like the violin

new photo blog!

2009-01-29T16:41:00.003+01:00

I've been thinking a little about my photo blog lately. I've been wanting to keep an "ordinary" blog instead of a homepage I've made myself, because it would be faster and easier to post, and possibly I'd do it more often (?). But the one I built for myself is perfect - for me. It's just the way I wanted it to look. So I've been a little ambivalent.

Until I managed to manipulate blogspot enough to make it look like I want it to look. :)

So I'm proud to introduce:
http://kristinsfoton.blogspot.com and I hope you'll like it as much as I do!

(The old favorite, song of the day, is back as well. I kept thinking about how much it said about my day. More than the photos, in some cases. So I wanted it back. :))

There will probably be a lot more action there than here, at least until the novelty wears off ... :) So if you are interested in my photos, please check it out!

I don't do resolutions

2009-01-25T22:55:00.006+01:00

I don't do resolutions, because if I force it, it won't happen. These little things are just what I want - want I long to do, to make my life better. These are the things I know I need to be happy, and that I haven't paid enough attention to lately. So this is a necessary reminder for me. You can see it larger on flickr (there are little translated notes there too if you're not Swedish and want to know what it says).

I wanted numbers printed in a certain font (Bullpen! I love Bullpen. It's from Larabie Fonts. I love Larabie fonts! I've loved Larabie fonts since ... I don't know, since I first found them and used Deftone Stylus on a homepage back in 2002. Those were the days!), cut out from a certain paper (a map page from one of my vintage atlases. I collect them only to slowly rip them apart and use the papers. I feel a little evil every time I do it).

And I know that one way of doing it is printing the word you want, making a stencil out of it with a paper knife or scissors, placing the stencil on the paper you want to cut out letters from, drawing the outlines of your letters through the stencil, then cutting out your letters.

That sounded like a lot of cutting to me.

So here's what I did (it's very possible that everyone is already doing it this way, or some other MUCH SMARTER way, and I'm going to look real stupid because I only just started doing it this way ... but I'm going to post it anyway).

1. Write whatever you want to write in a new document in Photoshop (I use CS3). Preferably the new document is the size of the paper you are going to use, so you can see right away what size the letters will be. Maybe you don't have to do this if you are smarter than me, but I have to, or else I will mess up and everything will be the wrong size. You'll want to use a nice and bold font or else you will be stuck with your scissors trying to cut them out for ages = boring. Write letters in black, on white. Or have them just outlined if you want to save ink.

2. Image -> Rotate Canvas -> Flip Canvas Horizontal

3. Load your chosen paper in the printer so that it will print on the wrong side.

4. Print.

4. Now you can cut your letters out directly without having to make a stencil first, because you flipped them horizontally, so on your side of the paper they are going to come out right! Yay!

I have a feeling this wasn't very clear ... But ... Well, anyways ... :)

- - -

Here are some happy thoughts:

Have you written down something you love today?

a Friday

2009-01-23T17:08:00.004+01:00

I have been taking some seriously good photos lately, and you really should get over to the photo blog to check them out. (And I'd be really happy if you would write something in the guestbook, too. (The guestbook works in English!))

In other news: Weekend, I'm happy, I'm taking up driving lessons (it's been a year since I tried last time) next week and am super scared, I'm looking forward to seven movies at the film festival starting this weekend.

I got my copy of the Portals zine* and my first thought was that I hate the fonts. Ick. They're horrible throughout. My second thought was "my collages are in this, for real?", my third was "but ... the other people in here are real artists, like for real! What were they thinking choosing me? I'm just playing around anyways ... and not very often either!", and when I managed to read through the words I had written about me (the font they chose is, besides ugly, quite unreadable), my fourth thought was "wow ... I sound really young".

And then: I am young.

* Apart from the fonts, it's a lovely and inspiring zine, so if you are into collages or art journaling at all, you should buy it.

en timme till

2009-01-18T23:21:00.005+01:00

Just wanted to show you this page I made today about one of my smartest decisions ever. :)

Translation:
"About a week ago I decided to not spend more then fifteen minutes a day in front of the computer on weekdays.

I used to:
+ check my e-mail, flickr, blogs and facebook every five minutes
+ play minesweeper and chain factor
+ click around and follow links I wasn't even interested in

Now I can:
+ read books
+ write letters
+ iron my sheets <3
+ TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS EVERY DAY

And all of this just because I got one more hour - an hour that I didn't even know was there before."

I am so loving this new decision of mine. Suddenly I have huge amounts of time to fill with whatever I like. Letting go of that mindless staring into the screen is quite liberating, I tell you.

- - -

Update: Now this is exactly what I was talking about. (Via Penelope Dullaghan)

I got out

2009-01-18T15:26:00.005+01:00

It's becoming more and more obvious to me that it was really close, and that I really saved myself just in time. It's only been a couple of weeks but I am enjoying this calm so very much.

Actually I realised it as I was talking to a friend on last Monday's lindy hop social night. "I can't believe I'm already this tired and busy, the semester has barely started and I thought I was resting the whole Christmas holidays ..." she said and she looked so immensely sad that I had to hug her a little. "Maybe you need to work less", I said. "But how?" she said. "Can't you try to ssk for 80% instead of 100%?" I said. "Imagine what it would feel like to have a whole day to just sit at home and read books that you really want to read".

She looked at me in disbelief at first. And then I saw something changing behind her eyes ... Like a small glimpse of light that grew steadier as I spoke. Like some sort of hope, a way out she hadn't thought of.

And I feel like I really caught the last way out, for myself. It can't be true, of course, I know humans are able to cope with a lot more than what I did. It couldn't have been that bad ... But it was bad enough. And I got out!!! I'm not saying that everyone should do less. Everyone has to decide that for themselves. I suppose some people handle it a lot better than me? Or maybe it was just unlucky circumstances that made things so stressful last year. I can only guess.

These photos are from Friday morning; I arrived at school early (or actually on time - the bus is supposed to arrive twenty minutes before school starts, but very rarely does). I am beginning to love those mornings on the bus, and the short walk between the bus stop and the school.

- - -

P.S. Don't forget to join my inspiring scrap papers swap over at swap-bot.com. It's just too nice to get paper scraps in the mail to pass up :) Last day to sign up is tomorrow!

my hand

2009-01-10T18:11:00.004+01:00

Some of you may not have heard what it is I do right now, so I'll just say it again: I'm taking a break from the university (something I hear is rather unusual in other countries (?), but very common in Sweden; I don't think I know of anyone who didn't take a break in their studies to do something else for a while) to go to art school for beginners this spring. I needed to slow down. A lot. And allow myself to feel that I don't have to sing one single note if I don't feel like it.

The commute is quite long (one hour and a half one way) and I end up at a folkhögskola in the middle of nowhere. I guess I'll tire of the commute sooner or later, but right now it is just golden. It gives me so much time to just sit and think and listen to music.

And the course is, well, "calm" is almost an exaggeration. It is less than calm, it is the quietest, slowest course I've ever taken and nothing really happens ... Except I have time to draw. I go there in the morning, draw until lunch, eat lunch, then draw some more, and then I go home in the late afternoon. I guess I'm a pretty slow drawing student, but I don't feel stressed at all.

So, above is something I drew yesterday - my hand. And I feel so proud and pleased with myself. I didn't know I could draw something that would look even remotely like a human hand, but look! There it is. It's a hand. My hand. I have decided that I will feel very proud of my work. I am so tired of artists/ bloggers saying things like "this is just some crappy drawing and I hate it but I'll show it anyway in all its disgustingness". (I'm tired of myself saying similar things, too.) And I am totally not going to do it (anymore).

What's the use, really, in comparing my work to others'? This is my hand! I think it's lovely! And when I see other artists' beautiful work, I don't want to feel "oh ... their drawings are so great, much better than mine, so now I have to hate mine and feel ashamed of myself for even trying". I want to be able to look at other people's work to be inspired, and to learn more, not to compare. I am so trying to get comparison out of my life. OK, I know that with music, that may never happen (even though I would like to). It's just so much more difficult seeing as that is my main focus in life and also where I (plan to) make my living. So I can't promise you about that. But art is something I do just for myself. At least I want it to be. So I'm working on that.

old coat / new coat

2009-01-05T10:36:00.007+01:00

Old coat

New coat

Okay, so the difference isn't overwhelming. :) Thing is, I really loved my old coat, but like I said, it was starting to fall apart to the point where not even my Mom could fix the holes (and that is saying something).

I didn't really want to buy a new one though, because - let's face it - most winter coats that I can afford are BORING. As in black. Or possibly dark grey. Or the occasional eye-bleedingly red ... *shudder*. (Please note that I don't mind that red, as you can see on my trousers above, but on winter coats it's just such a cliché.) I was losing faith ... and then I stumbled upon this, at BikBok of all unlikely places! And on sale! And it's warm, too!

So. I have a new coat. That's it. Apart from that I'll have to go naked if I don't find something to wear soon. I'll keep you posted.

Song of the day Soft Cell: Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

tunics and tights from now on

2008-12-31T14:27:00.001+01:00

As some of you have heard or read, I haven't bought any clothes since the first of July. It was no problem at all for months; rather it has been quite the relief not having to bother with fashion. To tell you the truth, what with tiredness and stress and sickness, having one thing less to think about has been quite lovely.

But these past few weeks I have realised that gaining weight (which I do quite rapidly, because of this medication) and not buying any new clothes will decidedly pose a problem sooner or later, and here I am now: I have nothing left to wear. I have worn the same pants for ages and I suspect they will fall into pieces very soon. The same goes for my winter coat and my suede boots, and I ust can't squeeze into my skirts anymore.

So a few days ago I went out to try and by some pants. Good heavens, is I had known how difficult it would be I wouldnt even have tried. I have been a fan of Cheap Monday jeans and corduroy pants for a couple of years, so naturally, that's where I went first; only to learn that they didn't have anything with a wider waist than 32. How ridiculous is that?!

Basically I gave up the trousers hunt after that and decided to go for tunics and tights instead. For the rest of my life, or until I have lost weight, or, most preferably, clothing manufacturers come to their senses.

brilliant news!

2008-12-25T12:37:00.001+01:00

I've been away for ages, and for the usual reasons, too: sickness and stress. But today I have some BRILLIANT news: It's Christmas!

Good things about Christmas:

1. I get to spend a lot of time rejoicing in the fact that Jesus is born, and I am saved. Sweet.

2. Time! I have two weeks of nothingness in front of me! A couple of family dinners, singing in church (4th of January if you can make it) and a New Year's Eve party is basically all I have planned. So if you want a fika, just let me know! (January is my next buy nothing month though, so after that it will be at your place or my place and not at a café.) And if you don't. I'll just sit here and read and eat chocolate and do nothing. Things could be worse.

3. Gifts. I get to wrap some and then open some. I love both. Unfortunately though, this part is over for this year ... But I have some really nice presents to play with, look at and use.

4. New year - new start. At least in my life. As soon as school had stopped, I started thinking things like "oh. a piano, maybe I should play a little?". I haven't wanted to play for ages. I feel things are going up from here! Yay!

I'll be celebrating this newness and general happy mode by re-opening the old photo journal, though at a new address: http://kristinsfoton.mine.nu. Go there! There are some December photos already and I'm hoping it's going to inspire me to take more photos. (Och för eventuella svenskläsande läsare kan jag meddela att jag har tagit upp skrivandet i min halvgamla blog. Flera av er hittar säkert dit, annars får man gärna maila och fråga.) I'll oprobably post here every once in a while, too. There are always some craft projects and stuff like that, which needs more space.

I hope you all are doing good and finding some time to rest this Christmas!

how I've been, lately

2008-12-14T11:47:00.000+01:00

I received the sweetest message on my cell phone a couple of days ago. A friend of mine wrote "I noticed that you haven't posted anything in a while. How are you feeling? Hugs!"

And you know what? I'm better! :) It feels weird saying it, because I haven't felt "better" in a long while. But I can sing again, even though I'm not entirely rid of the cold yet, and I'm happy.

I think the turning point was that I decided to ask if I could to the singing test (there's one at the end of every semester, you sing three of four classical songs of your choice in front of four singing teachers and they decide if you are good enough, basically) in January instead of this coming Monday, and it was okay. Before I asked, it felt like a failure ... I didn't want it hanging over me over Christmas, I wanted it over with, and all that, you know. But then I realized it was the right thing to do. And that it's okay. That it can wait. That my health, and feeling good, is more important than stressing out over getting something done.

After that, I realized that, well, somehow I'll be able to get all the pieces together. And since then (that was a little over a week ago) I have. I have been crazy busy with all the stuff that needed to be done in school, but I ticked them off one by one, instead of trying to do them all at once like I did before.

And now I am officially in Christmas mode. No more school until January! I start working at Posten on Monday (and will do so for nine days, until the 23rd). I got the day shift this year, instead of the night shift that I used to have a few years ago when I worked there last day. I love working the night shift, but day shift is fine, too. After all you can have a normal life if you work the day shift. :)

Speaking of a normal life, a normal life to me includes a social life, and I have been thinking a lot about friends and friendships lately. I've been thinking about what all this stress does to us all. I have hardly seen, or talked to, any friends at all this fall - mostly because of my sickness and because most of my best friends now live in other cities, but also because I, and everyone else, have been extremely busy. And I can't help but thinking: what's it all for? Why do we take on so much to do? Why can't we stop ourselves? Were did spontaneity go? I don't want to to it anymore, I just don't.

There will probably be more on that subject soon, but right now, the boyfriend and I are off to buy our Christmas tree. We even borrowed a car from the parentals for the occasion. It's a good thing you know, having parents in the same city and a boyfriend with a driver's license. :)

over there

2008-12-03T22:46:00.002+01:00

I just found out that Terenche Blanchard will be playing with the Herbie Hancock Sextet at the concert on Monday. OMG!!! I was a little excited for Herbie (the concert is sold out and was bound to be cool either way), but this! (If you need to know, this is how I felt about a tune of his a while ago.)

in other news ...

2008-11-30T16:58:00.000+01:00

I forgot something in the good things list yesterday ... These photos are from the other week but it still makes me happy to look at them and know that some people actually DO something. Hilarious, Fältbiologerna!

What if I'm not her?

2008-11-29T12:15:00.002+01:00

You have heard me say this so many times that you're not going to believe it, but here goes ... I'm sick. Again. These never ending colds I have been getting since August are really starting to annoy me. And I'm worried, too. I've got nine concerts, with both solo and choir performances, in the next two weeks. And the way I'm feeling (and sounding) now, I won't be able to sing for at least another week, maybe more. It's weird how a normal cold can destroy so much of life - mostly school work of course, but stuff I do for fun as well, like choir singing. And what if I don't take all my points? What if I FAIL? what are my teachers going to say? What am I going to do? I've always been en duktig flicka, the perfect student. what if I'm not her any longer?

It's no fun at the moment. I have looked forward so to this December, I love singing all the Christmas songs, but now I don't know at all what's going to happen, how I'm going to solve this. I can't even plan a solution. I hate that. I am used to getting double and triple booked, but I can always plan my way out of that one way or another. If only I knew when I'll be able to sing again, so I could plan it somehow! But I don't and I can't. And I'm worried.

- - -

The few glimpses of light ...

- The boyfriend, who takes exceptionally good care of me when I'm sick: cooks all my meals, hugs me all the time, looks at me as if I was the most beautiful thing on earth even though my nose is redder than Rudolph's, and buys me chocolate. Hm ... come to think of it, he does all these things for me when I'm not sick, too. but it's even nicer now :)

- Letters. A lucky coincidence (or the hand of God! Who knows!) made it so that I got letters from several of my favorite letter writers during the past week. That was very well needed and appreciated.

