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.

A little bit of this and that ...

+ As seen on the photo blog: Great news! :) I remembered that I can use the lens from my old analog camera with my new(er) digital one. Happy happy! The proportions are a bit weird and it doesn't work quite as well as the other one did, but hey, any photographing is better than no photographing. So I'm thinking I'll use this one until I've saved up some money do buy a new one, or maybe I can wish for it for Christmas.

+ Yesterday morning I thought that since I've spent years and years only remembering the bad things, the criticisms, the sarcasm, I'd spend this one day only listening to the compliments. And it was SO GOOD! And there were so many of them! How can I have not heard all these beautiful things before? I've been all happy all day, I intend to keep on living like this forever.

+ I'm looking forward to having some more time for the collages and arts project in the weeks to come. I've been missing it a great deal while dealing with all the school projects, homework and assignments, so I'm hoping to be able to make a whole lot of collages soon!

+ During the Te Deum (Arvo Pärt) rehearsal yesterday, the first one with full orchestra, everything clicked into place and the music, which has been so hard for me to form in my mouth, started forming itself and just floated out of my mouth. I love it when that happens, it's so rewarding to feel things loosen up a little bit, after weeks of work with a headstrong piece that didn't let me in at first.

+ I've been in town with Hanna all day (and Lisa part of the day). It's been lovely and I found a perfect black dress and cardigan (to wear when singing with choirs on finer occasions when black is required), and some other really nice things that will be shown sooner or later. I look forward to showing you my new ring which will be worn all the time with anything and everything.

+ I am now registered for the Snowball, a six-day lindy and balboa camp in Stockholm over New Year's. I thought that I'd have to cancel that to pay for a new lens, but since I found another solution I can still go, hooray! It looks like all the good teachers except for Vincenzo & Isabella will be there (as in Peter & Ramona, Frida & Skye, Henrik & Joanna, Steven Mitchell etc.). So looking forward to it! (If only I can found a place to stay when I'm there. We decided to get train tickets and all, but we've no idea where we'll be going to sleep ...)

Now I'm off to the balboa night. I haven't been dancing balboa for a while (seeing as planning the lindy classes has taken a lot of time) so I'm hoping I won't embarass myself ... Nah, it will be great!

So here's what happening:

I danced with Kristian on Wednesday; we were planning the first beginners-indermediate class, and I had decided not to dance too much, just do the necessary talking and then go home early, and then he put on Hayburner and we were in the big ballroom and had all the space in the world ... and I was like ... "oh well, one song can't hurt". And we danced, and it may have been one of our best ever. Gah, I'm so incredibly lucky to be his partner. Luck is what it is; we didn't really decide to be partners, it just happened, we just knew that it would work out. It's that magical connection again: I know very well that not everyone would work as well with him as I do (even though I've never heard of anyone disliking dancing with him), and I know lots of people who do not work well with me. But I don't care ... as long as I can dance with him a little bit now and then. Ooooh, it was so good I kept laughing and laughing. You know, when the momentum's so perfect that your stomach loves it. That's what I'm dancing for, those moments.

Afterwards I felt out of breath, weak and feverish-sweaty, so I guess it wasn't a great idea. But for that one dance it was so worth it.

So well, I'm still sick. Nothing's changing there.

Been doing some painting, in my journal. Just colors. Don't know yet what will come of it. Parts of me feel like leaving the spreads like they are, light blue, bright blue, gold, light yellow, some orange, a little bit of beige. But my fingers really want to add something to them ... I don't know what yet. It's exciting, to leave them open on my desk to dry, and go do something else (stand on the balcony, play betapet, write a blog entry, stalk someone on facebook), and then go back and suddenly see what needs to be done (at least that's what often happens, so I'm kind of hoping that's what'll happen now, too). It's a beautiful process to be part of ... when it's working.

J was here last night, to cheer me up a little bit (and make me some food). It worked of course, sometimes just being around him works. Sometimes it astounds me that we actually met on a bus (on a regular city bus, not one going far, I don't know what you call buses going between different cities and such) and that we're still best friends five years later. Sometimes it's the most natural thing in the world - how else would I get to know such an amazing, interesting and surprising individual, if not in an amazing, interesting and surprising way?

It struck me today that I'm probably sick now for a reason. I had it all planned out, you know, what I should do with these days to be super perfectly prepared for school; maybe what I need is to not prepare at all, maybe what I need is just go there in two weeks and sing, with my own voice, like I always do, and enjoy it, like I always do (but in different ways).

That felt good. This summer didn't turn out quite as I had planned ... but not in a bad way. It never does, does it?

I'm listening to Tides by Nitin Sawhney. So soothing, always. I waste my time (because I need to use it up somehow) by surfing internet pages that are all about looks: collage art (of course), but also what to wear, how to live, and I keep thinking that that's all just fine, but there is nothing like music. You will have to forgive me this. I can see a marvellous compostion, colors that make me feel like I want to lay down and die right now because they are so perfect, but it will never be like singing.

