Fisherman's friend, Ida's better half.

Time for another update, I think.. So it's Friday evening. Another week has gone by. A particularly exhausting one, I have to say. But fun.

So on Monday we got our cameras and stuff, a not-so-brief-but-at-the-same-time-not-so-thorough-either walk-through by one of the staff, clearly not a teacher, and clearly not a film-maker either, I mean, who says, when asked something along the lines of, "What if I want to do this shot where the character does this and then that and I want to do this and that, how to I do that with the camera without fucking the exposure and white balance and blah"... "Oh, yeah, Uhm, you don't have to worry about that, this is a simple exercise, just cut inbetween the two different shots..." is creative? Is that in any way a problem solving attitude? I don't think so.

Tuesday, I woke up feeling dead, except worse. I can't really pin-point where in my body the problem lay because EVERYTHING hurt, my head, my throat, my eyes, my lower back, my chest. I was dizzy and nauseous. I was convinced I had the swine flu. And most definitely running a fever. And this is they day we get divided into small groups and get our first filming assignment. Teacher, Maria, gives us a little piece of paper with a statement, and we make it into a scene or a three minute short, so morning is spent brain-storming and script-writing, then after lunch we should be ready to start shooting, and by three o'clock we need to be ready. This is also the day I'm supposed to direct. Not a very successful shoot, as I'm sure you can imagine, in my pitiful state...

Wednesday, a lot more successful, I was feeling a bit better physically, and I was acting instead of trying to direct, didn't learn anything, but I got my confidence up again.

Wait... I'm missing a day... today's Friday, what the Hell...

Well, then I don't remember Monday.

Today, I was acting again. We had a really good time. According to the two behind the camera, the end result wasn't as good as yesterday, we didn't get all the shots we needed, we weren't as organized as we were yesterday, but that's not too surprising, because yesterday we did a simple head on sitting on a couch scene. Today, all four of us, five when the teacher came to sit in and observe, cramped into a little bathroom, with tricky through the mirror shots, and Anja and I who were acting, didn't really make it easier for Ragnar who was directing today, cause we got so into our characters and the scene that we kept going, and improvising all over the place, and barely paid any attention to him or Mireya and her frame, so it was a bit chaotic. Plus the air went rather quickly, so we were all suffering from the lack of oxygen and getting pretty dizzy as well... Oh, Ces, in the scene I wore my seahorse necklace that you got me in Chile!

Al in all a good week. My throat is really sore, but I feel more energized. I'm going to devote my weekend to getting some more writing done and possibly getting in touch with an old friend of mine who live in Stockholm.

Over and out.

I'm awake and up and ready to go, almost!

At least I didn't over-sleep today. If I had, I would seriously be considering demonic possession right now. Yesterday I turned off my alarm in my sleep (probably even before it went off) och hid the mobile under the mattress. So last night I set both my mobile alarm and my alarm clock, and put them both out of arm's reach from the bed. Just to be sure. And here I am, with ten minutes to spare. I'm awesome like that sometimes.

I had a rant about our first "theory" class with the Old School professor at DI yesterday, but I'll save it from when I dezombie.

Weekend drivel.

School is wonderful, not much more to add than my previous rant, except yesterday we set out to socialize after school, yeah, you guessed right, drink.. The other D.I. people in town had organized a game of brännboll (that's the swedish equivalent of cricket, or baseball, or something.. we always had to play it in PE at school as soon as spring showed up and I always hated it, so I was the only one not playing besides the judges.. go figures.) then we just sat around on the grass and drank and smoked and talked and got to know each other. Then it started raining.

A guy in my class wanted to drag us all to this block party, so we set out across town, got there, it got a bit darker, we were all walking down the street drinking our various beverages (I had red wine.) and then the street ended and we realized that it wasn't so much a block party but a bunch of people standing in the middle of the road drinking or thronging at the entrances of various clubs and restaurants... so basically like any other night, apparantly, I wouldn't know, I've never gone out in Stockholm... I stood talking to a Production student and a Scriptwriting student (although he didn't say much, I think he was the shy sort... what am I saying... he was writer, plain and simple!)