- På Spåret. I love På Spåret. The new season started last night. When people ask me what TV shows I like, there's only one answer: I only ever watch one, and it's På Spåret. (It's on English Wikipedia! Look!) It's about travels and places and stuff ... and it's just nice. No one gets humiliated. No one is mean. People just laugh and tell jokes and have a good time. And I also like it because I sometimes manage to figure out where they are going before the contestants do. :)

- David Eddings. It's lightweight fantasy, it's entertaining and it's about another world in another time, so I don't have to think about this world and its worries at all.

- Good songs, new and old. Anyone want a mix CD? I have some found some real goodies lately.

- I have enough money saved up to survive next semester even if I don't get any money from CSN (that's partly why I'm worried - if I don't take 75% of my points this semester, no money from the state next semester). At least for a little while. (So I shouldn't be worried. But I'm worried anyway.)

- We have nice sunsets here.

Truth be told, I'm rather proud to have gathered up so many good things on a day like this. And I didn't even include the sour cream & onion chips that Anders (who lives here as well) promised to buy for me today.

a few snapshots from this past week

2008-11-23T20:33:00.002+01:00

Great food and happy people at last Sunday's party with the chamber choir

Chocolates I bought for the boyfriend (and me)

Getting off the tram at Korsvägen on my way to school

Lunchtime at the Academy of Music and Drama

Pancakes for dinner! Monster wants dinner too.

On my way home from church this morning

- - -

I intend to be a better answerer to comments I get from now on. I don't know why I've been so bad at that ... When I comment on someone else's posts, I like it when people reply :) So so will I!

shuffle minibook

2008-11-19T17:42:00.003+01:00

Whenever I feel like making something, but don't know what, I make a shuffle project. I've been doing them for years; it all started several years ago on my homepage, where I made html pages for different songs. Then blogging came and killed all the personal homepages, and so I moved on to paper and glue instead.

A shuffle project is, as you may have guessed, based on the shuffle function of whatever you play your music with (iTunes and my iPod, for me). I just put it on shuffle and do something (a page or collage, mostly, but they can be drawings, paintings, photographs, anything you could think of)) based on the song that comes up next. And then the music keeps on playing, and when you have finished that page - no matter if you have heard five or twenty songs since you started - the next page will be about the next song you hear. (There is always the possibility of not using a song if you don't feel like it. I wouldn't want to force myself to use a song if I don't like it.) And then I keep going like that until I'm done, or more likely, until I should be going to bed.

One of the things I like about it is that I get a theme, a starter, something to get me going, but from there I can do whatever I want. I can think of so many variations on the theme! Colors, materials, photos, no photos, drawings, anything.

This one (see the images larger on my flickr page is a minibook that I wanted as cheerful as possible. It is quite unusual for me to use colors as bright as these - I'm more into plain yellow, red and blue when I use bright colors, and not so much magenta and turqoise. But it was fun nevertheless. Anything that will widen your perspective and make you try something you haven't tried before is a good thing. I used only photos that I had already printed - I have a leftover box for them - so they are from completely random occasions, but that is part of the fun. For me they still match the song I was working with, and that is the point (this time. It doesn't have to be).

I made this minibook a little while ago, and now, as I write this, I already feel like making another. A jazz themed one perhaps?

2004 pt. 2

2008-11-18T15:31:00.002+01:00

The rest of the 2004 photos (the one with me laughing is taken by Lisa). I took so many photos back then. Most were bad, but I cared less. How do I get back into that way of thinking?

2004

2008-11-17T11:02:00.004+01:00

I looked through all my photos from 2004, to choose which ones will go into albums (that's where I am right now - more than four years behind). And while doing that, there were some photos that made me feel "oooohhh". For different reasons. Photos I had forgotten about, photos I've had on the wall for ages, photos with beauftiful colors, photos with people that are still my friends, people that I loved but don't even know anymore (I met one of the friends shown below on a street yesterday and tried to say hello, but he looked right through me. I guess it's what happens) ...

I guess most are here for no apparent reason other than that they made me feel soft, warm and/ or melancholic inside. So here they are ... some photos from 2004, chosen by nothing other than feelings in my stomach. All taken with my dear Nikon Coolpix 2100 (those were the days!).

happy things

2008-11-14T16:23:00.003+01:00

(Photo from last week's choir recording ... and yes, that's me. We were all really tired at this time! :) Taken by Karin.)

Happy things:

+ Our choir concert on Sunday (Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen and Requiem by John Rutter) is going to be so great. The music is plain lovely, specially Lux Aeterna which I adore almost (but not entirely) as much as O Magnum Mysterium by the same composer. Do come if you're in the neighborhood! 18:00 at Härlanda kyrka.

+ Coming home from school and seeing that my four best blogging friends have all posted something during the day. And that all of them wrote about something nice and beautiful in their lives. It just makes me so happy.

+ That I'm going to see Ron Sexsmith live with Lisa & Hanna tonight. Yay!

+ Only two weeks until Christmas!

+ Calling CSN (in short, that's where Swedish students get/ borrow money to pay the rent while we're studying) and not having to wait in line. And then talking to a woman who not only was very nice, she also admitted that their mistake was their mistake - not mine.

+ I've gotten some lovely mail this week. Katie sent me this amazing collage (can you believe it?), which she knew I loved (because I have favorited it on flickr :)), and it totally made my day. (Thank you!) I hope to get some time to write a whole bunch of letters and/ or cards soon. Real mail is a fabulous thing!

I'm hoping to be able to blog some more than I have lately ... It's been rather busy around here, like I said. Keep your fingers crossed!

a busy week & frosty leaves

2008-11-07T14:33:00.002+01:00

It's been a busy week! From nothing to hundred over one night. I've been teaching singing at a high school in Kungälv (part of my education) all day, and in the nights we've been recording a CD with my choir. I know recording sounds like a lot of fun but basically it's just hours and hours of really hard work. It's fun afterwards though. Recording in a studio like I do with Sebastian is easier ... and requires much fewer takes!

At least I have a couple of hours off now. Tonight it's six more hours in church (we happen to rehearse in a church which has one of the best recording acoustics in town, so the technichians have moves all their stuff (and that's loads of stuff) there) and then I'm teaching the beginners/ intermediate lindy class all weekend. So not much sleep.

But all in all, this is a lot better than what was before! I so prefer this busyness to the uninterested nothingness. If it has to be one of them. Which it doesn't. It will slow down a little, soon. I'm teaching at the high school for three weeks but have tried to clear the evenings off as much as possible to get some room for rest. It drains you of all energy, this teaching thing. But I learn a lot.

What else to say? I'm still loving autumn, enjoying every second. And soon, soon it's Christmas! Three weeks until Advent. And I'm starting to feel like creating something again. Not sure, but there might turn up something created here soon. I'm going to have to get back into the weekly themes to get something done, though ... So many ideas!

you will find it

2008-10-30T22:36:00.004+01:00

I got a lovely e-mail from my friend Arne yesterday. Part of what he wrote was this: "... it's totally ok to say 'I dont know ... and I dont know what I want'. Just stick to that ... and don't try to hurry or rush out of it. You will find it". And in reading that I suddenly felt how right he is. I have my whole life in front of me ... and I needed that permission so much! That I am allowed to not know, and even more importantly, to not try to rush out of it. To be allowed to stay here.

I woke up happy both this morning and yesterday. This feels like a HUGE step forward from the dizzyness and general lowness that the medicine I talked about brings. I used to wake up happy most of the time - I could be very tired and want to sleep for a couple of hours more some days, but I used to be happy anyway - happy with my life, with having a whole new day in front of me. and this is how I felt this morning. I was so thankful to have it back.

And so, these two days have been good, good days. I can look back at September and October and acknowledge that it wasn't fun ... but I have energy to hope for a nicer November and December, now. I don't know if my body is getting used to the medicine, which my doctor hoped, or if it's something else, but I'm not going to analyze possible reasons for well-being. I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

So here is - yes, it's been a while, but I just can't force them - a good old "good things" list.

+ My doctor, speaking of which, is so good that she deserves a paragraph in the list all by herself. She is the best in the world and I am so so grateful to have finally met her! She is the fifth doctor I meet concerning this same issue, the first who has truly listened to me, and the first who has been able to think up a possible reason and treatment. For ten years I have heard from other doctors that "oh, that will pass in time". Well, it didn't. And now I am getting help. About time!

+ Yesterday the boyfriend and I took a walk around town, in that perfect crisp autumn weather that I love so much. Had some falafel and bought baubles for the Christmas tree (I know, I know ... it is early. But last year I saw so many beautiful ones and then thought "no, I'm going to wait until it's closer to Christmas so it will really feel like Christmas when I buy them" and then they were all gone. And I bought some new rolls of gift wrap too. Yes, I am addicted to gift wrap. Yes, I am proud of it.

+ I just got home from a great fika with Bersa. Good good good.

+ I need to get some new clothes. I'm not buying any clothes this for a year, as you may know - except for necessary things, and now some things have become necessary. I have, for example, two pairs of pants that still fit, and one of them is for summer use only (or I'll freeze my ass off no matter how many pairs of tights I wear underneath). That is one pair of usable pants, my friends ... I'm going to have to get another pair. Just one though! And I'll be needing warm shoes soon. But I think that's that. (Other things I have bought are three pairs of tights, because autumn in Göteborg is intolerable without them, and five pairs of socks, because well, socks are socks and they are known to have a life of their own. That's all since the first of July.)

+ I'm listening to Brahms' Requiem. I love Brahms' Requiem.

Oh, look at how easy it was to write something when ... well, when things started happening again :)

think it cruel but sometimes

2008-10-27T11:16:00.001+01:00

I've lost all sense of direction. I don't know what I want, what I want to do, what I want to be, I don't know if I want to stay at the academy of music, I don't know what I want to create, nothing. Mostly I want nothing. I don't talk to friends. I don't know why. I think I want to, but I don't have the strength to make an effort. And so I'm lonely. And I am stuck. And why am I still sick? Why doesn't it get better? Why am I still coughing? Why does my throat still hurt? I can't sing like this! Not that I want to - but I have to.

I cling to these words.

Every now and then life says
Where do you think you're going so fast?
We're apt to think it cruel but sometimes
It's a case of cruel to be kind

(Ron Sexsmith: Gold In Them Hills)

no fun

2008-10-21T08:04:00.003+02:00

So I haven't posted in a while. That is because I'm taking a medicine at the moment (long story, but nothing serious) that makes me unhappy. As in, I cry a lot, about the smallest of things, I don't want to leave the apartment and yet I get extremely restless, I cannot think rationally about anything, and it feels like there is nothing in my life but problems and disappointments (it doesn't matter that I know on some level that this is not true - I can't stop those feelings when they decide to take over). I also caught a rather nasty cold. So basically that's why I haven't been blogging.

I'm trying to sit still to let my body do its work and get rid of this cold for me, but I'm restless, so restless. I keep thinking about all the stuff I've had to cancel over the past few days, I keep wondering for how long I will be stuck in this ... It's so difficult to accept the situation, that this is what my life looks like right now and that it's necessary for me, for some reason. I'm planning to read a lot of Keri Smith today and hopefully create something nice to cheer me up (between the coughing attacks). And eat a lot of ice cream.

finally autumn

2008-10-05T23:59:00.004+02:00

Autumn is officially here with all the wind, rain, early evening darkness, and beautiful trees. It all smells marvellous, I'm loving every breath.

All of this brings me large amounts of new energy and so next week's theme will be Finding Myself. This includes shutting out all of the "extra" stuff I surround myself with, thoughts and feelings on how I should be, how I should live - most of it coming from the internet. And so, next week will be internet free. Hopefully this will give time for other things, such as books, lunch dates, making phone calls, painting and, if I get rid of this cold, dancing.

Things to look forward to this week:
+ Avishai Cohen concert tomorrow (will be so cool!)
+ Working on Lauridsen's wonderful Lux Aeterna with the choir on Tuesday
+ Going to Dalsland over the weekend to take walks in the forest and spend time with my aunt & uncle

Wish me luck and see you next Sunday!

(Photo from last fall, taken by Linda.)

flying home

2008-10-03T15:53:00.000+02:00

I can't help but feeling that this trip has been, well, quite a fiasco. And a very expensive one, too. I am so happy for your sweet and kind comments on my last post, and they made me feel a little better. "Adventure is discomfort in retrospect" ... yes, there are probably loads of things to learn from this trip, even though right now I just want to go home and forget the whole thing.

We did manage to get the best out of these last few days, though. The nausea thing got better ... and instead I got a rather nasty cold. At least it was easier running around the city without being afraid I might throw up (which I never did, but it was still very uncomfortable to think I might). So we took the boat to Ellis Island to go to the immigrant museum which was quite fascinating (seeing as that is quite the height of history they have here), and we went back to the Met for another day because we loved it there, and we went to Guggenheim and saw a brilliant, big exhibition of all of Catherine Opie's work which made me want to learn to photograph. And yesterday was paper shopping day, so now I just want to go home and make stuff.

Flight leaves this afternoon and we'll be home at about noon tomorrow. I'm quite worried. I'm not at all afraid of flying but I have flown with a could once before, when I lived in Lyon, and it was downright horrible. I felt as though my head was going trying to grow rapidly, painfully and in all directions at once (or else just explode). It was quite awful and this time I have a nin hour flight to look forward to. Oh well, wish me luck.

sick & disappointed in new york

2008-09-29T03:10:00.003+02:00

I got sick! I can't believe it, I got sick. Like I wrote in my last post, the first days here weren't perfect, but I was really making an effort to not see that and instead see all that is good about New York. And then, while we were at the MoMA (which, by the way, was a huge disappointment even before I got sick - it was pretentious and crowded and the works of art weren't at all placed interestingly) I started feeling week and tired and nauseous (don't know if that is the right word for what I actually mean but it sounds like it on wikipedia) and had to go back to the hostel and lie down. I spent all of yesterday in bed, too. This morning I felt a lot better, and so we went to the free opening of the brand new Museum of Arts and Design (which, of course, was brilliant and very inspiring). But when we had eaten lunch the nausea returned and here I am at the hostel again. I've lied down for a couple of hours and basically I'm fine whenever I'm not moving or eating ... Which makes enjoying New York quite difficult.

I can't help feeling a little sorry for myself. Things could have been so much worse and yet ... I had looked forward so to this vacation, and so far, it's been more of a disaster than anything else. Johan is still in a good mood of course, not at all acting like this is not the vacation we had wanted, because that is his personality. He just accepts circumstances and is happy and at ease anyways (not happy, of course, that I am ill, but he doesn't let it bring him down either, he just takes care of me with a smile instead of being disappointed). As for me, I'm so diappointed I've cried a little and I still can't see what's so great about this big mess of a city.

And what am I to write on postcards, and tell people when I get home? I always write loads of postcards, I love sending things in the mail (even though I rarely get anything back). But what am I going to write? "We really loved the Metropolitan Museum or Art, but that's pretty much it"? "I'm sick and this city stinks?"

And why in the world do I care about what other people think about how I feel about New York? Why am I supposed to enjoy this place, so far from home? Why do I feel that I have to do what is expected of me, and why is it expected of me?

Why?

overwhelmed

2008-09-26T15:53:00.002+02:00

Three and a half days in New York, and so far, the word that best describes it all is overwhelming.

These first days have been weird. I have never flew this far before and I had no idea what jetlag would be like. It has given me headache everyday and several times a day I just turn incredibly tired, so tired that I feel that I need to sleep RIGHT NOW or else! And then after a while it passes ... until it comes back.

That, in combination with the craziness that is New York, has made life a little difficult around here. I feel like such a middle class ordinary small town girl from a small insignificant country when I say this, but I've spent a lot of time wondering how on earth someone would ever want to live here. How do they stand the stench, to begin with? The whole city is stinking of garbage and traffic and urine and bad greasy Chinese food. Yesterday we figured out that if you're born here, or in some other big city, you wouldn't know what real air smells like, and then you can't miss it. But still ...