And I haven't even been able to sing, or play, for two weeks, it's killing me.

Not that I don't enjoy collaging anymore. (Actually, I haven't enjoyed it as much as of late, but more on that another time. And also, note to self, do write something about how I've been feeling like a lousy photographer wannabe lately.) But it's like - collaging, and color, and beautiful clothing, it will just have to come secondly. Collage is what I do to describe my life, express it, in a way; music is it, it is the core. I think that's what have made it so easy for lindy to take over the time and emotion I used to put in art journaling. I have to struggle to make my collages look like music, but it is not hard at all to make dancing look like music. If it doesn't show the music, it is not dancing.

Photo taken at a camp with my friends, 1999, and scanned for facebook photo albums.

I have heard that the songs that matter the most to us, are the songs that we associate with both happy and sad memories; the songs that make us want to laugh and cry at the same time; the songs that make us nostalgic; the songs that remind us of someone, someone that we loved, before.

That's what I have heard. And I think that whoever said this (I don't remember) was right - to a certain point.

Because there are songs, in my life, that don't make me sad at all. There are songs that are connected only to happy memories. Passing By by Ulrich Schnauss is one of them. I first heard it when I saw Elizabethtown, a movie that everyone else hates but that I love. You hear it as they drive to meet each other in the middle of the night, and it's so perfect, it suits me so well; seeing as I love going someplace by car in the middle of the night.

I made this collage in my Moleskine as some sort of tribute to this song; because I love it, and because it makes me happy, and because it makes me think of last April and how I changed my life, then. How I decided that I deserve to be loved.



In other news, I am sick. It's just a cold, and a slight fever. The days are okay. The nights are worse, I don't sleep, I am cold and sweating at the same time, I wake up every thirty minutes, coughing.

I have only myself to blame - I knew already last week that I was going to be sick (I didn't allow myself to be sick during Herräng, I just thought "afterwards you can be sick, not now"), I felt it in my throat, but still I went to the lindy exchange. Oh, well. I intend to be well by Friday, when I'm going to Stockholm to visit Robin. You hear that, fever? I intend to be well by Friday.

I should make me some dinner. I'm no good at cooking. Always the same dishes. But the ones I make, I make them good. My friends like my lentil soup.

There is something very liberating about English. There are so many words. I once read that English has a lot more words than Swedish - not surprising of course, since there are so many more English speakers than Swedish speakers - and I wish now I could remember the exact amount. How many words does a language hold? How many of them are necessary to communicate? What is poetry? Most of the poetry I've read in my life annoys the hell out of me. How important is communication to us? To me, everything.

I should make dinner, instead I sit at my table (I usually don't call it my desk, it's not really a desk: it's a kitchen table, a really large one, that I use as a desk, I bought it because of the size and the color, a very warm light shade of brown, maybe it's oak or something supposed to resemble oak, what do I know) making collages. I painted over an old one, about courage, that was too pale to be about courage. Then I wrote "Things I love about myself, part 1: My ability to love. It's the best thing about me". I mean it very much. There is nothing better about me. I have been let down, cheated on, deserted, ditched, dumped and just simply left behind. Still I love. I am very selfish (working on that), but I love.

I'll show the collage to you later, when the paint's dry.

I listen to Nando Lauria. I listened to him a lot during Herräng, too; every time I took a nap I started by listening to music in my headphones - it's a way of spending time with myself, being alone, even in a gym full of people sleeping or resting or whispering. Taking care of myself and my own thoughts, if you wish.

The painting above is called "piano". I made it for my brother as a birthday gift last year. 50x60 cm.

Maybe what I need do to is combine acrylics and collage and put it in a book.

I need a small book, Moleskine-sized or a little bit wider, with not to many, but sturdy and nicely smelling pages. A small photo book maybe? Yes, I think that's what I need.

Collage from early January 2007; I think this is one of the last I made while I still had that urge to keep going - that need to create. Dear, is it that long ago? Apart from a burst of inspiration in April (and then I had to force it to get started, really force it), I haven't made anything worth to mention since January. Something really must be done.

This collage is my most popular one on Flickr. Before I started thinking about it, that fact was a mystery to me. I've made several collages that I've been more happy with ... Collages that I thought people would like more. But out of the 129 collages I've put on Flickr, this one is what people like the most. But it's really nothing, I thought, it's just a list of things I love (go to the flickr page to read the notes), and some squares of color. And then I thought that that might be it: It doesn't get better than what happens when I let anything happen.

In a spontaneous comment on the collage's flickr page, I wrote this: "I am so amazed that there are so many of you liking this and adding it to your favorites. It is my most random collage, my most spontaneous and unplanned, I had no intention whatsoever to make anything beautiful. Now it is my most popular one, and it seems to be inspiring, too. I think there's a lesson concerning my worries and efforts about 'making something beautiful' for me there."

Just wanted to put that here too. That lesson is one I should think about more often. Hm ... I have a feeling there will be more on this subject later on, once I've found the cure for this collage drought of mine. Or maybe thinking about that would work as a cure?