Snusmumriken

The day i started this weeklong exam, I had a throat ache. “Oh well” I thought. “I have a good immune system. I’ll be fine tomorrow.” Yesterday I had a runny nose, a throatache and a fever. I blamed the summer that was happening outdoors when I was indoors trying to write. Today I have a throatache, a fever, a nose running over with blood-stained snot (it’s pretty revolting) and i’m coughing up crusty substances. Oh. And whenever I breath it sounds like someone are playing a flute or something.

I don’t approve of this.

What happened to the good old “drinking tea, havimg my exams, feeling like i’m able to do a good job”. It’s not present in this exam at least.

High up on my list of “stuff i don’t really need and therefore probably don’t want, but which still is awsome” is this Pig speaker and radio. Unfortunately I can’t come up with a situation where i’ve needed to play low music outdoors.

Since my last post, i’ve been to finland, and to england, and i’ve ben high and low doing loads of stuff that I’ve been either planning to write about later, or just pushing to the back of my head. I just came home from Solmukohta and Finland where i and Martine made a larp, and where I got all kinds of inspiration for stuff i don’t really have the time to do, but sorely want to. I might write better about it later on. The real reason why i’m updating, is to tell everyone that I can’t find my phone. It’s probably somewhere in the luggage, seeing as i had it on the plane, but if anyone needs to get hold of me, it’s probably easier if you contact me here, on facebook, on mail or skype or even call my neighbour, Mikael. I’ll get back in touch as soon as i manage to.

I was going to work out today, I really was. I’ve been carrying my gym clothes around, and I was mentally prepared for it this morning. But then something happened. It might have been because I’ve had a wonderfully effective day up at riksarkivet from 9-18.30 (that’s the opening hours), where I’ve transcribed a nine pages long interview from gothic handwriting to machine, where I’ve read and included 20 interviews in my nifty database, and where i’ve written two pages of the chapter that needs to be written this week. It might be because I wanted to go home and write more, because weird and fun contradictions and agendas suddenly popped out of my source material and wanted me to write about them. It might be because it was 6 and a half hour since lunch and I had forgotten to bring any extra food. No matter what the reason was, I decided to go home, make myself some dinner and get some writing done before going to bed. I’ve gotten into a habit of doing an hour of marthe-yoga before going to bed every night, which helps a bit with the sleeping, and i told myself, very convincingly that that would suffice.

I headed home, searched the dustbins, floors and seats of the t-bane for newspapers, and managed to get through three of them on the way. Dagsavisen had a long article about how problematic it is that so many people start working out after new years, and then stop after a few months. “You don’t have to work out much, - start by going twice a week” said the random work out-expert in the paper.

First: whenever I have convinced myself that whatever I decide to do is good and right. The world shouldn’t feel the need to make some sarcastic comment about it.
Second: In what paralell universe is working out two times a week not much? What kind of lives do people have? Don’t they have hobbies, friends/family, jobs that for some reason never finish when the hours are up?

I got up at eight today, threw on a jumper because I don’t believe in heated houses (that’s a lie, I just can’t stand high temperatures) and drank my morning coffee in bed while reading test-chapters that two of my fellow students had written for a group meeting with our study adviser today. It took a bit longer than planned, and I ended up getting dressed really quickly, making lunch even faster and packing my bag faster than I thought possible. For some reason I couldn’t find my rucksack, i guess I must have thrown it into a closet or something in an act of tidyness, - and I ran to school.

While running, I realised I hadn’t put my bra on, but I didn’t have the time to return home.

Different people, and especially different generations have different views on what’s considered decent. My mum thinks you can be decently dressed while not wearing a bra, but that for instance showing too much of your breasts is less decent. I don’t care about how much of people’s thighs and breasts I see, but I feel practically vulgar when my tits are jumping up and down (usually making my jumper ride upwards). Today, i’ve been oddly concious of my appearance. I’ve even been wearing my (rather thin) jacket indoors to prevent people from noticing this act of not being properly dressed.