That isn't the worst, though. No, it's the stress that's getting to me. I'm a calm, slow kind of girl, and I can't handle this mess. I guess if you are the "fast lane" kind of person this is all lovely, but I'm lost. People are running, screaming, honking, yelling, stressing. Two days ago we were crossing the street when we were clearly allowed to (the sign was on the white walking person, not on the big red hand), and suddenly a police started yelling at us for walking to slowly. I'm not used to that kind of treatment! I'm not used to bus drivers screaming at me either, or that people who work in stores don't even look up when I buy something (that goes, I've noticed, for food stores, clothing stores and paper stores alike). Everything in this city is about money. EVERYTHING. It scares me.

Anyways ... the jetlag thing is getting better, and slowly I'm getting used to the tempo around here. Not that I'm adjusting to it, more like I'm able to say to myself "these people are stressed out, but you don't have to be. You can be calm." and it's beginning to work. Yay! So I'm thinking that when I write next, I'll be a lot more cheerful and can see all the good sides of New York, too.

Good things discovered so far: Juice bars, Paper Presentation (I died a little in there ... or maybe it was my wallet), the Phantom of the Opera, the Metopolitan Museum of Art, Central Park. The Met was fantastic. As soon as I got in there, I felt safe, almost at home, even though I'd never been there, Art museums do that to me. Today I'm hoping to get some more of it as we're heading for the MoMA. Oooh, modern art!

the Weekly Themes

2008-09-21T22:14:00.003+02:00

Warning! Very very long post about creativity!

So. The Weekly Themes is something I came up with while sitting on the bus, going home from Linköping a few weeks ago. It was a very long (four hours) and rather dull bus ride and I sat there, thinking about what I can do to keep my creatitivity going when the summer holidays are over, when school and dancing and everything else in the "regular life" starts and there's not much time to create. The problem, for me, isn't really time. There is always time if I just use it well. The problem is, and has been for a couple of years, that I get overwhelmed.

There are so many opportunities and so many things I want to do. When I feel like making something, what should I make? Something in the art journal, a collage, a painting, a scrapbook page, should I take photographs, write a letter, draw something, blog or work with the photo albums? Most of the time (yes, most of the time! Sad but true) I end up not doing any of it. I can't make up my mind, all the thoughts and ideas just keep swirling and I get stuck in front of the computer (flickr, mostly), looking at things instead of making my own.

Looking at what others have made and being inspired by it is wonderful, and I've gotten through many a creative block by seeing what others have created. But I need to remember that looking is not the point. Creating is the point. The best blogs and pages are the ones that make me turn the computer off immediately and go create something myself. It often works that way and I can use flickr and other inspiring places as creative starter. But, if I am already overwhelmed by the amount of ideas in my own head, the extreme amount of brilliant ideas on flickr just makes it all more complicated, and it makes it harder to start creating. Instead I fall into the "oh well I could never create something as brilliant as this anyways" and so I make nothing. Which is weird, because at other times, looking at the very same picture can make me so inspired that I can make stuff for hours, not thinking at all about the outcome.

So, I needed to find a way to focus. To find one idea and stick with it - not for long, just long enough to make something! The idea of weekly themes soon came to mind. A week is long enough to be able to make several things on the subject, but short enough to soon be able to choose a new theme if I realise I'm not too fond of the theme. And as soon as I had that idea, themes started flowing in. I have a about thirtyfive useable ideas, so I could keep this going for a while if I wanted to. :)

I didn't want to tell you until I had been going on for a little while. I usually come up with a great idea, work with it for about a day or two, post about it on the blog, and then someone asks "what happened with this or that project?" and I am forced to answer that I forgot about it, or that something that sounded like more fun came up. I have been quite bad at keeping up with something/ a project/ a journal for longer than a few days. This time I wanted to not tell anyone until I was sure that this is something solid, something that actually works for me. And, since it's been four weeks and I've created like crazy, I think I can say now that it works. :)

So here's how it works. Every Sunday or Monday, I look at my list of possible themes and decide which one I feel most drawn to at the time. My goal is to create at least five things on the theme. (This is not true. The real goal is to create at least three things on the theme. But I always have to set myself a higher number, to allow some space for "failure". If I for some reason really had to make five things a week, I would have to tell myself "I need to make eight things a week!". That is why I keep telling myself I need to go to the gym three times a week, so that I actually go there two times a week.) Then, every time I feel like creating something, I stick to the theme. Because of I let thoughts wander off, I won't make anything at all.

And that's the whole thing. Easy, huh?!

So now that I've made this official, I thought I might start posting about it on the blog. The new theme will come up on the blog on Sunday or Monday (depending on when I am home/ have time) and the things created will be shown, if I feel like it, sometime during the weekend or on Monday (depending on when I am home/ have time). Feel free to cheer me on during the week, create your own weekly themes, or join in on mine!

(My weekly themes include all kinds of stuff that I usually work with and am drawn to, like work in my art journal, photography themes and scrapbooking ideas. But there are also some that are quite new to me, like drawing (I want to learn!) and researching. And I am sure I will keep coming up with new themes all the time. Quite a few are, of course, music related, including making stuff with lyrics and feelings about music.)

So well, here's how I've done so far:

1. My first theme (week 35) was mini books. I've been intrigued by them for a while ( a couple of examples if you are as new to the subject as I was: I Feel by staceyfike, right now by Elise Blaha and old soul by candimandi) but never got around to starting, thinking something like "but what would I do with them? Where would I keep them?". But then I thought of how lovely it would be to have a whole shoebox (I like shoeboxes! Prefect size for everything) (nicely decorated of course) full of minibooks, to just pick one at random and look through. And to get a whole box, you have to start somewhere. I started two minibooks during the first week, and finished them and made a third during second week, so I'm going to consider that theme a success. I've shown two of them in the blog already, here and here.

2. My second theme (week 36) was drawing buildings. But then I got a muscle inflammation and had to stay inside for the most of the week, so I changed it to "drawing things in the studio", including the old tin can that holds my boyfriend's pens, my photo printer and a plate of cookies. Won't show any of these though. I'm so new to drawing and - well, I'm often very happy with my drawings no matter how little they look like what I was trying to draw, because drawing makes me calm and focused, and record a piece of my day. But if I were to show them online, I would immediately compare them to other people's drawings, see that they are "bad" and feel bad about even trying, and I really don't want that. I've had enough problems with that concerning my collages already. Maybe I'll show you something later, if I draw something that I am VERY proud of - so proud that I don't feel the need to berate myself for drawing badly.

3. Third theme (week 37) was sending things in the mail week. So many friends have left town this semester, and I had neglected writing to others, too, for way too long. I wrote three letters and sent one gift so I'll have to say this one was a success.

4. My fourth week, this week, was (is) a good week, because I really felt the need for weekly themes. I didn't choose one, I couldn't make up my mind which one I felt like the most, and so almost the whole week went on without creating. and the problems I discussed above - about wanting to create but ending up not doing anything because I get overwhelmed with choicing - were back in an instant. This proves how I really NEED to decide on a weekly theme and STICK TO IT. I know that for some people this would be way too rigid.

And for weeks five and six I am going to 1. Draw and 2. Make a "minibook on the road" (or some other kind of gluesticked project). Because tomorrow at half past eight in the morning the boyfriend and I are leaving for New York. I think I'm going to be able to post from New York but if not, see you in two weeks! :)

"random travels" minibook

2008-09-20T15:23:00.005+02:00

When I made my first minibook, I used leftover paper scraps from the scrap box, and printed photos of friends. This time I wanted to use leftover photos instead, and see what I could make of them. So I looked in the box of leftover photos (photos not good enough to put in my ordinary photo albums) and decided that the theme of the book would have to be "random travels" (blandade resor) bevause most of the photos were from travels. And then I made the minibook. Very easy and fun and now the leftover photos have a better home.

(The mini book is 6x6" - yes, I dislike that I've started to use inches as a measurement, but it's just because the patterned papers that I'm so fond of come in 12x12 inches, and I cut white ones up in four and used as backgrounds. 6x6" is a little easier to handle than 15.24, since my ruler shows both. The photos look a little askew but they are all really 3x3".)

In other news, I think I've mentioned it, but anyways, the boyfriend and I are going to New York on Monday. So if you have any New York suggestions, just bring them on! We're grateful for any and all ideas.

my boyfriend cooks all our meals

2008-09-15T22:04:00.003+02:00

It's great reading a lot of American blogs, because my English gets better. But there are some weird things that I still haven't quite understood about some blogs: the way the bloggers keep writing stuff like "I really have the sweetest husband, he irons his own clothes" or "I am so thankful that he never complains about what I cook for dinner". This is so very weird to me. In my book, things would go something along the lines of "I really have the sweetest boyfriend, he cooks all our meals". Now that is sweet for real. How can it be sweet to just refrain from complaining about someone else's cooking? Have him cook his own meals!

Well ... I'm not saying you should change if that's how you want to live your lives. And I am aware that many couples share the workload so that one person does the cooking and one the cleaning (or something like that), which is, of course, brilliant. I was just wondering how the whole "I do all the work and my husband is the sweetest person if he once and a while lifts one finger to help" works. I would not stay ONE DAY. Just so you know.

- - -

Anyways. I intended to go dancing tonight, but I feel rather tired and not in the mood (and also my back is aching again), so I decided not to. Which was probably a bad decision, because it often feels better once I'm there ... It's just that when I feel like this it's so darn hard to push me out of my chair and go anywhere at all, let alone to a place full of people that I'm supposed to socialize with. So right I', just sitting here feeling a little sorry for myself. And uploading some more photos from around the apartment.

calm day

2008-09-14T22:26:00.006+02:00

Calm day, and almost unbelievably beautiful. This is my favorite season even when it's raining for weeks (which it does in this town); when the air is like this, crisp and clear, almost cleansing, I can only laugh, jump and enjoy it.

I took the photo on my way home from church. I left early, the sermon was really way too long and uninteresting. I bought some candy and waited for the boyfriend in the sun instead. There was a lot more of the Lord for me outside today, than inside. I think that is more often the case than we are aware of.

And here are a couple of recent pages. The first one happened all by itself. I listened to the song (Coming Up for Air by Patty Larkin) on repeat, and felt I had to do something with it. I love it when music and art collides like that ... Since they really the same thing.

that I really love singing

2008-09-12T20:36:00.002+02:00

Good things have been happening!

On Wednesday, we had the yearly audition for people who want to have singing lessons (those we pick get ten lessons from one of us for free - we get someone to practice on, who knows that we are only students and will make mistakes). We (the singing teacher students) listened to about thirty different people, with different voices, who revealed different personalities.

And it reminded me in such a powerful way of what Högskolan för Scen och Musik i Göteborg is so good at making me forget: that I love teaching singing. I listened to people and I can hear why it hurts when they sing or why they can't sing this or that song like they would want to, and I know (or can give it a good guess) what kind of exercises might help solve the problem. The human voice is so inspiring and fascinating to me, I love, love listening to other people's voices. (Speaking of which, it makes me so happy remenbering this - that the very first thing I even noticed about the man who would become my boyfriend was his beautiful, melodic voice. It figures.)

And then, right there, suddenly I knew that not only am I a very good singer; I really will be a great singing teacher. Those facts drowns so easily under other things ... pressure, stress and competition ... all the things I'm not good at ... But you know what, my passion for singing breaks through all of it. Some days.

The day after that, I had my next classical singing lesson and my teacher immediately heard that I had gotten the joy in music back. She head it after one phrase. That is what singing does. It reveals everything to those who listen closely enough.

In the wake of all this, I have taken a couple of photographs (they're just from around the apartment, but I like them just the same, it was so nice wanting to take up the camera again), written a letter to a dear friend, and spent the whole afternoon relaxing after a very busy week. Tomorrow the boyfriend and I are going to see Wall-E, can't help but being a little excited. And then it's one week until New York. :)

2008-09-09T22:30:00.001+02:00

I've had loads of time in the last few days and thought I'd post something, but I couldn't think of anything even the slightest funny, interesting or beautiful to show or write about. It's like my life is on hold for reasons I do not know and certainly do not understand. Don't get me wrong, I know that life sometimes needs to be on hold ... or that it can feel like it sometimes, even though things are bubbling underneath ... But I've had my life on hold for THREE MONTHS during summer, and I am getting bored.

I was fine with the fact that nothing happened and that I was doing nothing, because I accepted that I needed a break. Spring semester was just too tough. But now I am completely rested. I have slept for ages, I had very little on the to do-lists, I was ready. I had been waiting for everything to start for weeks. And now everything's started and it's ... just no fun. Nothing's fun.

I miss my old self. I used to be extremely interested in everything, seeing nice things everywhere. Now all I want to do is listen to Harry Potter audio books and play chain factor. (I stole a photo from the boyfriend (it's the view from the balcony), because I like blog posts with pictures in them. Need I say I'm not taking any photos at the moment?)

Any suggestions?

Just Something Like Time

2008-09-06T11:22:00.002+02:00

It is seven AM on Saturday morning. I woke up early like I always do when I don't have to and now I am getting a little bored. So ...

+ ... I let Wordle create this cloud of words most often used in this blog. Must admit I really like the results. Except I noticed that Jesus isn't in there. That's embarrassing. Important part of my life missing. (No, I'm not intending to start preaching in the blog. Others do that a lot better than me. But mentioning now and then that God has saved me forever and still does every day couldn't hurt.)

+ ... I've made a list of blogs I read to the right. The reason I haven't done so before is because I didn't know how to sort them all. Some are my friends, people I love; some are people I know a little bit, some I have never met and probably never will; some write about scrapbooking, some post lovely photos, some write about there life and dreams. How do I sort all that out in categories? Answer: I don't. I choose the ones that I read most often, and I let them sort themselves, in order of latest updated. Quite reasonable, I should think. So look to the right if you need some inspiration. There are good stuff there of all kinds.

+ ... I'm loving that it's raining hard outside. This week was not at all how I had intended to start my new semester at school. Partly because I haven't been there much because of this muscle inflammation thing, partly because I intended to be very happy and full of inspiration and instead I feel empty and lifeless without knowing why. But (thanks to Camilla) I'm thinking that I may just have to go with it until it passes. I firmly believe that it will pass. And until it does, I may as well stay in the apartment and be thoroughly boring. And rain helps when you want to stay inside. So today I'm grateful for the rain.

people I like

2008-09-05T20:50:00.007+02:00

Feeling a bit better today (thanks to Voltaren and Orudis), but still chained to the apartment. Went grocery shopping yesterday (one has to eat after all) which made it worse, so today I'm staying inside. But I'm a lot more moveable, so I've finished a little mini album, with randomly chosen photos of people I like. It's called "Folk jag gillar" quite simply. I wanted to make something using only scrap papers as the base, and this is the result. There is a little bit of white acrylic paint in there too and black and white pens. (There is a larger version on my flickr page if you want to see it close up.)

maybe I've just got the blues

2008-09-04T10:34:00.007+02:00

It seems I have some kind of muscle inflammation. Or something. Because it hurts. It's like the muscle ache I get when I have a cold, but worse, without the cold, and in larger parts of me (shoulders, neck, back, jaws and hips aching so far). Along with feelings described in my last post, all this means that right now not much fun is happening.

So well, I haven't taken any pictures lately. I spend my time feeling very sorry for myself, eat a lot of cookies, and watch Pride and Prejudice. And, posting old creations (since I'm not making anything new at the moment). I made these scrapbook pages during the creative retreat with Karin the other week. They are both about a trip to Damascus, Syria in 2005. I felt I needed to go a little bit crazy with patterned papers on the first one, and decided I quite like it.

Then I didn't wonder why I made things ... I just started, and enjoyed it. And now I don't know ... Maybe I've just got the blues. Or something.

