was like, ooh tennis!) … sometimes I can see their point, when they say that ‘TV is not a babysitter’ and such. I don’t want to sit glued to the television screen constantly either, nor do I think that children should — but still! At the end of the day, after dinner and everything else, it’s so wonderful to cosy up in the couch with everyone and watch a move or Midsomer Murders or something. I miss it. Watching reruns of “friends” recorded on my laptop, alone in my room, it doesn’t cut it..

But other things too are different, little things, that would almost evade notice. They put all the bread into a basket and bring it to the table for breakfast. Ditto for all the cereal inside another basked. I thought that was pretty clever, we carry it all over individually at home. And their vacuum cleaner is .. a backpack! With a really long cord! It’s SO much easier to vacuum that way, you don’t have to drag the little thing around… and ..

…You probably think I’m just rambling illogically at this point, but really, I think it’s great to experience the way other people live. Get a clear reminder that the way you’re used to isn’t necessarily THE way of doing it. Often people end up doing things an illogical or inefficient way and just don’t see it because they’ve grown not to think about it, and it takes a stranger to see, and recommend a better way. And usually it’s just so obvious! But we grow blind to the obvious sometimes, right?

Ooh, is the weekend soon. I think I’ll go skiing properly, I can’t wait … and yesterday went to my first French lesson, down at the community college in the village – my head felt like it was going to explode with all the new input as I walked home, I’m not joking – all is well

Thanks for reading, oh internet-being…!

Getting Lost

Caught the train to the city yesterday, to meet up with a friend. It’s always exciting going to explore a new city, but it’s never been quite like this. Frankly it was a little chaotic at times! But it all turned out well, and that’s what counts.

So, left for the train before my friend had woken up (lets call him … C.). Didn’t have an address or phone number to him, but was counting on that he’d call when he woke – arrived at the city two hours later and still had heard nothing. Great. What do you do? I went to exchange some money and try to find an internet hotspot of some kind, asked a nice bakery-lady in my broken french (“ou est .. internet?”), because you can always check facebook when you’re abandoned in the city, right? Just when I was logging into facebook my phone rang, though, and luckily it was him and so I could start trying to find where he lived. Problem was, C had only arrived the day before and didn’t really know where he lived either, or at least, how to get there.

Managed to find a bus, and after five minutes or so spent prodding a ticket machine I had a ticket which I THOUGHT would last me there, and got on. You can always tell if someone knows where they’re going on a bus. The ones who are sure are relaxed, chatting, sleeping, not caring about their surroundings until they arrive. Then you have ones, like me, who sit up straight, nervously, looking out of the window for any sign, any hint of where they are. You look like such a stranger, but what can you do? Anyway I had no idea what the stop was called, just that I should see a sign telling the beginning of the suburb. Fine. I looked and looked and never really saw one, but got off somewhere I thought was within the suburb. My instructions had been: ‘turn right in the first roundabout, turn left in the second, walk a long way then turn right and there’s the house’. Great! It sounded so simple, so of course I didn’t take any notes of the name of the street or anything (which I promptly forgot, as well. Terrible with names). Hey, this is the 21st-century, right? I’m as dependent on my phone like anyone. If I lost my way, I reasoned, I’d just call the number back, I had credit.

Got lost, of course. Found a roundabout, but didn’t seem right, then the road that was meant to last for a long time was cut off after just 100m – was in some neighborhood with houses, walked past a few schools, things like that. Called the number C had called with. A lady answers, in French. The housekeeper, or something? I’d been warned about this, and told just to ask after his name. So, I say, so politely, “bonjour, je m’appelle Jessica, je voudrais parles avec C sil vous plait?” … and she says, in french, I have the wrong number. Ok. No I don’t, I KNOW it’s the right number! But ok, I say pardon and hang up and wander some more. Completely lost at this stage. Found a car with a man selling chickens (smelled very good) and bought some chips in my broken French; he tried to make conversation, and seeing as my extent of conversation is to smile and nod and say ‘ca va?’ it did last long.

Tried again to call; the lady declines. ‘Avoir!’

So, can’t remember the name of the street, can’t contact my friend, may have got off at the wrong bus stop, and can’t ask anyone for directions. I was a little panicked for a second.

It all worked out all right of course, eventually C called me himself, we managed to work out where I was on google maps and he led me right … made me realise though how dependent I am on my mobile phone, it was a good reminder!

Then we went and had a fantastic time exploring the city!