Another guy knew of a party in the middle of nowhere, I rather stay and finish my conversation with the guy I was talking to, and then go home, but was persuaded by Katta to come for a bit, mostly because I wouldn't know how to get home without company or at least directions... so we went out in the middle of nowhere, met the guy's sister and cousins and friends, then they wanted to go out clubbing so we went all the way back into town, and Katta and I got away from the others and decided to call it a night. My journey home was a nightmare, because I was dead exhausted and the train took forever and then I realized I'd missed all my buses and got a bit panicky... luckily I went and asked a bus driver on break if there was anyway for me to get to Enebyberg or at least closer to it, and he told me he'd be driving by there, so ten minutes later I was on a bus going home.

Borrowed two student films on DVD with me home, Elkland and Janna & Liv (wasn't on imdb for some reason), that I watched this morning whilst eating my breakfast, they were really quite good, not as good as that short I (think I) told you about before, Victor & hans bröder, which was just absolutely amazing, but still, they were really good, especially for students, I mean, you would never have guessed, they were completely professional -- and I can't wait to make my own films!! -- next week we get our film cameras and we get to start filming! I'm so excited I could listen to the song!

Thinking of you tonight.

DI [dee] class.

Everything seems to fall into place. After so many months of depression and apathy and hopelessness, I'm charged again and it's an amazing feeling, I don't have time to eat or sleep anymore, my mind is whirlwind, I'm inspired, I'm happy, I feel alive for the first time since I left Vancouver, and the class is coming together, we all feel like we've known each other forever yet we're all new, and different, it's the perfect group, I don't think there is one or a couple I can connect with more than the rest, not like in Vancouver where I developed really deep feelings and connections with a select few (that makes it feel like I selected them and they should be so lucky, but I didn't mean it like that...) but I feel quite equally about everyone, and it's not a question of forming friendships, but of coming together to create and the atmosphere around the work is friendly, if that difference makes sense to anyone else but me... but when we're together, it's very harmonious and equal, the mood is light, the energy is buzzing, and I think we're all really stoked to be here and to work together.

I really need to start doing yoga again, now that I'm regaining my mood and energy, I need to start building some strenght and become more fit and healthy and all that... I also need to start eating and sleeping better, so I don't hit a wall before this first month is even up!

Wednesday. Between the beginning of the week and the end.

Home assignment all day today. I'm sceptical. Might have to think of other things. I have the morning tomorrow as well, we don't start until after lunch. Second-guessing myself as usual. Also, I'm feeling a bit more comfortable running into my house mates, and today I cooked in their kitchen for the first time. Then I went to the library and got a pile of books. Read one. Conversed a bit with Akilles, then went into town with my CSN papers for an Eva to sign at the school, only she'd left for the day, so I'll have to go back tomorrow morning. Then I started getting a headache that got worse and worse, might have been the light and the shoulders from carrying my heavy bag for a few days now, or dehydration and malnutrition, all possibilities, but I went home, drank a whole bunch of water, ate an orange, took a pill and lay down for a while in the dark, and it went away. The ache in the head I can stand, it's when it trickles into my eyes, I hate that, because I can't use them properly, I get light sensitive and I'm such a visual person, I need to look everywhere all the time, so it's frustrating and deabilitating to have to lie down and cover your eyes because of the pain in them.

Read about the black organ market in Palestine. Lost faith in the humanity even more. Sent the link to my mother and expressed my despair. She said another world IS possible. I don't know. I'm feeling sceptical.

First day, done.

Today was my first day of school, although we still didn't get to do any work, we start that tomorrow (I can't wait!) and today was just a round tour of the school we won't spend that much time in and introduce ourselves to the students in the other departments and listen to a lot of information. And then they played Duke Ellington for fifteen minutes.