2008-09-01T21:19:00.005+02:00

And then there are the days when I just want to ask Why? Why do I go to school? Why do I sing? Why do I leave the house? Why do I create art? What's the use? Why do I call friends and ask for a fika when it only makes them feel more stressed? Why do I take photos, and later spend loads of time putting them in albums? Why do I try to think of different things to eat for dinner every day? Why do I bother to wear something that is not sweatpants? Why do I blog? Why do I take dance classes? Why do I buy patterned paper? Why do I teach dance classes? Why do I want to make new friends when everyone has so many friends taking up their time already? Why do I even try to bring something new and unique into the world? Why do I make collages? Why do I work out? Why do I write letters? Why do I struggle with exercises to make my back stronger when it makes the pain worse? Why bother, when I can just lay on the couch and watch the days go by, and not ever waste any more energy at all?

2008-09-01T14:13:00.005+02:00

A weekend with the chamber choir, Härlanda kammarkör. We sang for hours and hours and it felt surprisingly easy, considering my very how long it's been since we last practiced (before summer). In the evenings we had delicious food and a great time together. I'm blessed to sing in such a lovely, fun choir. (And just look at our adorable tenors below! :))

moleskine love

2008-08-28T11:31:00.002+02:00

In picking up the old Moleskine to do the collage in yesterday's post, I discovered some older collages and stuff I haven't shown before. So here goes:

A list of things that makes this the good life. Started it last October I think.

Random leftover collage. I make them a lot, it's a fun way of cleaning the desk. From sometime last fall.

Speaks for itself. Guess I was just happy. Last fall too, I should think.

A Christmasy collage from last year, using the paper I folded the envelopes for the Christmas cards (the dark blue on the left - it's a little lighter in reality) and a leftover Christmas tree I had on the cards, and as always, some random stuff lying around the desk. :)

It's weird to think that I didn't make any collages during all of spring. I was just so busy/ unhappy/ down. Things sure are changing around here now!

and yes ...

2008-08-27T22:09:00.001+02:00

... my party on Saturday was quite a lovely party. I am always amazed that I can invite friends from completely different circles, sometimes people who know nobody but me, and still it's not quiet or tense. It's always so great. It just proves how nice my friends are. And they seemed to have a nice time, too. I am very thankful.

a creative retreat

2008-08-27T16:08:00.005+02:00

I've been on a creative retreat in Linköping over the past couple of days. When my friend Karin started scrapbooking, she was the first scrapbooker I heard of who was: a student, without children, and had other hobbies (other things in her life) than scrapbooking. Which was comforting, and one of the things that made me start doing it myself. Anyways, we've talked about scrapping together for a while but haven't gotten around to it (as we live in different cities). Last week though, I read on her blog that she felt a little down, so I offered to just go up there to just hang out, do crafty things, and have a great time together. We have been scrapping NON STOP. (Almost - I made a couple of minibooks and a collage, too. I'm not into scrapbooking enough to let all my other creative habits fall apart, duh.)

And now I feel like I have loads of creative energy saved inside (which is good, because the minibooks I made I have to finish at home - didn't have that many photos with me etc., and a couple of layouts need more thinking). A creative retreat indeed. So recommended!

An interesting thing is that when Karin left (she had to leave for school early this afternoon, so I had a couple of hours before catching my bus back to Göteborg), I stopped creating. I couldn't think of anything else to do, I got restless. When we were both of us next to each other at the same desk (a rather long desk, I may add), there was some sort of creative energy going on in the room that kept us going. There were more and more ideas inside to use, all the time. But when I was alone the ideas vanished and self-doubt returned. Weird! Conclusion = I need creative retreats to function.

While on the bus home (a four hour ride) though, since I hadn't anything else to do, I came up with a whole new creative concept. But I'm not going to tell yet. Have to see if it works first.

School starts tomorrow, yay! I'm so excited to have singing lessons again. Ooh, I really have high hopes that this semester will be a great one.

a little bit of this and that ...

2008-08-23T18:44:00.001+02:00

... and a couple of photos thrown in for good measure.

+ I got a question what I do to make photos look like this and the answer is, I use Curves in Photoshop (CS3). Mostly I just try changing the curves in every direction until I'm satisfied. Which almost always includes taking the blue out of the highlights, because I really love the yellow light that that gives. Other than that it's all trial and error :).

+ I fell in love with this little turquoise chair at Saronkyrkans Second Hand (I took the photo in the shop) the other day and immediately bought it. It looks like candy!

+ I've seen three movies over the past couple of days. Maria and I both felt rather lazy in Thursday night and decided to see High School Musical - mostly because we're both high school. movie nerds and we wanted to have seen it. It was the one of the WORST movies I have ever seen - yes, totally down there with American Pie, 40 Days and 40 Nights and How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days. Afterwards we had to see Clueless (which we've both seen loads of times of course), just to keep the faith in high school movies. It was really awful in every way.

+ Yesterday the boyfriend and a couple of friends and saw Mamma Mia. And honestly, I can't understand the hype (because there's a small hype here). I thought it was hysterical and full of ridiculous clichés. I, as a musical nerd, have a VERY high tolerance level for incoherent stories, but this one was just too much. And too loud.

+ It's funny living together. Funny easy. It's like the boyfriend says, "when you hear of someone else moving in together when they've only known each other for a short while, you think 'wow ... that's early'. But when it's us ... It wasn't early at all". We had known each other for a little more than seven months when we moved in together, and it's really working. I could wish for nothing else.

+ We're having a small and hopefully cozy party (those are my favorite kinds of parties) with lots of cakes and cookies this evening, to celebrate my moving in here. The boyfriend has been baking the whole week - dammsugare, mazariner, kladdkaka, hallongrottor, and a few others that I don't know the English name of either. :) Should be fun!

+ I've had a blessed long summer holiday, but now I'm ready for the real life to begin - the real life with school, dancing, choir practice, exercising regularly, friends back in town, all that jazz. I feel really excited about the autumn semester starting soon (next Monday).

some inspirations

2008-08-19T11:56:00.006+02:00

(Dancers from the Ballet of the Gothenburg Opera performing a scene from Cinderella at Götaplatsen on Sunday) (Yes, I sat up close. :)) (Because I love dance.)

This is a bad and boring Tuesday. I'm at the first day of that time of the month which is sort of killing me. I've started the heavy ice cream eating already even though I'm only a little past breakfast. So in order to try and do something instead of just feeling sorry for myself (I am not in the mood to create something, which is what I had planned for today), I'm doing a little roundup of things that have been inspiring to me as of late (some of which has been inspiring to me for a long time).

BOOK - maybe the most amazing collage project I have ever seen. Ever. I keep coming back again and again. These guys are so talented. I could stop the link list here, BOOK could keep you busy all day.

Try Something Else by Maya Stein I know I have talked about Maya Stein before; maybe I've even mentioned this poem before. It is my most favorite one. It has saved days, for me. I printed it and put it on the inside of my door in my last apartment, so I could read a part of it every day before I went out in the world. It really is that good and strong.

Paul Costello Quite stunning interior photos.

the paper category at design*sponge I bookmark paper and/ or stationary sections at design blogs, so I won't have to waste my time with furniture that looks stylish but uncomfortable, and that I will never ever afford. Paper on the other hand is often affordable and always lovely :) Design*sponge has a beautiful paper section.

touch map by Keri smith - what if your hand could tell stories?

Tackle any issue with a list of 100 from Litemind

I'm off to eat some more ice cream. Wish me luck!

2008-08-18T19:57:00.003+02:00

A couple of new scrapbook layouts.

You know what, I really don't like this attitude people are having that collage making or art journal keeping is better than scrapbooking. I don't really care what's considered the "most art". All I care about is that it's all a great creative outlet, and people should just let others be creative in the way that suits them better. Actually, I'll change that last sentence. I think people should try out what other's are doing. So many collage artists would do good with a little scrapbooking (and vice versa)! People are held back by so much FEAR! Let it go, people. Putting your life on paper - no matter if it's through drawing, collages, art journals, scrapbooking, photo albums, whatever - is good for you. Take my word for it.

So ... I started a little personal project the other day. I've made a spiral bound book (21 x 21 cm, my favorite format as of late) from patterned papers and brightly colored cardstock. Now I'm keeping a journal in it ... But it "looks" like scrapbooking. Or am I scrapbooking, but it works like an art journal? Who knows! I haven't figured out those details (and I sure hope I won't). The only rule I have is that the photo(s) I use have to be recent, as in, from today or yesterday. Which keeps me talking about the now. Which is what I want to talk about. So that's that ... I plan on showing you some pages tomorrow.

Also plan on making some stuff for this quite awesome olympics inspired paper craft challenge by Elise Blaha. And right now I plan on leaving this desk to go to the Monday's social lindy night. Off I go!

2008-08-17T21:28:00.002+02:00

Oo, I forgot to tell you that I've opened an Etsy shop. I'll be selling art journals, prints, note cards, and original collages ... At least I will try, and if no one wants to buy anything, I won't be selling. :) It's all extremely expensive though, so don't go there! :)

2008-08-17T11:25:00.006+02:00

Inspired by this beautiful post by Sandra Juto I decided to make one of my own and document a day in photos. Just like back in the day when everyone I knew had a personal homepage with a photo journal (that was before the word "blog" came). Those were the days ...!

Anyways, here's Friday. :)

08:05 Been awake for a little while, but can't gather enough energy to actually get up until now.

08:31 Breakfast is totally the meal I care most about. I want it good. This morning it's lättfil with grapes, sandwich (dark toast) with cheese and tomato, and a nectarine.

09:10 Trying to get the boyfriend out of bed (not because he has to go somewhere, but because I want company) by opening the blinds. Short tickle fight follows. I always win.

09:41 Starting this day's creative endeavors by reorganizing some recent scrapbook pages that had ended up in piles. The piles in the studio really get their own lives if I'm not paying attention.

10:16 Starting to go through the 1000+ photos I took of Karin's and Anders' wedding. Due to some computer issues I haven't even looked at them yet, and it makes me quite happy to see that some are actually rather good.

10:56 Taking a walk down to Fysiken to get my back exercises done. I've taken a loooong break from them (I've been away, had a cold, and then we got busy with the move) and my physical therapist won't be happy about that. So now it's back to three times a week again.

11:09 Soon there.

11:16 Warm up on the cross trainer. I'm in bad shape and sometimes I really have to force myself to not give up on the prescribed ten minutes in this ... Embarrassing! But well, I'm working on it.

12:26 Walking home again.

15:13 We've had the pleasure of having Christina, a friend of mine since eight years (time flies ...!) over for lunch. Afterwards we sit down in the studio to scrap a little.

17:07 Emtpying the dishwasher. this may very well be the best part of this new apartment. I LOVE having a dishwasher. It's doesn't even bother me that it's boring to empty it.

17:30 Doing a little balcony standing while cooking dinner. I started doing that last time I lived in this building and have quickly getting back into the habit. It's lovely to just stand here, breathe and be calm.

17:33 Ah, the fabulous dinners I make myself when the boyfriend is out! (I hate cooking, so it's normally he who does that. My lentil soup is better than his, but that's probably it.) I thought about not photographing this because it's not goodlooking or interesting or a very well-balanced meal, but what the heck ... this is what I eat, so why not show it. I LOVE korv med bröd by the way. (Soy sausages, whole grain bread and olives.)

20:07 Got bored and decided to cut my hair a little. (One of the benefits of often shaving it off completely - I dont have do care about what I do with it.)

20:20 Walking downtown to meet the boyfriend and listen to the concert version of West Side Story at Götaplatsen.

20:44

21:30 The music is great, but way too loud for my unfortunately very sensitive ears (it happens to everyone at the academy of music), so we walk around a little bit further away. This soon proves to be a bad back day (it hurts when I walk), so ...

21:55 ... we're soon on our way home.

23:13 Turning this lamp off is one of the last things I do every night. Goodnight!

a wedding

2008-08-16T16:08:00.005+02:00

So - my dear friend Karin got married last Saturday, to her wonderful Anders. And it was one intense day, I tell you (and long - I got up at seven to be in Lidköping in time, and fell into bed at about four in the morning). I was the photographer, so I was there early to take pictures of all the guests (160 people - that took a little while). When we were all finally in the church and they came walking in arm in arm, I was on the verge of tears (like people on weddings in American movies!). It was so, so beautiful ... I think that was my most favorite part. They were positively radiant, beaming with happiness.

After the ceremony, we (the newlyweds, another friend named Katarina and me) went to a place near a special tree, where they wanted their photos taken. This was the best part of the whole day, for me. Being allowed to share their first moments as married with them, all alone, being able to actually talk to them more than what is possible during a party with 160 guests. And I just love photographing people - real, good people with beautiful personalities. Laughing together and just being happy. It was such a privilege, and I am so happy that they asked me to do this. The ones in this post are some of my favorites.

And then, the party. It all went by rather quickly .. so many people, so much good food, so many photos to take. I must admit though, is was a little hard being the photographer on such a close friend's wedding. I wanted them to have really good photos, so at times it was a little difficult to relax and just enjoy the party. But after a while I realized that I can't be a better photographer than I am ... that all I can do is do my best and no one is asking more of me than that.

The only bad thing about this lovely day was that I got really tired at the end. There were speeches and stuff until two in the morning, and I usually want to go to bed at about half past ten :) But well, of course I knew that I was going to be tired, and that it was going to be worth it anyhow, so I just tried to smile and take good pictures anyway ... :)

(I realized just now that there might have been one more thing ... that I got a quite horrible thank you gift :). It strikes me now that I probably shouldn't write this here if Karin should read it ... But I don't think she would have chosen something impersonal and quite ugly like that (a sort of silvery glass thing with "modern" Chinese-ish decorations), she knows me better, so I'm going to blame a parent or other relative for the gift-buying. :))

And now they're MARRIED. It's the first wedding I've been to that wasn't someone in the family, a relative. These are my friends, they're my age, and they're married, and it's all so beautiful. Just look at them ... that's love you're seeing, my dears. The real thing.

apartment love

2008-08-15T19:45:00.003+02:00

Oh, admit it ... You want to live in our kollektiv (can't find a decent translation - it means people living together, sort of), too, so you can have big windows, a huge dinner table, a grandfather clock in the corner, and join in on our craft nights. Just admit it. You want to live here, too.

school talk

2008-08-07T23:52:00.000+02:00

Disclaimer: this is a really long post containing lots of feelings about going back to school. Mostly very happy feelings. but if you're not interested in what I'm doing at the Academy of Music, you probably don't want to read this. I've trown in some pictures from my walk earlier today, though.

- - -

I went down to the school today to take care of some schedule stuff (since I had applied for a year off and sent in all the papers, I had to get myself back in the system now), and it just made me so happy. Going back now almost feels like what I felt when I first found out I had gotten in, two years ago. I could not believe it at first. I knew they only take two. Two! How could there not be two people better than me?

But I was good enough.

And today I got the feeling that I'm still good enough. And it was quite wonderful, I tell you. I feel giddy with excitement and I'm so very eager to make this a better semester than the last one. To keep my love of music this time. Stay happy.

I'll get my classical singing teacher back (anything else would have been a small disaster and I would have been unhappy, but I was quite sure I would get her - I knew she would protest, too, if they tried something else) and I'll get another, hopefully great, singing teacher in this new course I'm taking, jazz singing. I'm thinking and hoping it's going to be great. Hard work taking two different singing classes, but I feel so inspired!

Here's what I'm taking this year (all of these are mandatory except the jazz singing which I've chosen):

The two largest courses are what we call "reading courses" - you know, the ones where there's a teacher standing talking in front, and then you go home and read a lot in thick books. I guess this sounds a lot like the university to most people, but when studying music, these classes are really kind of rare. Actually it's rare that I'm in a class with more than five or six students. Anyways I read wuite fast and I usually understand and learn what I read, so I don't mind this kind of classes.

- Klassisk musikhistoria med musikantropologi (classical music history with music anthropology); this is rumoured to be the heaviest course of the whole education. Lots and lots to read.. But I think music history is fascinating. If only I could start studying in time for once in my life ...!

- Musik, genus och mångfald (music, gender and ... don't know what that's called in English), some kind of sociology thing, rumored to be hopelessly uninsteresting, but I don't like starting a new course thinking that, so I've decided to be super excited about it (so far not working).