First Skiing

Have been here almost a week already! It’s passed by so quickly, in a big whirl of work and jet lag. The first few days I had to take any opportunity to sleep, but it’s getting better now, perhaps because I don’t wake at 3am anymore. Instead of falling into an exhausted nap during my lunch-break, I’ve more energy now: lets go for a walk, maybe? Explore the neighborhood? It is such a beautiful one, with the mountains extending up above you, always, the blue sky rarely cloudy, the air fresh and crisp, the new snow glittering around you.

Anyway, enough extolling in the beauty of the place. Lets extol the skiing instead!
Went skiing for the first time in six years today, and oh how I’ve missed it. Skiing is awesome, admit it. That crisp, fresh air rushing past you as you woosh down the mountain. The little thrill every time you make a good turn in the slalom. The speed! The skis like frictionless blades under you, as if you’re flying, barely touching the snow .. and the hot chocolate afterwards in the cafe down by the lift, yes?

Ok, sure, it’s not all wonderful. My right little toe tingled for twenty minutes after I took the boot off, too tight perhaps? But still, I’ve missed it. It’s my sport of choice by far! Now I’m just going to buy a ski-pass of some kind, then I can take the train up to the mountains every weekend, hurrah!

New Habitat, New Hemisphere

Ok, so I moved. Australasia to Europe. 10 hours’ time difference. It’s 4am as I sit here writing, and pitch black outside; the sun won’t rise above the mountains for another six hours or so. Suitcase spilling over with stuff, still, two nights on… Everything feels pretty strange still. You try to anticipate what it’ll feel like, to move, and it’s impossible; frankly it didn’t even feel real for a while. A dream, that I would get on a plane (three) and fly over here and live here. And what do you know? It’s not a dream at all, it’s real, and I’m living here now for a year — I’m both excited and scared.

As I get more settled in – and learn to speak the language! – I hope it’ll feel less scary. Excited I am, as ever: without study and revision and exams hanging overhead, it feels like I’m allowed to be creative, to draw and paint and photograph. High school is great for wringing such impulses out of you. Well, at least it was for me, perhaps you had a different experience? But yes, and to learn French, and to ski! – and to explore this beautiful country, and to meet people.

So I’m here, among other things, to learn French, right? …and oh my god do I want to learn quickly, because I sit there listening to a conversation, where the words just flow together- they speak so FAST! – straining to just recognise any familiar words, never mind trying to understand. Feeling completely dumb, feels like the only way to communicate is through smiles and nods, and those easy, memorised introduction phrases: “je m’appelle Jessica … je suis suedoise”. Year 7 French gets you nowhere, apparently. It’s not really a surprise – I knew it’d be difficult – but ah, can’t wait to be able to hold my own in a conversation! I have to go out and practice. Talk to locals and shop assistant and french friends as best I can, and gradually I’ll improve, yes?

I vividly remember the feeling of moving to London when I was little, and starting year 4, and having girls come up and talking to me; their words flowed together too, impossible to understand, and I could only say ‘no’, and smile, and look confused. Hey, I learnt English! I remember the exact moment in a maths lesson when I learnt the number ‘13′ – THIRteen, like THREE, and THIRty – three months, or so, to a kind of childish fluency? I’m not sure if it’ll take me longer than three months this time around. I’m not eight any more, I’m eighteen, and they say children are the best at language-learning. Then again, I can learn in a more structured, more direct way than I could then. There’s a psychology magazine downstairs, in French of course, that I’m eager to attack, dictionary in hand, try to get through a whole article, see how much I can pick up! I’ll do that today I think. It looks interesting.

If anyone has any tips on learning a language, please share!

Ok. I have to stop writing, have a suitcase to unpack and a day to start (breakfast is still a good three hours away though, haha).

Thanks for reading, whoever you are!

~Jessica

Am Lazy and I Hate It

How how how do you defeat this apathy? There are so many things I want to do – and I thought I was motivated to do them! – but they lie uncomplete, and I feel lazy and apathetic almost all the time. I don’t draw, despite the 100 list I want to complete. I don’t play the piano or the violin or the guitar, though I know that I won’t improve without practice, and I WANT to improve! I want to knit, but the little white stumps of gloves I began weeks ago lie untouched on their needles. I want to sew. Have I done that? No.

Enough whining. Seriously though, how do you defeat apathy? Or procrastination, I suppose it can be called. And what causes it? A predisposition to laziness? I hope not. Perhaps it’s just a kind of perfectionism. I know that’s the case with the drawing; I can’t make anything yet that meets my standards, I suppose, so I don’t try? But that’s ridiculous. Nothing can be perfect at first. No-one is fantastic at drawing unless they’ve practised. Everyone’s always saying how failures teach you more than successes, how success is 1% inspiration- 99% perspiration, how it took Edison 1000 failed attempts to make a lightbulb, yadda yadda. On some level I KNOW all that. Well, so if it isn’t enough to know the motivational quotes, what is? What will help?