My class feels really comfortable, like everyone gets along fine already, and especially when forming a duckling line behind our teacher as she showed us around the big building this morning, and then getting mixed up with all the other students and teachers milling into lecture halls and theatres, you started picking each others faces out in the crowd and tended to herd... I guess that's just what we humans do.

I didn't get any sleep at all last night, I did go to bed at around four, but I couldn't sleep, and then at six I got up. But I was fine all day, I even went over to my brother's house after school, I needed to borrow his printer, and I decided to spend some quality time with my niece and nephew, we watched some of Asterix & Cleopatra, and then I was offered dinner before going home again, which I just did after much travelling and some disturbing conversing with random guy on the metro train.. he was very unkempt and his jacket was torn in places, plus he was carrying two plastic bags with empties, but he was my age and didn't seem like a junkie or anything, but then, the more we spoke, it became clear that something wasn't quite right, because he would drift off and space out, and he seemed disorientated and kind of sad.. but he was polite though and not frightening at all, like most people you'd see on the transit in Van.

So it's twenty to nine, I'm exhausted, I don't think I'll get any more work done today, I think I'll just finish my coffee, and take Ted Hughes to bed with me.

Some webcam pictures to give you an idea.

This is my window, and that's my flower over there..



This is my in my new room.. and behind me is the TV and the DVD, that's the mask Ana bought in Peru on the wall, although you can barely see it.. to picture left is a sofa and two closets, I'm facing the window and the desk, on the right hand wall is the bed and another bookcase like those two you can see in the background...


And this is what I've looked like all weekend, trying to edit my novel...


And that's where I'm at right now.

Good morning!

I really slept in today, it's one o'clock.. that will make getting up at six tomorrow so much easier!

I really need a shower and coffee, but there's someone out in the kitchen, and it's probably Anette, but it could be her boyfriend or his friend who arrived yesterday for a visit, and I don't want to take my chances.. I'll just wait.

I sleep great in this bed by the way, and this room has amazing energy, I haven't had trouble sleeping since I moved in!

Just your normal Saturday night.

I've been sitting here, editing my novel for the past eleven hours without a break, now my brain feels like mush and I doubt even a zombie would want at it at this point.

Also, I was thinking.. I'm losing my ideals lately, and my silver lining hope from my childhood, you know, I used to believe that it was possible to change the world, that there could be world peace, and I still want to believe all that so much, I want to believe anything is possible, I want to believe in the good in people, I want to believe there is a point and purpose to there horrors that occur all around the world every second of every day, and I want to believe that people actually give a shit, and that they try and make a difference, and they're not sheep nor evil, and I want to believe that I can still save the world, like I used to when I was little.. and it makes me despair a bit, and I get sort of depressed, and frustrated, and I just want to hide under a blanket until wither away from starvation and dehydration when I start to realize that maybe I don't believe any of that any more..

I'm Frank in the bar scene (The Indian Runner) and just like Frank, I don't have it in me to get up off my arse and exit that bar, and face the real world, and like Frank I feel like I'm about to explode sometimes. Except I wouldn't beat a bartender to death with bar stool. I don't think.

Well. On a more positive note. There's this company called Wallmans in Scandinavia (?) and they do shows and dinner theatre and stuff like that, and I remember one time when I was a kid and visiting my brother here in Stockholm, it was when he'd first moved down here, and they still did the Water Festival every summer, and it was summer and we went to the festival, and there were a couple of girls and a couple of guys from the Wallmans ensemble performing there, and I remember being in awe of these charismatic, fun, dazzling people, and I remember wanting to do that, and be like that (I was a shy little thing with stage fright at the time) and anyways, even though I rather do film or plays than dinner theatre, it would still be fun to try it, I think it's something similar to what you did before, Cesar, where you serve the customers as well as entertain them on stage and stuff like that.. well, I'd forgotten all about them, but then my brother sent me a text message this morning, telling me they're auditioning this wednesday, and that I should go check out their website, so I did, and it said they didn't want any CVs or anything, but they wanted exceptional people who can waggle their ears (!) or juggle or something, I can do neither of course, but I still sent them an emailing introducing myself, so we'll see if they give me a chance to audition.. I don't know what reply I'm hoping for, to be honest.. I'm a nervous wreck when it comes to regular auditions with sides and serious dialogue and whatnot, but I have no idea what to do for this kind of audition, they're probably expecting some Singing In The Rain bullshit, and I'll just freeze up, make a lame joke, and fall down dead. Most likely.