And the more practical ones ...

- Klassisk sång (classical singing); nothing more to say than that I just adore my teacher. We've been working hard for two years and I look forward to being a lot more focused than I was during spring.

- Jazzsång (jazz singing); I haven't worked with this teacher before, but I heard she's great and I really want to be better at jazz singing.

- Kammarmusik (chamber music); if only I can get a good ensemble this year too (good as in people I like, not as in people who play well, because they all play extremely well), it's going to be swell.

- Sångmetodik (singing methodology?); it's been interesting before so I'm hoping it will be now, too. And I'll get to have a pupil of my own, which was lovely last time. Teaching singing is so much fun!

- VFU (practical training); a whole month (November) at the high school in Kungälv. My instructor/ supervisor (good translation for handledare, someone?) is amazing and feels more like a friend. I can ask her tons of stupid questions, and she really is a great singing teacher, so I know I have a lot more to learn from her. It's going to be hard to get up before six in the morning for a whole month to get there, though. (That may be the worst thing about the whole fall semester.)

And that's that I think. Doesn't look so much. But I know I have a tendency of burying myself in musts - there's always so much that seems fun. There's the lindy hop social night on Mondays, Tuesday night is choir practice, aerobics on Wednesdays, modern dance on Thursdays; three times a week I need to get to the gym and do my back exercises for an hour, some weekends I'll teach lindy hop ...

Why are there so many fun things to do - that will all become a burden if I don't take time enough to rest?

2008-08-06T21:03:00.003+02:00

+ Yesterday morning I had an early breakfast date with Stina, a dear friend of mine that I first met in high school when I dated one of her best friends. :) She lives in Växjö now and we don't get to meet too often, so it was fabulous seeing her.

+ The boyfriend left yesterday morning. Not coming back until on Sunday. It's difficult being here, in this apartment that is not a home to me yet, without him. I'm feeling a little bit lost. I'm fine, but you know, it's just ... better with him.

+ Oh my gosh, I bought myself a new toy. I've been wanting one for months and I finally decided I want it bad enough :) It's a Canon Pixma iP4500 and just look what it can do! It makes me happy for real. The past few days I've been saying "oh, I'm tired, I have to print a photo or two". It works quite well as a treat. It just makes me childishly happy to watch as it prints my photos ... I know it's silly ... But it's fun! :)

+ Been into making collages with song lyrics on again, like I used to before. Before in that sentence would refer to high school, when I would spend late nights making mixtapes and drawing/ collaging the booklets. It's a great way of remembering what songs I really listened to. For some collages I just put my iPod on shuffle and use the first songs that came up (the one above quotes Kristofer Åström and Air), but I think I'm going to make a journal entry soon about some recent favs.

+ I saw P.S. I Love You last night and cried almost the whole way through. It felt wonderful. It happens (though rarely) that I cry when I watch movies, but only at sad endings or if they play very powerful music. During this one I cried more than I didn't and that's saying something - that it's a brilliant movie for when you need to cry a little. Recommended.

+ I'm not going to say anything about the Appalachian Spring concert except that I loved it. And I don't mean that in the American "I throw this word around when talking about anything I like a little" way, but in the Swedish way. Just so there are no misunderstandings.

on why I'm not going to buy any new clothes for a year

2008-08-04T09:58:00.004+02:00

I don't think I've told you that I'm not going to buy any new clothes for a year?

I started 1st of July and so far it hasn't been difficult at all. If fashion or clothes were a hobby, an interest of some kind, it would have been difficult of course - then I guess I wouldn't have done it (think of trying to not buy any paper for a year. What a NIGHTMARE!). But for me, it really isn't an interest. Most of the time I just put on whatever's closest and see if it works. And now it has come to the point the amount of clothes I have is making me a bit sick.

See, I realised that I (often) buy clothes for the entirely wrong reason. I don't buy them because I'm interested in fashion. I buy them because I think they would make me look better. Which is wrong. We all know that looking better comes from the inside (come on, you know it too). But when I see someone good-looking I think "she looks pretty -> I'm not as pretty as her -> what can I do to be more pretty? Oh, I need some new clothes". And that way of thinking just isn't working for me anymore. I want to get to the bottom of these thoughts, I want to find other ways to feel beautiful - ways that last.

Sometimes when I put together a nice outfit it makes me happy because it is comfortable and has insanely bright colors. So nice clothes can make me happy, yes. But I can put together so many nice outfits with what I already have. I don't need new clothes to do that. What I need to stop is the urge to build some kind of self confidence by buying new clothes. Because that's not where the real confidence lies.

I need to stop thinking that beauty can come from new clothes. All they really do is take up space in my closet and make me poorer. I don't have a lot of clothes compared to most of my friends, but I have more than I need.

The point isn't that I'm going to stop me from buying clothes entirely. I just want to really think of what I need and buy only what I need. Like, I know that when winter comes I'm going to need new winter shoes (and there will be other stuff like that, too). And I know that when in New York I'm going to shop some clothes just because it's fun to get some new stuff that I can't get here. And then that will be completely okay. If it's well thought through. If it's not because it's on sale and I "have to get it now or I'll lose the chance". If it's not because everyone else is shopping like mad (the pressure of ads, and of everybode else's new finds, is so intense). And, most importantly, if it's not a desperate way of trying to make me feel pretty.

the good things

2008-08-02T11:05:00.003+02:00

+ Playing with cross processing in Photoshop

+ Spending time with Maria on Thursday night (the concert with Nils Landgren was good, but not great; I can't really stand his "I'm too good to play on a small stage like this" attitude, but the saxophone/ flute/ clarinet player, Magnus Lindgren, was quite amazing.

+ Wanting to take pictures again! I did a small photo session with Maria and it was just so much fun! I need to ask some friends for photo sessions, just for practising, and for fun.

+ Watching the very very cool solar eclipse yesterday. I'll never get to see a total solar eclipse in my life (my Mum saw the one in 1954 and the next one in Sweden will be in 2126), but this one was 44% and pretty darn cool if you ask me. It looked like someone had take a big bite out of the sun, like an orange or something. We watched through sunglasses and CD's (I know - weird idea, but it worked great) to not hurt the eyes.

The first picture shows Anders catching the sun in his binoculars, you can see the exact shape of the sun on the ground. The second shows the boys trying to photograph it, which went so-so (I totally failed when I tried :)). So nice to have experienced that.

+ The concert with Peter Asplund and Margareta Bentgson yesterday - my gosh the voices they have. I was thrilled, and so very much inspired to sing as soon as my throat stops aching from the Herräng cold. this going to concerts thing I talked about really works for me!

What are your good things today?

one concert a week

2008-07-31T10:18:00.005+02:00

During the better part of 2007, I went to one concert a week, in average. I went to everything from small, cozy lunch concerts at school to opera and musicals at the opera house; I listened to pop bands, symphonic orchestras, piano trios, big bands, world musicians and much more. It was a constant source of new inspiration to my musical work and never failed to get me in a better mood.

But when things got busy, I let this habit fall apart, which has made me unhappy. It was so hard to keep going during the spring semester! Music just wouldn't work for me like it used to.

This upcoming semester, I have serious plans on staying happy, inspired, and extremely musical (which would be a good thing since music is what takes up about all my waking hours). And to be able to do that, it is neccessary to go to concerts. People (also classmates, musicians like myslf) kept asking how I had time to go to that many concerts. But I considered it neccessary, as a oart of my school work and totally worthy of prioritizing.

I intend to get this habit going again and I'm starting today. Maria and I are going to Nils Landgren Funk Unit at Liseberg, which should be good (although Nils Landgren himself often seems quite bored when playing live, I have a hard time standing that ... But the music is good).

And then, next week ... Oh my gosh, I'm so looking forward to this! I've had tickets since early June. The Göteborg Symphony Orchestra will be playing Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Appalachian Spring is my most favorite classical piece ever. It has brought me through some hard times and I love this piece, I truly do.

I've only heard it live once, the very first time I heard it. When I studied music in Jönköoing, we got free tickets to all concerts with Jönköpings Sinfonietta. They played Appalachian Spring at one time and it caught me immediately. I forgot to breathe. I bought a CD with the music shortly after that and now I'm going to hear it live again. Ooooh I'm so excited! :) I only wish there was some way I could see the ballet (Appalachian Spring was written for Martha Graham, the choreographer). Oh well.

That's Aaron Copland on the photo, taken in 1946. I borrowed from the Aaron Copland Collection. Isn't it an amazing photo? Writing music by candlelight!

quality sea & shore time

2008-07-30T22:38:00.004+02:00

As promised, some more vacation photos. And man, did we have some quality sea & shore time! I think we caught the sunniest, warmest days of summer so far, totally the right days to spend by the sea (technically Göteborg is by the sea too, but it sure doesn't take five minutes to get to the water from where I live.) These photos are so sunny that it's almost ridiculous, but here you go anyways :)

the moving business ...

2008-07-29T22:54:00.004+02:00

I think moving is really a great thing, because it makes you realize how much STUFF you actually own. It gets me thinking: How much of all this do I really need? How much to I use? Why do I buy more clothes/ stuff when I have so much of it? Because quite clearly I do own a lot of stuff.

These past couple of days have been quite intense ... Included lots of carrying, packing, re-packing, trying to fit the last things in somewhere in the car, driving the short (at least that was good - it's a ten minute ride with the car from Vasastan, where I lived, to my beloved Guldheden) distance, carrying again (lots and lots of carrying) ... and me and the boyfriend were alone for the most part. I wish I had asked some friends to come and help, it would have been so much faster and we could have had an ice cream party as a thank you. Or something.

Anyways, all my things are here now and today we've done a lot more carrying (we need to move things around in the apartment and also put some furniture in the attic). So I'm tired both in the body and in the head and I still live in an ocean of boxes and bags ... The wardrobes and shelves aren't really in their places yet, so it wouldn't be much use unpacking anything.

But I'm sure that once we've gotten everything in order here, it will be fine. No better than fine, it will be wonderful. For example: I'll get a STUDIO. Well, at least almost. I prefer to think of it as the studio/ library since it will also contain many of our books and the boyfriend's some seven hundred CD's (and my 300). And the boyfriend's desk. But apart from this, there is room for my lovely, lovely reading/ thinking/ writing armchair which I haven't been calm enough to sit in for the past six months. And the lamp and little table that go along with it. There will be some quality sitting in there now I tell you (I've already spent time in it today, to try out the best corner for it).

And (I've saved this for last because it makes me really happy) I get TWO desks (OK, one desk and a slightly smaller table, at least) (now this is a dream come true!) to fill with painting, collaging, mixed media projects, post card making, photo albums, drawings, scrapbooking, letter writing, envelope making, and random projects. I already have a couple of those random projects in mind. They can be my favorites. so now I can work on multiple projects and just turn from one to another if I need to. Can't wait until I get all my paper scraps and gluestick and poster paints in there.

I left my photos from the weekend by the sea on the laptop, which I can't find at the moment, so I'll share with you instead some mail art that some of you may not have seen. I love color too much to make a post without some of it. The quote postcards are from August 2007 and the travel themed ones with arrows are from November 2006. What do you think?

forgot to go to bed

2008-07-24T13:04:00.003+02:00

Last night I forgot to go to bed. At about one in the morning I suggested we should see the first Star Wars movie (or Episode IV, if you prefer to call it that), because I hadn't seen it ... After that the boyfriend went to sleep and I didn't. And that's quite much it, I didn't ... until half past four. I had no reasons to go to bed. So much creating to do I guess! :)

- - -

A short while ago I wrote a post about how I sometimes feel so boring, because I'd rather sit at home and read than go out and be adventurous (I didn't post it at that time, but I guess there will be more on the subject in the future).

About two minutes after I had written it, I checked some blogs and read this beautiful poem by Maya Stein. And I realized that I have the right to live exactly the life I want to live, and that the small things are the most beautiful, and that if my life is beautiful to me, I have all that I need. I don't need for others to want my life (writing that in black on white is really weird. Why on earth would I want others to want my life? Where did that come from?).

I'll put the poem here and hope she won't be mad at me for doing so. Maybe one of you needs to read this as much as I did.

I am no magic trick, no doer of miracles, no water walker.
I am no architect of glory, no layer-on of hands, no angel wing.
I am no weaver of gold, no mythmaker, no parachute artist.
I am no halo of stillness in a downpour.
I am no treasure chest, no hero, no thunderbolt wielder.
I am no rabbit foot or lottery number.
I am no combination lock, no mystery ingredient, no optical illusion.

But here is a handful of sunflowers from the florist's sidewalk jungle.
Here is a blanket to spread on the grass for an afternoon.
Here is a song on the radio that calls for dancing.
Here is a chocolate bar I will share with you.
Here is a road sign, a notebook, photographs of those I have loved.
Here is a slice of bright blue sky, a hummingbird
thrashing her wings around an apricot tree.

To see this clearly
is enough.

Maya Stein

And about two minutes after having written my last post about not wanting to buy a lot of art supplies that I won't use, I stumbled upon this magnificent manifesto. It doesn't say a word about not buying any new art supplies, so I guess most of you won't understand why I was so delighted to find it, but to me the connection is there. It's like my brain connects pieces that make total sense together even though I can't really see why they make sense. It happens quite a lot.

I guess the "forget about good", "process is more important than outcome", "love your experiments" and "capture accidents" stuff is easier for me to connect with letting go of fears and plans and creating wildly, than with browsing stores and buying stuff in pristine, shiny packages that I hardly even dare to open.

Isn't it wonderful how we always get what we need if we reach out for it? Oh, am I glad that I believe in God. Otherwise this fact would SERIOUSLY puzzle me. (It still puzzles me how it can be so right on time, so so childishly simple, so downright accurate, but at least I know who it's from.)

- - -

On another note, I am now so bored with this cold that I declare it over (I'm feeling fine, it's just that my runny nose refuses to collaborate). The boyfriend and I are going up to the summer cottage outside of Strömstad to spend some time with the parents and hopefully get some quality sea & shore time. Back again on Sunday (and Monday is moving day, so you may not hear a lot from me then either). Hope you'll have a great sunny weekend!

on buying art supplies

2008-07-23T13:30:00.004+02:00

Been thinking about buying art supplies. It seems many people spend more time buying products, or longing to buy them, then actually using the stuff they've bought. This feels so sad to me and I know that I could easily fall into that gap, too (haven't I already, a little bit?).

Things you see in craft stores or on the internet always look so fabulous on the shelves, like I could make more amazing stuff than I ever have if I buy them. But at home, they can make me intimidated and I end up not daring to use them. Sometimes it's because I'm afraid I am going to find a better use for a certain thing later, and then regret I don't have it anymore. But mostly, it's because of the money. Patterned papers and rub-ons, for example, which is what I have been most drawn to as of late, are ridiculously expensive here, and that makes me think I have to carefully plan every page or little thing before I make it.

And that just doesn't go with my way of creating. I've always been much more "just pick up whatever you have lying around, glue it somewhere, see if it fits, and if it doesn't, put something else over it". Iguess I could do this spontaneous thing with patterned paper too - I guess I should, since that way of creating is what makes me happy ... But I really don't have a lot of money, and doing that would feel like a waste of beautiful paper if I have to glue it over with something else ... The beautiful paper that I so appreciated to buy, own, and look at.

Because I really do have that side too. I drool over glossy magazines, cute colorful stationary and minimalist design as well as spontaneous, wild creations. So I love buying patterned paper. I can get really inspired by art stores and everything they have to offer, too, sometimes they make me go home and create like mad. But mostly not. Mostly there's so much to choose from that I become overwhelmed and don'ät know what to do at all. And often, too often, they make me wish I had more money to buy beautiful stuff, instead of being happy about all the things I already have.

Since when does creating art have ANYTHING to do with the amount of money spent? I started making collages from people's recycling bins, that really should say enough.

