I’ve had such writer’s block on here. Really; before I started blogging again I was so inspired to write, I felt like I had so many things to say, and with this exciting year that 2010 was going to be, I figured it was a perfect time to re-open the blog and to write about all the exciting things — yet, when it comes down to it, apparently I have nothing to say. I admire good personal bloggers, and am inspired by them: people such as the Snapping Blabber or Molly Wizenberg (examples off the top of my head from my reading list, there are many more). Apparently, I am not the kind of person who CAN blog about their life. It just doesn’t feel right, somehow. It’s not that things aren’t happening to me; in the last month, amazing things have happened to me that I’d love to rave about! – but writing about it on the internet seems impossible.

I’m glad I realised this. I felt pretty dumb afterwards, as often happens with really-obvious-in-hindsight realisations. I’ll go back to blogging about what I KNOW I can write about, because I’ve done it before – about personal development. I think it’s the greatest topic– I find it hard to understand why everyone isn’t passionate about it – about growing to be the best person you can be, of living your best life, of learning and doing and experiencing as much as you can – isn’t that great? Finding ‘life hacks’, optimising your days, pursuing goals and dreams, being creative …

I’m changing the whole orientation of this blog. Don’t mind me, I’m just experimenting; and that’s what you have to do, right? When you find out you’ve taken a wrong turn you have to paths, and keep changing until you find the right one. Or that’s what I’m telling myself.

Cheers for reading. I’ll be less chaotic soon, I promise -

Watch it. All of it. Be amazed — what does the future have in store? Maybe they can use nanotechnology to get the camera inside a lens you put in your eye or something I’m excited! Can you imagine the possibilities??

But now, it is March, and spring is here! It was a day last week, when the weather suddenly changed; rain came down instead of snow, and you really notice the difference between the two. Whilst snowfall is barely perceptible, each snowflake drifting down and lying to rest oh so gently, rain wants to make itself known. It crashes down on the roof, noisily; it rushes down the mountains in torrents, and it’s a kind of magic, the way the forest comes alive when the snow melts, with the drip-drip of water from trees and the cascading of streams that have tripled in size overnight. I love it! It is printemps; French for spring. It comes from the latin; ‘primus’, meaning first, and ‘tempus’, time. So, first-time …

I will blog more this month. Lets take advantage of the season of firsts! I baked my first ever bread yesterday, and my forgetting the salt made it not taste as good as it should have, but ah, it’s the first time, right? Also I am painting. First time to complete a landscape painting? Apart from those forced on you in school? I’d like that. It’s really fun, I don’t see why I’ve avoided it before (being terribly lazy may be a factor?), I will keep it up.

If you’re going towards winter now, I hope you enjoyed the summer; I’m heading towards my summer, and will enjoy it more than ever because of the comparison with cold, snowy winter ^^

Suddenly, that has all changed. I’m cooking lunch now, every day, as part of my job- and every day it becomes more fun! Cooking is its own special kind of magic, of changing one thing into another, and mixing tastes and smells and textures. I’d always listened to people saying things like that, but never really got it myself. When you cook everyday, as opposed to cooking once every few weeks as I used to when I was a spoiled teenager living at home, you learn things all the time. Get better at everything, too; and start to appreciate the little things that makes the whole meal-creating a lot simpler.

I’m asking my mum for recipes now, and luckily she’s acquiescing, and sending lots. I’ve written them all down in a little notebook I found: recipes for breads and buns, scones and meatballs and mini-crepes. Yumm. Can’t wait to try them all out, but I don’t know when I’ll be allowed to take over the kitchen for a bakery … but soon. I’m really excited!

I suppose, in my case, I needed to leave the comfort of the childhood kitchen before I could not just lick the bowls but start mixing things in them. I think it’s strange, how I’d never had inclination towards cooking before, and now I look forward to it. Funny, how the mind works, how motivation works.

There is a little part of me, as well, a little nesting hen in the back of my brain somewhere, that longs for my own kitchen. Unconsciously, I find I am comparing and evaluating things- pans, spoons, kitchen appliances, whatever- and the little nesting hen says “ooh, that’s a good idea, I’ll have that in MY kitchen”, or the vice versa. I can’t help it! I suppose it’s some kind of maternal instinct or something. … but ah, seriously, isn’t that a little excitement in itself? For the first time to acquire pretty plates and glasses and kitchen pots and sharp knives, that are all your own? (I’m realising this is probably sounding really … consumerist and selfish. sorry. )

Anyway, so I’m going to learn to cook, and I can’t wait! I’ll be making kanelbullar and plättar and maybe some non-Swedish food, too (I’m in the perfect place to learn some Swiss specialties).

Wish me luck and less burns.
ps. If you know any fun cooking blogs, do share, I haven’t explored much of that section of the blogosphere yet!)

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?

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

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…!

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!

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!

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