… Thinking about it, I’m inclined to think that I just need a little more structure in my life. Since November I’ve been on a break from school, work, everything: I thought I’d get so much done in that free time, which I haven’t, but beside the point; the structure’s gone. No timetable, no necessary wake-up, no real commitments except those I made with other people. Maybe, it doesn’t work to be productive like that? Or, perhaps it doesn’t work for me. Schedules and timetables are stereotypically boring (you don’t need me to tell you that-) but maybe they don’t need to follow the stereotype? Perhaps they can be genuinely useful, and the strictness can do the opposite of what you’d expect, instead bringing more fun and creativity into my life? Because laziness is not fun. It doesn’t feel good. I’m not talking about little periods of doing nothing as a break from hard work; a day once in a while with no plans, no nothing but to relax, eat, watch movies: those can be heavenly. But prolonged periods of nothing, without the hard work between to deserve them … they’re boring. Much more boring than the implementation of a schedule or two, right?

I listened to an iProcrastinate podcast a few days ago (highly recommended by the way), and it discussed the concept of an ‘unschedule’. (I remember listening to this vividly; I went on a barefoot walk just before sundown, found a path I’d never walked before and almost got lost as the darkness descended an hour later. Anyway!) The Unschedule, as I understood it, seems to be a plan of your day where you put what you HAVE to do that day: not just the to-do things you’d normally say you have to do, but EVERYTHING. Eat breakfast, do chores, stuff like that. In that way you can be more realistic about what you might accomplish and when. It’s not enough to think, “I’ll do it tomorrow”. When, tomorrow? What previous action will trigger it, will remind you to do it? And, for instance, if you say ‘I will draw something after breakfast’, well – is it truly after breakfast that you’ll have time for that? As it turns out, after breakfast you actually have to empty the dishwasher and feed the chickens (or whatever other chores are expected of you) before you can sit down to draw. Then it is no longer ‘after breakfast’, you’ve missed your “implementation intention” (as Tim, the podcast guy, calls them). The mind is a fickle thing. A tiny thing like that may have spelled doom for the whole drawing activity for the day.

I think I’ll try putting some more structure into my days… I’ll tell you how it works out!

Thus, was eighteen.

Birthday has come and gone. The world didn’t change colour; the sky didn’t fall over my head. The change from child to adult, from guardian-dependent to free being, seems so inconsequential now that it’s passed. For so long it’s been this thing on the horizon, this border to cross; so many plans with friends these past few months made impossible because I didn’t have the right age on my ID. Countless forms with the derogatory ‘under-18s must have the signature of a parent/guardian’, that tiny stab to your self-worth. But: that border now seems absurd. On the other side of it, it seems trivial… and of course, every day someone becomes ‘legal’. Becomes their own human being to sign forms as they will, or to enter pubs as they will, or to drink legally (excepting americans, of course, haha!)…

Hmm.

But it’s damn nice to finally be 18, at least! Hurrah for me! Just in time to go abroad, and I have my little tickets organised, and the two passports, and a lovely BLUE samsonite luggage to put a year’s worth of possessions in. For months, it’s been ‘birthday first, then move’. The birthday on the horizon was like a crutch, a defense against that inevitable plane trip, I don’t think it’s really registered in some deep basic part of the consciousness yet. Do you know the feeling? Intellectually, you understand, but otherwise… ah and now the birthday has come and gone and there’s nothing between anymore. Nothing but five more days. Am more excited than I can say! Don’t you envy me? You should. I’m going to go have adventures..!

A Quote on the Start of the Year

“And what does January hold? Clean account books. Bare diaries. Three hundred and sixty-five new days, neatly parcelled into weeks, months, seasons. A chunk of time, of life … those few first notes like an orchestra tuning up before the play begins.”

-Phyllis Nicholson (‘Country Bouquet‘ 1947)

Zoo Visit

Took the grandparents to the zoo today. Had too much fun taking pictures with mum’s camera, though, and came home with almost 400 photos, and got separated from the whole family at one point (they didn’t realise anyone could spend so long photographing koi fish, thought I’d left the exhibit without them).
Anyway, the photos I preferred were those of more ‘average’ creatures than those you’d expect from the zoo visit- pond fish and birds instead of lions and giraffes- but I’m sure you won’t mind.

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