These are the two things that threaten my creativity most: Fear of what others might think of it, and being held back by thoughts like "I shouldn't be wasting this" and "this was too expensive for a page/ collage/ project that I don't know how it will turn out or if I'll like it".

I need to find ways to get through these. I have seen what I'm like when I haven't been creating for a while. And right now the obvious solution to the problem, is to not buy more products until I've used a lot more of what I have. That is what used to make me so happy! Just using what I had, finding ways to put things together, all kinds of things. They were never expensive. I need to remind myself that I don't buy stuff to keep them, but to create. Stuff does not make me happier. Creating does.

Some words of wisdom from the amazing mr. Danny Gregory:

"Splurge. Be bold, not precious. Be creative, productive, lavish, not hoarding. [...] Please do waste art materials. Use paper. Empty paint jars. Deplete pens. If it's teaching something, it's not being wasted. Don't save your supplies for a rainy day. Beautiful handmade paper is no good in the rain. Pens run in the rain. Precious bottles of ink get washed away in the downpour. Use 'em now, while the sun is shining!"

(From the Creative License by Danny Gregory)

vacation photos

2008-07-22T11:22:00.005+02:00

Photos from Hönökonferensen (a week-long Christian conference/ meeting/ kind of reunion with friends who live in other parts of the country. Normally we spend the days taking walks, swimming in the sea, eating ice cream and talking, and the nights going to meetings, listening to different people preaching, and sing praise to the Lord).

The people in the pictures are, top to bottom: Karin & Anders (on of the sweetest couples I know, who are getting married in just a couple of weeks), me and the boyfriend (I know I look weird, but I'm just not used to being in front of the camera anymore), and my dear friend Linda.

some things ...

2008-07-21T21:40:00.004+02:00

... that are going on in my life right now ...

- 25th of August I am going back to the Academy of Music. I decided a couple of weeks ago not to take a year off and go to art school like I had planned. I realized that I wasn't tired of school or music as much as I was just tired in general - completely worn out, to be honest. And when I had slept for about four weeks straight (that's what I did for the most of June) I started to miss music, and working with it most of the day, a whole lot. So that's that. I still have a longing in me to go to art school - some day. But right now my longing to study music is stronger, it just takes up a bigger part of me, it feels like what I'm meant to do.

- Moving back to Guldheden is only a week away and I couldn't be happier about that. For those of you who haven't already heard this, I'm moving into the boyfriend's collective, so there will be me and Johan and Anders and Jesper and I seriously believe it's going to be great. I loved living in Guldheden and was so sad when I had to move in March (I rented a friend's apartment for a year, until he sold it (I would have bought it if I had had the money, believe me)). I am going to live in that very same house but on the forth floor instead of seventh (yes, that is how I met Johan, we were neighbors and I was invited to their Christmas party last year). I love just thinking about it.

- I caught the inevitable Herräng flu (living and dancing so close to other people it's impossible not to get sick), and need to stay at home for a couple of days (I hope not more than that ...). It's just a cold, but my head feels like a bucket of porridge and my neack and shoulders ache (don't know why really, they always do when I get a bad cold, does anyone knows why?) so I spend most of my time in bed watching movies that don't require any effort whatsoever. I have time to be sick, though, so I guess that's good.

- I recieved the first letter from one of my new penfriends today. I was a lovely letter in a lovely envelope, and I'm so glad I got that idea. Remember, real mail is magical.

- The above photo is from Herräng, and it's one of the very few photos I took there (yes, it was seriously raining that hard). There are some pictures from Hönökonferensen (the week before Herräng) coming up tomorrow, though.

think of it as dancing

2008-07-15T13:29:00.005+02:00

I'm in Herräng for the world's biggest and best swing dance camp, located in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. I'm doing a lazy week this year: volunteering in the café four hours a day, for which I get one meal a day and free entrance to the night parties. Good deal.

Herräng is magical, like it always is. Only an hour after getting here, I found myself in the middle of a juggling workshop (!). There were some people juggling on the grass (next to some people practicing tap dancing on a wooden square that had been put there, and some people eating ice cream in the sun). I only went there to say hello to my friend Arne (who I met at Stockholm Winter Camp in December, and who then stayed at my place during Swingin' Spring), who is an amazing juggler. and well, after about two minutes, I was in the middle of it. I am LOUSY with balls, have always been. Juggling looks like a lot of fun and I've tried a few times, but it never worked. The whole "practice the same thing for ages" maybe isn't for me :)

But this time, it was different. Arne said "don't think of it as juggling ... think of it as dancing". And when I did, everything changed. I just looked at him like I would look at a dance teacher, instinctively following the moves, memorizing them, and then doing them ... and also when I ended up dropping the balls (which I did) there was a completely different flow to it ... like dancing. And it was so much FUN!

Another magical thing was the evening taster class yesterday, locking and breaking. Man, I have not had that much fun dancing for ... maybe six months. They guy who taught it was just so inspirational. And he was an amazing and fun dancer. There are lots of great dancers, but few who spread so much joy that you have to laugh out of pure happiness when looking at them, and trying to do what they do. (I don't remember his name but I think he was from Seattle, like just about every other amazing dancer I've met. What's with that place really?)

So that's that ... My internet time is running out, so I better just post this and go get an ice cream instead (it is hot in Herräng today). Tonight's blues night and I'm hoping to get some nice dances (wish you were here though, Marty). I'm back in town on Saturday, so I'll write more then if not before.

P.S., next year I want to do tap dancing! It looks like so much fun. I took tap dancing in high school (I had to, since I majored in musical theatre) and have been longing to do some more, but there's the time issue ... anyways, a whole week of tap dancing in Herräng, can you imagine the fun?

2008-07-03T17:33:00.002+02:00

Some art journal pages from 17th and 18th June. The orange page celebrates me and the boyfriend going out for six months and the white with the polar bear celebrates the calm I felt away at the cottage in Småland.

We're having his family over for dinner tonight, so Johan is out in the kitchen (I'd love to help if only it wasn't that I don't want to, like we usually say :). Nah, but actually, I can leave him there with a clean conscience because he actually loves to cook). It smells good. Filled egg plants with cheese and then blueberry pie with ice cream and chocolate sauce for dessert. Mmm.

Other nice things:
- Jim Dale reading the Harry Potter series. I've just started listening to them (oh, how I love libraries, they have everything!), and they are truly marvellous. I am one of those who read to fast for my own good - I get so caught up in a good book that I skip every other word just to find out faster what happens. As I listen to them, there's time to enjoy every little magnificent detail (yes, I am an avid J.K. Rowling fan). And Jim Dale does an amazing job with all the different voices and accents.

- Making popsicles from the pear juice I drink every morning. I bought popsicle holders at IKEA and the pear juice make them taste just like Piggelin, but cheaper. :)

- Bicycling yesterday. I haven't done that for several years, but my physical therapist thinks I'm strong enough now. And it didn't hurt! I had to think about the right posture and using my stomach muscles to hold it up the whole time but it was well worth it. We went to the Västra Långvattnet lake, closer to the part of town where I grew up. It takes a little while to get there through the woods, so we were almost alone there. The water's so clear and the weather was perfect. A good day.

- I'M MOVING HERE IN ONLY A MONTH. I am so DONE with Vasastan and I just can't wait to live with the boyfriend in one apartment instead of two. There's just been too much walking back and forth. And I've missed Guldheden, like you all know. Can't wait to live here again!

2008-06-30T19:23:00.003+02:00

As promised, some photos from last weeks' wonderful vacation and the house we spent it in. Not much else to write right now ... Life is slow, calm and nice. I'm starting to long for parties. Off to the lindy hop social night soon. Hope you're having a nice Monday.

2008-06-28T21:01:00.002+02:00

It worries me a great deal that I have stopped photographing. I took some pictures last week when we were away, but not many, and none that I like (I think - I haven't even put them on the computer yet ...) I don't know why. I just don't bring the camera. Is that enough reason? And if that's the reason, why don't I bring it? Last year I'd go nowhere without it, everything was worth keeping, documenting, showing - and everything was fun to photograph, in the moment, even if it didn't turn out "good" (whatever that means). And even if I remember to bring it nowadays, I carry it around all day without taking it up. How can this be? I love that little darling and want to use it. Any ideas or advice on how to start photographing again? What to think, what to do?

Anyways, I am worried about that, but I am even more happy - that I have started art journaing again. (The collages from above are from May, I haven't gotten around to scanning the new ones yet.) It's such a great relief and I can feel it almost physically how draining it is to not create, if I haven't done anything creative during a whole day. So I'm not going to write anything else here but just simply turn the computer off and work some on my photo album, while I've got the creative juices flowing (seeing as I am about five years behind on them, that could be good).

2008-06-25T11:09:00.007+02:00

This is the form of collage that is easiest to me, and I think the one I feel most at home with: Searching through my collections (and/ or magazines, papers and recycle bins) for images that I respond to on this certain time, and then putting them together in a way that I like. These are the only rules. It doesn't have to mean anything (it rarely does), but it is always a window for my feelings and my mood. Something from the day I'm living gets stuck on the paper, details, sentiments.

I've made collages like this for many years (the art journaling with writing and embellishments only happened a few years ago). Many of the collages I made in high school, for example, were color coordinated, and they were often gifts; I thought of a person, decided on a color that I felt suited him or her, and than made the collage out of those colors. I've always collected images and random clippings from magazines and papers, so I've had boxes to search through when looking for something of a certain color or shape.

I've gone back to making a couple of these simple collages this past week, as you can see above, and I really enjoyed it. It's just one form of art journaling among many that I like, but it's one that I hope I'll always come back to.

2008-06-23T14:10:00.003+02:00

This has been a truly lovely week away. We've been in Johan's parents' summer cottage in the woods in Småland (about four hours' drive from here, almost on the east coast) and have been just relaxing the whole time. Taking walks, reading books, cooking good food (Johan), doing drawing exercises (me) and doing tons and tons of creative stuff (I brought my art journal and photo album as well as several small boxes of scraps and all my patterned papers, so there will be stuff shown here over the past fews days!).

It feels almost surreal to be back in town, as we've been completely without internet and telephones, and spent time only with each other. Even more so as we got home to the most amazing thunderstorm, it was so spectacular and beautiful (we had gotten safely inside with all our stuff before it started, thank God).

Anyways, the weather which has been warm and sunny over the past two months (!) has now turned gray, windy and rainy again (that is to be honest a much more common sight in Göteborg). That doesn't bother me at all though. Just gives me more time and a great reason to stay inside and create like crazy! :)

Speaking of creating ... The little house where we stayed belongs to Johan's grandparents, but they are now so frail that they no longer can go there. The place is completely full of old stuff that has gathered dust there over the years (they lived there for several months every year up until a few years ago, and never seem to have done much sorting - or throwing away - of anything). The grandparents themselves don't care about any of it, and so I was allowed to look through everything, and keep anything that wasn't personal. And oh, did I love it. There were drawer after drawer full of old letters (some of them more than sixty years old), unwritten "get well soon" cards from the sixties, beautiful old photos, Christmas cards from everywhere, bible verses, books so old that they almost feel apart ... There were amazing treasures to be found for a paper addict like yours truly.

The most amazing things weren't the ones I was allowed to keep (even though some of the tiny squares of Christmas gift wrappings, printed in Chicago in 1957, actually made me yell with joy), but all the letters and cards. There were letters to and from Johan's mother, grandmother, great grandmother and tons of aunts and uncles. The most interesting ones were sent to or from Minnesota, as of course (like in every Swedish family I think) someone immigrated and got married over there.

The letters told amazing stories and left so many beautiful details from their lives. What inspired me the most, I think, is how many of them wrote "for which we thank the Lord" and "praise to Him who has given us this or that" (this or that could be anything - a new grandchild, getting home safely from a trip, unexpected money to repair the toilet, a warm and sunny Sunday, a visit from an old friend somewhere, just about anything). It's just such a lovely way to look at life, that everything that happens is a blessing from God. I need to work on that a little in my own life.

The whole letter reading business over the past week got me really inspired to get my own letter writing going again. And that's the main reason for the "advertisement" you see in my Moleskine above (click the image if you want to see it bigger). Other reasons can be that now that I'm on summer holiday, I have tons of creativity that needs to get own and I'd love to share it with someone, and that I LOVE to find something nice in the mailbox. So what do you say? Are you up for it? Just admit it, you want a real penpal too!

2008-06-16T09:47:00.006+02:00

While seraching through last year's pictures, I also came across pictures like the ones above, photos of my beautiful friends. at each and every one of them I had to stop and think "wow ... I really must have the most besutiful friends in the world". Just look at them, such wonderful people, I can see their personalities (and they're all so very different, so interesting human beings) shining through in these photos, and I'm so glad to have them (both the people and the pictures of them). These are just a random selections (I would have shown you all my friends but there's only so much room): Maria & Malin, Linda, Maria again, Robin, Hanna.

Like I said, I'm going on vacation today and not bringing the cell. On Friday we leave Småland to celebrate Midsummer in Lidköping with Karin and Anders and other friends of theirs, that will be great I think. See you in a week!

* * * Update
I just read in the morning paper that Esbjörn Svensson is dead. It's horrible, it's just too, too tragic. He was (according to me but also to many. many others) Sweden's greatest jazz musician, with so many fantastic albums and concerts behind him. I had planned on listening to him again with his trio at Nefertiti this October, but no one will ever hear him play live again ... He was only 44 (he died in a diving accident, two days ago I think), and it's such a tragedy, he was so brilliant, his music is magical, truly magical. And he would have had so much more to give to the world!

He has given me so much personally, too, not just as a jazz musician and concert goer but as a person, as a muscial being. Maybe if I hadn't heard his music first, I wouldn't have believed jazz was for me. I always used to think jazz was too difficult and complicated. I was about fifteen when a friend lent me From Gagarin's Point of View, and while listening to that, I realised, "wow ... jazz really is for me". This is a sad day indeed.

2008-06-14T16:48:00.004+02:00

Johan is away for the day and I'm at his computer, looking through last year's photos, trying to decide which ones to print and put in albums. One day if I'll have more money than now, I'd like a photo printer (snd I'd like to afford printing them, too ... I heard it's eight times more expensive to print photos at home then sending them to a lab, cost of the printer not included), so I could just print photos as I go along. That's totally on the wish list. But for now this will have to do.

So anyways, the photos above are from exactly a year ago, June 2007. It makes me so happy when I look through old photos and come across some - like these - that I really, really like. That's my dear friend Sam on the photo in the middle, in case anyone's wondering.

I'm listening to Köln Concert (man, it's just so amazing I could listen to it everyday) and thinking about weird things like if I and the boyfriend ever break up I will never ever be able to listen to it again, because it would be too painful to remember us laying on the couch, talking softly but mostly just intensely listening to this beautiful, beautiful music. Not that I'm planning on us ever breaking up though. It makes me so happy to think about that this may very well be it, you know, the it they have in movies, the real thing (or "Mr. Himself" as my godmother likes to call it, that's sweet), that'll last. I never thought I'd have that. But I SO have it. Yay :)

On another note, I'm beginning to feel the good life again. Relaxing more and more every day. On Monday we're going to the summer cottage in Småland and I'm not bringing the cell (this might be my best decision in months), just tons of photos, and albums with lovely, inviting, black pages :)

2008-06-12T00:14:00.003+02:00

I read this thing on a blog: Grab the book nearest to you. Read the fifth sentence on page number 23. What does it say?

Here's the sentence I found (in "Rothko" by Jacob Baall-Teshuva):

He was very interested in music, an enthusiasm that lasted for many years.

I just thought that was pretty magical. Seeing as I needed that so much, something reassuring, that I will not lose my music. God sure does work hard to encourage his loved ones. Through an art book, who would have thought? (But then on the other hand, why not.)