Well, it's not like I'm really going to have time for this kind of thing right now anyways, what with school and stuff. I start Monday. I can't wait. I'm really nervous, though, because I don't honestly know what to expect or what they expect form me.. and the teacher did say at the barbecue yesterday that we shouldn't worry, because they'd chosen us ten (one was missing and one dropped out at the last minute, they're going to try and get a hold of one of the other ones that they had put as reserves..) out of all the ones who first applied, and then those who got called for interviews, and she said we were all exceptionally talented and it's up to her and the other teachers to help show us how to best utilize our talent.. and.. stuff. But what if you just got really lucky and then you're not as good as they thought you would be and then on top of that you don't improve at all? Huh, what then?

One of the girls from my new class, Min, invited everyone to come to this party she's throwing with her friends. It's tomorrow. I know I should go, because I need to be social from the get-go, but I also wanted to finish editing this stupid novel before the weekend's over, plus it's called an ABC party... Anything But Clothes... and I am not going to a party wrapped in my yoga mat.

I should get some sleep. Or eat something, maybe, that would be a good idea.. no, actually, they have a friend visiting, so I'm not venturing outside the limits of my room. I'll sneak out in the morning and grab some coffee and a sandwich..

Well, good night.

First impressions

New people, same people: It takes her a moment
to come to terms with it, come to terms with them
not actually being the same, the whole situation
new but the same, I, who was going to be reborn,
start over, reinvent myself on this clean slate, once again
I am the same, me, always a big disappointment.

I don't know what I expected for first impressions, of myself, or them, or this first meeting,
but I seem to have been punctured somehow, it's like all the air is drained from me, I'm just bone and exhaustion, my mind won't still and I'm too tired to catch the thoughts.

Maybe I was expecting something newer, more different, more unlike anything I've ever experienced before, or maybe I was expecting something more the same, something more like what I've experienced before, the same names and faces and buildings (neither of these possibilities exist in reality -- I think I expected both.)

Soon they will be, they'll be the new familiar, the same to which I will compare the new in the future. But so far it's all new, and exciting, and tiring.

I don't know what I'm expecting from myself, and them, and this year to come,
but I will do my best to try and make the most of it.

New place.

Have to make this brief, since there is some thunder and lightening outside and I should really unplug my laptop, but I just had to let everyone know that I'm sitting at the desk in my new room, in the new house in the new town, and I am loving it here, welll in the room anyway, the other stuff is still unfamiliar and will take some getting used to, but I'm sure I will. I don't know. I unpacked most of my things last night when I got back from hanging out with my brother's family, I then went to bed missing my sleeping partner (that would be my cat, Tjockis, so don't get any ideas...) but fell asleep and slept really well all through the night and this morning I woke up and felt well rested and at ease, not tense and anxious like I usually feel when I'm in somebody else's place or anywhere new and unfamiliar, so I guess I just feel at home here now.

Meeting my class tomorrow = major anxiety, but I'm excited (think they'll take to me?)

Miss you all, wish I had my own digital camera so that I could photograph my new home and show you!

I got some little framed photographs lined up on the window sill, one of my older brother holding me as a baby of no year's old, one of my little brother when he was about ten or something, one of my mum and dad when they were young and ida-less, one (heart-shaped frame) of Tjockis, and then a larger one with four pictures in, one of Ana and me in only book club meeting, one of Cesar and me in Victory Square, one of Ana and Cesar in a pub, and the fourth is of one of my paintings, I also have my flower (the one mum gave me as a congratulations gift for getting into D.I. and which is -- so far -- the only flower I've had in my possession for more than a week without killig it...), the treasure chest Cesar bought me in Chile, one of the angels from my collection (it's been a tradition with my mum, she gets me an angel every christmas and has done since I was about ten or something), my Spirou collection , way too many books and stuff, all my DVDs, almost all of my clothes (that Cesar aren't using...), my album, my portfolio, my camera, my journals, the ceramic mask that Ana got for me in Peru for christmas, and so on and so forth, and it's the most me that any room I've lived in has been since Tjockis and I lived together in Hille when I was seventeen-eighteen (with the exception for the short time I lived with Cesar, although I mostly felt at home with Cesar, I don't think I put too many personal touches on the actual place... besides messing it up...)

Actually, never mind the camera, I wish you could come here and see it for yourself.

Well, I should round this up. Catch you on the flip-side.

Here we go again.

So my significant other, or at least as close as I'll get to it, my darling Cesar, is starring in RENT in Vancouver at the moment, the premiere has come and gone, and I really wanted to come and see it and surprise him with flowers backstage afterward and all that stuff, and it looked like it might become a reality for a moment because my dad offered to pay for the tickets, originally he was even going to come too, but then we got cramped for time, so I was going to go by myself and then we couldn't find tickets at the last minute that my dad could afford, so the whole plan just sort of deflated...

But I hear it's amazing (if you're in Vancouver you should go and see it, it's at the Playhouse, I believe, it should be advertised...) and it's getting good reviews and of course Cesar is having the time of his life, because he is literally living his dream right now, and I couldn't be happier for him (I just wish I could be there and share it with him!)

Well, on this side of the world, I am packing the last of my things (once again, the whole "one bag" notion... tsk. What a fantacy. I'm on box number five at this point.) and tomorrow I will be moving, officially and really, and for good (let's hope so, at least...) I have a couple of days to adjust to my room and the neighbourhood, then I'm meeting my new class for the first time on friday, I have the weekend to learn how to get to school and how to find my way home and where the library is and all that, and then first thing monday, I'm officially a student again!

You know, I think that's the best lifestyle for me... Because unemployment is okay, except for the whole thing about not having any money, and working well... that's just not my thing at all, I've realized, unless it's something creative like working in films, or writing, or painting or something, but there aren't many of those jobs lying around unfortunately.

Oh, and I have tonight to finish my novel as well, my deadline is tomorrow. Heh.

Rosencrantz: a poem.

Det är en låda
med kanter och stickor och hörn, fyra väggar, kanske ett lock, definitivt en botten

Det är begränsat hur mycket du kan sjunka, stiga,
avståndet mellan kortsidorna är väl utmätt, dina nyckelben en måttstock,
som en galge utanpå kläderna
Du kan inte luta dig åt vänster utan att också ligga åt höger;

Det är en trång låda, inte mycket utrymme för mycket alls
Ibland när jag blundar
kan jag flyga; jag är en drömmare

Drömmen drar ut på sömnen,
så länge jag sover
ligger locket på, Om jag bara kunde vakna, kunde jag glänta på ögonlocken, kunde jag klättra ur

Det finns inga stup eller vargar i mina drömmar
bara himmel, ibland vatten, men även om jag drunknar
drömmer jag vidare; Jag vaknar inte

inte ens när jag drömt mig död


*

It is a box
with walls and splinters and corners, four walls, maybe a lid, definitely a bottom

It is limited how much you can sink, rise
the distance between the short sides is well measured, your collarbones the yardstick,
like a hanger on top of the clothes
You can't lean towards your left without also being to the right;

It is a cramped box, not a lot of space for very much at all
Sometimes when I shur my eyes
I can fly; I am a dreamer

The dream drags out sleep,
as long as I'm sleeping
the lid stays on, if only I could wake up, could open my eyes even the slightest bit,
then I could climb out

There is no precipice and no wolves in my dreams
only sky, sometimes water, but even when I'm drowning
I dream on; I don't wake up

even when I've dreamed myself dead