2008-06-10T21:38:00.003+02:00

Ooo, I've been crazy inspired (art journals, mini books, collages, drawings, there's so much of the goodness) these past few days but have (have we heard this before ...?) had almost no time to create, so it's like I'm walking around with this big dam that's going to burst any day now, and then I'll have to cancel everything else and stay at home buried in paper scraps for days. Let's hope it won't go that far, because there are still other things I like to do, such as spending time with the boyfriend and my friends. And going to work at the library is actually quite a good thing. Cross your fingers for me that I can find a way to manage both a healthy social life and a severe paper addiction :)

2008-06-07T10:07:00.003+02:00

Just had to show these hooks that I saw yesterday in the changing room at Lindex. they were the only fun thing about the bikini hunt I described, they actually made me laugh in all their usefulness - why haven't someone thought of this years before? (The signs read "Fits perfectly. Must have!", "Maybe ...", "Wrong size, get new one" and "Doesn't fit at all". Lovely!

Today I have nothing more to say than that I have the whole day free and empty. I can't even recall when that last happened, probably around New Year's. Six months ago! It makes me giggle just thinking about all the creative things I could do with this day. Start a new photo album maybe ... The weather's beautiful, I could take the tram to Saltholmen and get some sun and sea, or I can sit on the balcony and read. Oh, a whole day! I'll let you know later how this marvelous empty day turned out. :)

2008-06-06T21:40:00.005+02:00

Oh, it's been such a lovely day! (Well, at first it wasn't that lovely. I tried to find a new bikini, which proved to be very difficult. Seems that if your bust is sligtly bigger than "normal" (whatever that means), bikinis are not made for you. I found one in the end - black, boring, pretty ugly, not at all the splash of color I would want to wear - but at least my breasts don't fall out ...)

First I went to see Kristian's and my intermediate lindy class performing on the yearly West Coast Jitterbugs summer show (I was in it last year which was great fun, but there was no advanced routine this year). Look how pretty they were! The other groups mostly wore black (also shown above, the intermediate/ advanced routine) or white, but we went for crazy colors (yes, my idea :)). And they were all so good, I sat smiling with joy, it's so wonderful to be able to teach someone something, and that it looks like they're having fun learning it, and performing.

Then we (as in, about fifty of the West Coast Jitterbugs) went in a rented bus to a open-air dance floor with a lawn and a lake next to it, perfect for a day with as lovely weather and as lovely people as these. They are so much fun to be with and it's sad that I've hardly spent any time with them during these past busy months of no dancing. That must be changed!

Right now, looking forward to sitting on the balcony in the evening warmth with the boyfriend and lots of Ben & Jerry's. It's all good.

2008-06-05T15:07:00.003+02:00

Slowly, slowly, waking up my sleeping creativity again. I haven't had as much time as I thought I would (I still work a over at the library, and I have some schoolwork left, too), and the time I have is often wasted surfing the web with nothing particular in mind. It's like there's some mean little creature in me trying to stop me from being creative, inviting me, tempting me to do all sorts of braindead stuff instead.

Luckily, I have a GREAT book to help me out of all of this. I'm reading the Creative License - giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are by Danny Gregory, and it's inspiring, beautiful, and hilarious - hilarious because I recognize so much of it from my own creative struggles. It's like I'm finally seeing that I'm not alone. I am an artist, and like every artist, there are obstacles. The book gives plenty of ways to get trough them.

One thing I've been thinking about is how my work changes when I start creating things for others and not just for me. Look at flickr, for example, and what it has done with my life. There's so much inspiration there and new ideas. But it has made me more cautious about what I am creating. In the beginning with my art journals, I did whatever in them, just whatever I felt like. I got a flickr account and started to show things. I never thought that anyone would like what I did, but I thought it was cool seeing my collages on flickr, where all the cool people were.

Then, some of my collages grew rather popular and I got lovely compliments from people. It made me happy of course, and I wanted to create more and more. But, after a while I realised I had started to try and make things that others would like. Which, of course, made them lifeless and boring. Then I start to add things that I think would make them more "likeable" - or, even worse, I stop adding things, because I want to keep them clean and neat. What's with that anyways? I'm not clean and neat! It's awful.

Danny Gregory writes about the very same problem in his book, too:
"Painfully, it's when I'm doing a commision or making a present for someone that I am most likely to encounter this problem. Some part of my brain will not let go and sits in the background, whining and harping and firing suggestions. Instead of lettting the piece take its natural course, I try to twist it in a direction it doesn't want to go and the result is mud."

Still don't exactly know how to get out of this. Stop showing things, you might say. Yeah, but I still want the compliments ... And also, I don't want to have to hide. I want to be able to make presents out of my collaging, too. See, I'm stuck!

Anyways ... It's getting better. I stopped making things for a while, as you know, and now that I'm starting again it feels more alive, more joyous, more like it used to be. I'm trying to think that it doesn't matter what people will say. It's difficult, but good.

2008-06-02T12:30:00.003+02:00

In a comment on my last post about scrapbooking, Linda said something like "it's pretty, and inspiring, but what would I do with it ...?" Gosh, I've had that feeling so many times. "What is this good for, how will it improve my life? It will gather dust on a shelf somewhere. I should do something USEFUL instead."

But, Danny Gregory answers all these questions, right here. And everything is light and clear and evident again.

2008-06-01T23:30:00.004+02:00

It's been such a lovely weekend: Going to the Nordic Watercolour Musuem in Skärhamn, and it was as magnificant and as inspiring as I had thought and hoped; I just walked around there and thought to myself "I am going to learn this for real next year! Wow!". Taking a walk at Änggårdskolonin (with all the little houses that I've told you about earlier), enjoying their "open day" where we were able to take a look inside several of the lovely gardens. A spontaneous picknick with dear friends in Botaniska trädgården. An even more spontaneous trip to Saltholmen to take this year's premiere swim in the sea. By then it was eight in the evening and the sun was still warm (the water cold, but it mostly is).

As I write this it is eleven and still only dusk outside, not night. It doesn't really get to the night state of darkness, this time of year.

2008-05-30T22:52:00.006+02:00

The boyfriend and I have started a new tradition. On Fridays we make fruit salad (preferably containing grapes, kiwis, bananas, pears and oranges) and eat with ice cream and chocolate muffins. And then we eat the remains of the salad with filmjölk (I don't know of any English translation besides sour milk, but I tried what I heard was sour milk once, and it doesn't taste as good as filmjölk. So I guess filmjölk is something similar to sour milk but better) for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday morning. It's the best kind of luxury, one that makes our lives better, one that we can afford, but that's still not an everyday thing. It's perfect.

Tomorrow we're going to Nordiska Akvarellmuseet (the Nordic Watercolour museum) to see the exhibition "Pacific Light. A survey of Californian Watercolour 1908 - 2008" on a Saturday day trip. I've been a fan of David Hockney since early high school and there are some works by him there, and the boyfriend is a fan of art exhibitions in general. I hear the weather's going to be lovely. I can't see how I could possibly be more in love with anyone than I am with my boyfriend right now and I intend to live happily ever after with him. That's all.

2008-05-29T11:35:00.006+02:00

So I've started scrapbooking.

At first I was sort of opposed to the whole thing. Not opposed to others doing it of course - it just felt So Not Me. Pages I saw were always in dreadful pastels with photos of babies. They had tons of hearts and stickers with seemingly (to me) random words, and cheesy titles in the most horrible typefaces (and you know how I feel about ugly typefaces!). And everything was so pink and cutesy. I know it's just a matter of taste, and that is my point - the pages I saw were totally not my taste.

And there's another thing, too, that disturbs me about it: the whole industry it has become. Buying three paper flowers in a little bag for ten times more than they are worth; and this ... a _tool_ to put rub-ons on? Who buys such a thing? And the ribbons and buttons that cost about fifteen times more at the very special scrapbooking store than in the regular fabric and yarn store. It just seems so ... over-coordinated, and to be honset - a little less creative than finding and choosing your own materials?

But then I realized that some of the things used in scrapbooking are simply lovely. All the amazing papers there are. As a paper addict, how could I not love them?! And the "using just one or two photos per page to give them more attention" concept - yeah, I get the point. It's more fun to work with one single photo that you really appreciate, than sticking a whole bunch of so-so pictures in an album for the sake of it. And then there's rub-ons too. Oh, I could scrapbook just for the rub-ons. :)

So, I started to feel a bit ... "oh, I wish scrapbooking were more for me and not so much only for mothers who don't work" (what's with that anyways? Hm ... Maybe you have to live in the States to understand how someone could want to stay at home with the dishes and the laundry for the rest of their life, while their husbands are off to interesting jobs? And it seems to be only the women, doing that? Someone American please explain! We don't do that, here), but still couldn't quite get around the feeling that it actually wasn't for me.

And then one day, it suddenly dawned upon me: I don't have to do what "everyone else" does! (Also, by that time it had occured to me that there is no "everybody else" in scrapbooking: if you just dig a little deeper, you'll find amazing gems, for example many who mix scrapbooking with art journaling, which of course is a lot more up my taste). I can just pick the elements that suit me, and do what I want! Hooray! I can do the pink and cutesy stuff if I want to - or I can buy scrapbook papers or rub-ons and use them in my art journals instead. I can do the silly titles if I want to. I can also skip it. Oh, isn't it wonderful? To think it actually took me months to figure this out!

So this is scrapbooking, my take: photos I like, papers I like, no babies, and only very few (if any) ribbons and buttons. :)

Here are some of the pages I find stunning, simply stunning (from the always amazing flickr):
Riley's Journal - Broken Clavicle by coreymoortgat
Habit. by flyingmichelle
Se dire que l'on est heureux by les elucubrations de severine
Emotions-Evasion by studio2mers
Escape by patiscrapbook

And you, do you scrapbook?

2008-05-28T23:31:00.002+02:00

Oh, teaching today was so much fun! As you know I haven't been dancing much at all lately, but last weekend, during our instructor's weekend with Henric & Joanna (current lindy hop world champions and very inspiring instructors themselves, it was so good to learn a few of their ideas and ways of teaching!) something started to grow, or melt, in me again. I think I'm looking forward to a summer full of dancing.

This is our intermediate class, working on a routine that Kristian (my dance partner and favorite dancer in the world) and I have put together for our dance club's little show in June. If you want to see the routine, Kristian and I are showing it here. It's just a video someone made so that people could work on it at home, so the quality is bad, but the song is great (On Revival Day by LaVern Baker) :)

Above that, Ingrid, Kristian and Torbjörn are "planning classes" (looks more like fika and relax to me :)) outside in the sun.

2008-05-28T13:39:00.005+02:00

I've been wanting to show you some photos of my much loved workplace for ages (but kept forgetting to bring my camera, and when I remembered it I was always so busy at work that wouldn't use it). I finally got around to taking some a while ago, but then I forgot to post them ... Now I have only three weeks left there, since I won't be living here on weekdays come autumn, but here they are anyways ...

I have to tell you I'll really miss that place. It's been the best part time job ever, going there every Thursday afternoon, answering some questions, putting back some books, sending books to other libraries, everything calm and quiet and - well, only a library lover would understand, I think. It's been the best, but autumn will bring other good things.

In other news: Summer holiday!!! Yes, it's true, it's finally here. I have THREE MONTHS of complete nothingness in front of me and I could not have been happier. I have some much time to be creative! Any inspirations or ideas you want to share?

2008-05-13T17:36:00.002+02:00

Here are some photos from the past two weeks ... I know - I've been gone for too long. It's been a lot to think about - and, of course, do - lately. But well, I got some news ...

I'm taking a year off from the Academy of Music to go to art school.

Can't even tell you how good it feels. It's so the right thing to do at this point in my life. Nothing fancy, it's a very basic education, sort of like an art school for beginners, the basics in drawing, acrylics, oil painting, ceramics, screenprinting ... I can't wait.

You have read how I've been feeling about music and my musicality as of late and I guess it hasn't been fun reading. People are asking me if I don't want to be a singing teacher anymore, if I don't want to sing anymore, if I'm dropping out. The answer is No! I'm definitely not dropping out. Music is still I want to do with my life. I'm only taking a year off and my reason for doing so is that I long for the joy in music to return. If I don't have to sing, I believe I will want to, again.

I'm ridiculously tired, haven't been sleeping well for some weeks, and still have many things left on my to do-list (such as clean up the mess at home, which has been growing for a while). But I've started a new art journal which I like so much it makes me happy to even think about it. It will take me through these last few weeks at school and then it's finally summer.

2008-04-27T14:07:00.002+02:00

The problem with my life right now is the lack of energy reserve. I used all of my saved energy during the stressful fall semester, and the Christmas break was too short for me to fill it up. So now, I'm always on survival mode when it comes to energy (and therefor also joy and inspiration) - I can gather up enough while sleeping to make it through a normal day, but as soon as something (which could be anything really, it depends on the level of tiredness - anything from doing the dishes or my homework to meeting people to taking a dance class) occurs that requires more energy, I just want to give up and sleep for weeks. Or months.

I saved up energy all week to do a good concert two days ago. Like I said it went well and I'm very happy about that, but now there's no energy left for a whole weekend of dancing. I try not to complain, seeing as I've put this life together myself, but it is so hard for me to say no to things that I want to do (or would have wanted if only I could sleep for about a week first)! But well. There will be other dance camps, with more energy and great dancing.

Hm. I need to get some kind of photographic portfolio. I asked the boyfriend to make one for me, but I feel bad about it now because he really has too much work to do as it is. Oh well, I'll think of something.

Four more weeks in school and then weeks and weeks of rest. I can do it.

2008-04-26T10:53:00.002+02:00

Finally (sorry I'm late), here's my part of the Pay It Forward challenge (I don't remember where I saw it first; I'll be getting a little something from the lovely and talented Emma Laiho, do check out her work if you haven't already!).

Rules:
I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

- - -

Above is a painting/ collage thing I made two days ago. I was going to do the dishes but just suddenly felt inspiration flow, so I had to make something instead. I am really happy with the result but even more happy with how good it felt to create something again, I've missed it. I had forgotten how it stops time.

- - -

I sang at a lunch concert yesterday and it was SO GOOD. I am so happy with my singing, it felt great, I sang them like I had wanted to sing them, I can ask for no more. I got tons of compliments and hugs and it just felt lovely. (Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, duet with Tommy; the Lettet Duet from Figaro's Wedding by Mozart, duet with Josefin, and A Case of You by Joni Mitchell).

The guitarist I played A Case of You with called me a short while after to apologize (he had gotten one of the scary panicking nervousness attacks, that we all get now and then, right before playing, so he had made some mistakes, but it was really nothing and I told him I was just so happy he had wanted to do the song with me), and he said his girlfriend who had listened had started to cry when I sang! Isn't that the best compliment!

- - -

This weekend I am one of the two official photographers for Swingin' Spring, Gothenburg's yearly lindy hop workshop. 500 participants, including some of the world's best lindy dancers are here, and the weekend is busy with classes and parties (and in between, trying to get some food and sleep). I've had some extra troubles with my back lately so I won't be dancing much (also I'm way too tired!), but I'm hoping to get some good photos. I'm really nervous. I was asked to do this, so people might actually think I'm a good photographer, somehow. That's a scary thought. Up until now I've never really had any pressure to take good pictures. Oh well, I can only do my best.

2008-04-21T20:29:00.001+02:00

My life right now is so busy that I just started crying earlier today, there were so many things to do I just got overwhelmed and couldn't handle it. But after crying I felt a little better. Five more weeks of school and then summeeeeeeeer = vacation. I can do it!

Some photos from a lovely Sunday:

2008-04-19T10:44:00.003+02:00

Some more photos from the past - as in, last Saturyday. :) My cousin turned 35 and had a lovely party. (Yes, that's the boyfriend helping out with the dishes in the top photo because he's easily the nicer and more helpful of us. Actually he's the smarter too (which is somewhat annoying, because I'd very much like to be smarter). But I take better pictures. :))

2008-04-18T18:42:00.003+02:00

As promised: some photos from the weekend before last, a weekend spent with dear friends.

Slow Saturday with Lisa and Hanna. First we went thrifting (and gave away an old lamp that I'm not as fond of anymore, and since I moved I just don't have room for it), then watched a movie. I can't even tell you how good it is to live in the same building as your two best friends, everything is casual, flowing.

Preparing a Sunday dinner with Andreas and (another) Hanna, two friends from high school that I occasionally meet up with, and it's always good and fun.

2008-04-17T23:05:00.002+02:00

The view from my kitchen window, and trees in blossom at Järntorget during a short morning walk today.

It's like I've been some sort of mentally under the weather for weeks, maybe months, and now I'm finally coming back to myself again. I've been laughing today, out of pure unexplicable (the best kind) joy! It must be spring.

(Photos from these past few weeks - there aren't many, because I rarely take pictures when I'm low, but at least a few - will be up tomorrow. Right now I'm off to bed. Good night!)

2008-04-05T11:32:00.003+02:00

A while ago I started to look through pictures from last year, the first year with my new camera. Here's the next part of the series: Five photos from February. (Here's January.)

2008-04-04T23:56:00.005+02:00

So I was invited to this party, and I had been looking forward to it, I knew there would be nice people (most of which I don't know, and a few of which I know a little). And I haven't been to a decent party in ages, and I had come home from work and eaten my dinner and should be getting ready to go, but instead I found myself procrastinating in front of the computer. What? Why am I not already on my way? Why am I stuck here?

And then I suddenly caught myself thinking: What would I talk to people about? You see, I tend to always answer the truth when people ask me how I'm doing or what's happening in my life. And I couldn't see myself telling people I've never met before the truth about how I'm feeling in my life right now; neither could I muster the energy to spend the whole evening saying everything's fine.

So I decided not to go. Instead I went downstairs, where I knew Lisa and Hanna would be watching a movie (because they had been up in my room thirty minutes earlier to invite me), and then I spent the evening with them: laughing a great deal, watching a great (to my astonishment, it sure didn't look like it from the cover) movie, and talking about life in general and low-ness in particular. Because they are the bestest of best friends and they will remain so no matter how ugly, low, uninteresting or un-creative I may feel.

2008-03-21T15:00:00.006+01:00

(Yes, I am a paper addict. I can spend a lot of money on paper and stationary, paper that I have no idea what I'm going to do with - I just like to go looking at paper, choosing, buying some, and then looking at it at home (and of course, occasionally making something from it. I really love paper.)

Also:
+ the boyfriend is in Ukraine for ten days. Stupid idea. I like everything better when he's here.

+ when I was in high school, I was so afraid of loneliness that I could start to cry if I didn't have friends to spend and evening with. For this easter, I was prepared to be calm, quiet and alone, and all of a sudden friends called me to say "I'm coming home for Easter and I miss you, do you want to see me?". So weird how they have always been there, caring for me, and how I never managed to see it, like I do now. I am so grateful for them.

+ I'm slowly getting used to my new apartment. I will like it, eventually. And yes, it is quite practical to live in the middle of Göteborg. It takes ten minutes to everywhere.

+ still no joy in music, still no collaging. I have started writing letters again though! Always something, I guess, although I miss my creativity the way it was, constantly flowing, never ceasing to surprise me with new energy and happiness in the work I was doing. (Let me know if you're a fan of letter-writing, we could work something out :))

2008-03-16T11:00:00.001+01:00

Some more vacation photos. This is one hard vacation to come home from, I tell you, seeing as I haven't really got anything to come home to - still haven't finished cleaning up my new apartment from the guy I rent it from, and so there are boxes and bags everywhere and everything is still, well, a mess.

But it's been a great week and I intend to live on it for a long while.

Vacation

2008-03-13T21:21:00.000+01:00

This would NEVER happen in my own family. All of the family members sitting in a living room. Some are reading, someone's trying to fix a problem with the laptop, someone's just thinking. It is silent. Everything is safe. Now and then, someone says something about the book they're reading, about the computer problem that's being solved, or about the delicious coffee beans dipped in chocolate that were bought yesterday and that we're now sharing.

If it were my family, the silence wouldn't be this comforting; someone would speak of what haven't been done or what's to be done tomorrow; someone would come up with something to discuss (or argue about). Come to think of it, if it were my family, this would never happen. We don't spend time together doing nothing. We're not calm enough.

I'm on vacation with the boyfriend and his family. I'm learning to ski, slowly becoming more and more comfortable with those mysterious things attached to my feet. I was extremely scared at first (and all the way in the car to get here (that's a ten hour ride) I kept thinking (and saying) "I will die! And break both my legs!"), but the boyfriend with his enormous amount of patience and - I'm beginning to realise - love for me, just kept comforting me and saying "I won't leave you. I'll be right behind. I'll help" until everything felt better. I began to thoroughly enjoy this whole skiing thing after only a few hours. I sprained my thumb today (by falling on it - yes, it must have looked as silly as it sounds), but not too badly, it's a bit swollen, that's all.

My muscles are tired. I'm slowly relaxing, letting go of all the school stuff, choosing not to think of what awaits me at home. I'll deal with that later. For now, I'm skiing. I'm going to sleep early and waking up rested. I'm eating good food, reading ("Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett, which is a fabulous fairy tale to enjoy on snowy evenings like these in a cottage like this), and growing more and more in love with the boyfriend for every minute - yes, I can feel it, tangible, growing in me as I look at him, how I love him more now than two seconds ago. And it's not stopping.

2008-03-06T13:30:00.003+01:00

This past week has been a MESS.

I moved on Saturday, cleaned my old apartment on Sunday and Monday, just to arrive on late Monday afternoon to my new apartment (which is about half the size of my old one, so the room is filled to the brim with furniture, boxes and things) just to realise that the person I'm renting from hadn't cleaned it properly, so I had to clean that apartment, too. I'm still not done. And Friday, I'm leaving to go skiing with the boyfriend and his family. Not easy to pack bags for a trip when you have no idea in which box your things are. (I know, I know - I should have marked them. But I didn't know I wouldn't be able to pack things up immediately).

On top of this, things in school - or rather, my feelings about going there - have been getting worse. I'm right now in survival mode, focusing only on making it through until summer. Meaning, I'm singing horribly, skipping loads of classes, and in general not at all being the perfect music student I have been, and had intended to be. I don't know what else to say about it right now. My plans for this fall, so far, is to take some sort of half-time class at the university (English maybe, I don't know yet) and sleep and fill pages in my art journal for the rest of the time. That's all I really want. Sleep, and fill pages with colors. Thankfully I have some money saved up, that I can live on for at least a little while.

As you can see, not much time or peace to blog ...

The boyfriend, though, is taking good care of me. I'm staying here until I'm done cleaning and unpacking - it's just depressing to be down in my new apartment now, with all the mess. Mess just isn't what I need in my life right now. To pull through with school and everything that must be done, I need a place to stay which is peaceful and organized and just plain nice, so I can feel safe somewhere. Right now the only place where I feel completely safe and at ease is in the boyfriend's arms at night.

I am homesick for my old apartment. Pictures on top are from last March. It is now exactly a year since I moved in. I felt at home there immediately. When will I feel at home in Vasastan?

2008-02-28T14:52:00.003+01:00

Ever since New Year's I've been wanting to do some sort of photographic summary of that first year with my new camera, but I've had neither time nor inspiration to start it. Now I find myself, surprisingly enough, having a little bit of both. So I intend to share with you some of my favorite photos from last year.

So well, introducing: January 2007.

2008-02-26T16:30:00.004+01:00

I have my pratical training in Kungälv, where I follow a singing teacher at a high school. I'm the one or two days a week, and I always leave the place tired (sometimes completely worn out and ready for bed at half past four in the afternoon), happy and inspired. She is an amazing teacher and I learn so much from her!

If the weather is nice, I take a walk along Östra Gatan afterwards. I love these little houses (continuing Sunday's house theme), and I love reading the sings that tells me who lived there in the 17th or 18th century. It's so nice to walk here.

different rains

2008-02-25T22:58:00.005+01:00

The light has been marvellous today. It's as if the weather haven't been able to make up its mind; it's been raining, then some rays of light, then both at the same time, and all the time a stubborn, playful wind.

It happens that people (even I, on occasion) tire of the Göteborg weather, and I can understand that. What I don't understand is how they can say that it's always the same. It is not ever the same. There are thousands of different rains, and many of them are shimmering and immensely beautiful. Days here are often grey, but it is a living grey that makes a perfect background to any other color, it makes everything brighter, like the intense blue and red above. It has been a good day indeed.

Here's a picture of two of my best friends, the boyfriend and my monster (I bought him just recently, I just couldn't resist. Do you see how big he actually is?). They are both sitting behind me in my armchair right now as I write this. Life is nice.

to dress more like Rainbow Brite

2008-02-25T17:13:00.004+01:00

A few days ago, I talked with some friends about what were our favorite TV series when we were younger. Mine are easy: Rainbow Brite and Jem and the Holograms. I haven't thought about any of them in a long while, but now they they were there, I suddenly felt an urge to see them again. I had to struggle a little to get to see them already as a child: they aired on channels we didn't have, so I watched them at friends' places and such. I had the first episodes of Jem and the Holograms on video, and watched them over and over (I still know many of the songs by heart).

But that tape is long since gone, so I've had to turn to YouTube. I haven't had much time to see it, but the little I've seen (of Rainbow Brite so far, since the memory of that is so much more distant) is making me childishly happy and giddy.

And I can't help but thinking; Rainbow Brite is about a little girl who wants to give more and brighter colors to the world, and Jem and the Holograms about a girl who wants to sing and make music. Dang it did I choose my path that early?! :)

So well, I decided to try and dress more like Rainbow Brite. Not just "today I'm wearing two shades of red and some blue", more like ... "today I'm wearing green, yellow, blue, red, white, brown and some pink". My wardrobe is full of color, this shouldn't be too difficult. I love color too much not to wear it every day! The photo below is from yesterday, Johan took it as we were walking to church.

+ scarf: åhléns
+ green jacket: vila
+ red jacket: ginatricot
+ mittens: gift from my mother
+ dress: h&m
+ bag: made from an IKEA fabric
+ pants: topshop
+ socks: knitted by my mother
+ shoes: cheapo

In the first episode, Rainbow Brite says her quest is to bring color and happiness to the world. Well, so is mine. :)

dreams of a little beautiful house

2008-02-24T22:44:00.002+01:00

The boyfriend and I took a walk through Änggårdskolonin today, enjoying looking at all these lovely houses. I could so do this: grow old and live in an apartment somewhere nice in Göteborg (like Guldheden, where we live now, and both love) and have a little cottage like one of these, to spend summer evenings Sunday afternoons and what not. It's in the middle of Göteborg and yet it's another world.

That last house is my favorite. We'd have one just like that, and our apartment would be somewhere nearby so we could walk there on warm evenings. I'd have a studio, with big beautiful windows and lovely light, to make my collages in, and Johan would sit with one of his most beloved books and jazz records, and we'd drink lemonade in the garden.

choir & calm

2008-02-24T00:51:00.007+01:00

Rehearsal with the chamber choir all day. We rehearse in a church, and the acoustics are amazing. I'm still not too fond of the Johannes Passion though. I'm finding Bach a bit boring. But I like my choir, and today was the best so far with this piece, so it was nice anyways.

I spent the evening with the boyfriend. There was a big lindy party going on and I went there, only to go back home after about three dances. My back hurt too much, which usually makes me so sad and bitter that there's no use in staying. The boyfriend hugged me an fed me chocolate muffins until I felt a bit better.

beautiful light

2008-02-23T00:38:00.017+01:00

Things feel a little bit better now. I just want to tell you that so it won't sound like everything is completely dark, because really, it isn't; bright things still happen, although more seldom, or although I am so tired of the situation that I have a hard time seeing them.

However, today I had the most lovely chamber music lesson. We, a flute player and a guitarist and me, had our very first lesson with this new constellation (we change ensembles every semester) today and our teacher is just amazing. He asked me how I was feeling, I told him a little bit about how my life feels right now, and then he worked the whole lesson (90 minutes) to make me feel comfortable in the music, so that we would really make music. It made me happy, truly happy, to sing today.

On my way home I saw this amazing light at Korsvägen. It had been raining all day and then suddenly, just a few rays of sunlight made my world this spectacular. Those things can really make my day. And then I've spent the whole evening with the boyfriend, making chocolate muffins and playing Carcassonne. Today has been the simple life I've been craving and I can only hope it will last for a little while, so I can rest.

2008-02-22T11:31:00.004+01:00

I suddenly felt an urge to tell you what's been going on, which is a ridiculously bad idea since I should be off to school in about five minutes, but well, here goes.

I am completely worn out. Last semester at school was, like you've seen if you've been reading here, extremely busy, and the only way I managed to pull through with the high demands on me (from me, my teachers and the school mentality in general) was by thinking "this is the worst semester of the entire education. Everyone says that. It will by over soon. Come January, everything will be easier and I'll have time left to do what I truly love again".

But after the Christmas break, about one week into the spring semester, I was there again. I still felt the pressure, the demands, and there was no time whatsoever to relax, make collages, read, take long walks outdoors, even spend time with friends. I felt (still feel like) all I did was being at school, practising, going back and forth on the tram, and trying to take care of all the practical details of a life (doing the dishes, getting something to eat, talking to the boyfriend, getting some sleep).

So, I've come to realise that I need to take a break from school. It is not music that is the problem, but the mentality at school (nothing is ever good enough - you are never good enough - always keep working to get better - never relax in what you already have and are - keep struggling, keep struggling, keep trying to prove to yourself and others that you are good enough) has slowly crept inside of me and is now crawling in me like a strange creature that I certainly didn't invite, and it's eating my musical joy, more of it every day. There is almost nothing left of it now. Yesterday I managed to gather enough musical joy to enjoy rehearsing with my jazz ensemble - but then, my jazz ensemble has nothing to do with school, it's just for fun ...

There is no solution to this. I will take a break in September (I would have wanted to leave immediately, but that's not really possible). But how I'll stand it through these three months before summer break, and what in the world I will do to make a living come September, I do not know. People take a break from school to work a year, but something's telling me that a year at ICA Maxi won't really make me happy, either ... Because the only thing I want to do is DO NOTHING. I daydream about doing nothing.

And I dream about wanting to make collages again. I haven't made anything with my own hands since August, did you know that? And I miss it. But since my collages started becoming popular over at Flickr, I can't even make collages without thinking about what others will think of them ... without preparing to be judged. Yes, I know that nothing's forcing me to put them on Flickr if I make any, or show them to anyone at all, but the attention I got was like a drug, something I got used to and started craving ... And when the pressure of that - the thoughts about whether others would like my collages or not - became too much for me, I stopped making collages, because they took more energy from me than they gave, which has never been the case before.

I don't go to the lindy hop social nights, either. I don't feel like it.

Okay, I really have to go to school now. I have to force myself. I don't go to all my classes. All I want is lay still in my bed, eat muffins and ice cream and watch cheesy movies. I don't even want to listen to music.

I don't even want to listen to music - I do it, but out of habit and to not feel lonely. To think there were days when I couldn't wait to get home to listen to a certain CD! To think there were days when I longed to practise, to work with my voice and piano playing! And since music is my everything, now that I'm losing it, I have nothing left.I am completely lost. And tired, so tired.

2008-02-21T11:24:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note to tell you that I'm hosting this swap over at swap-bot. If you save leftovers and scrap papers and magazine clippings and other nice pieces of papers, and would like to get three surprise packages with parts of someone else's collection, make sure to join in the swap. I've received the most lovely pieces of paper in this kind of swaps before. Last day to sign up for the swap is March 5 and the packages must me sent by March 19th.

2008-02-14T16:19:00.003+01:00

I need to calm down. I need time to create. I need to feel that I'm good at doing what I really love doing. I need time. I need to stop focusing on what others will think. I need time to let things sink in and grow slowly. I need to find that true joy in music that has seemed lost lately.

I need to get out of here.