This could have happened on a day where I didn’t have a full program until eight in the evening. Of course it happened today. Stupid world.

After having been “repaired” for three months or so, I finally got my old phone back, unrepaired. The repairing firm wrote that it was water-damaged which isn’t convered by the guarantee. And no. I haven’t been dipping the phone in glasses of water, not even tea (although, being diuretic and all, perhaps that would drain hte water out of the phone.) The phone really wasn’t even moist when it broke.

Seeing as the phone I’m currently using insist on turning itself off everytime I speak to anyone, even when the battery is full, i started looking for the cheapest noki (those are hte only ones i understand) phone i could find online. The chess web shop doesn’t have any cheap ones anymore, and i think the cheapest one I found online is the nokia 1200. But it doesn’t say if it has a wirdlist-function. Does all phones have a wordlist function these days?

Please say that it has. It looks nice and low tech.

Today I’ve been to the dentist and filled my first (albeit tiny) cavity since I was 18. I’ve also checked my eyesight, and although my eyesight seems to be the best on this side of town, which is relieving, my head hurts. Off to study, I guess, and i’ve picked up the unrepaired phone.

1. My back is burning. The doctor said “you probably have hypersensitive skin” when i sked her if i was about to get an infection from all the work out machines, the all day sessions in front of hte computer and all the guitar playing, - but she just told me to eat painkillers and keep on doing whatever i usually do. She didn’t even get a blood sample to check for infections. I’ve been eating four rounds of ibuprofen+paracetamol a day like she told me to, but refrained from… doing back-exercises at the gym, writing too much on the computer and playing guitar. It got a bit better. As the doctor said it was the skin that hurt, nothing muscular, i tried using that ZON cream, but that make it worse, not feeling your skin and still hurting underneath isn’t nay fun. And then i had to write on the computer today and the day before, and i ended up playing guitar because i wanted to and BAM. Now it pains so much it’s hard to focus. Sensitive skin my arse.

2. I have found the appartment of my dreams.

3. My mother talked to some person at the bank, who said “yes she’s a student, but she can get a “first home loan”, seeing as she has lots of savings and seeing as she can rent one of the rooms to someone. But now i talked to the bank, and of course I am chanceless. To be allowed take the fact that I’d be renting out a bedroom into consideration when buying a place, it needs to have it’s own toilet and it’s own kitchen. I’ve never had my own kitchen or toilet. Ever. What kind of a rule is that? I know i could manage. I’ve been budgeting and i know it would work if they would give me the money. But when they won’t, and when the man on the phone sounded really patronising, like “oh, you think you can get a loan when you have one and a half year left of your studies, you are so cute”-patronising. It’s no use. I’m not trying that again until… a long time from now.

Does that mean that the only way to buy an appartment is that my parents get a loan, buy the house, and then gradually transfers it to me?

This was an annoyed rant. I’ll write something smarter later on.

I’m sad now.

Of all the abilities I’ve developed over the last few years, the ability to not be stressed because of exams is the one I benefit the most from. Other abilities, like the ability to drink large amounts of beer, or the ability to dance the troika has given me less. I remember the olden days of anxiety, when I would be almost paralysed because my exams were coming.

I especially remember one night just before my early european history exam back in 04. I woke up, bathed in sweat because I had dreamt that on the day of my exam, everyone else had recieved their tasks in advance so that they could prepare themselves, while I myself was completely unprepared. Being ignorant of something like that would be a real nightmare. But fortunately, a nightmare was all it ever was. When I walked into the kitchen that morning, still a bit shaky from the dream, Martine, who was my neighbour entered. She was just as shaky as I was, having dreamt that Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, who was the minister of culture at the time, had given the exams a cultural reform, so that all early european history exams should be written as ballads, and everyone would get marked according to how well the ballad genre was mastered.

During the last five days, I’ve realised that I might be a bit stressed out after all, and although my mind refuses to be aware of this, I think my body notices. And when my body decides to tell me that spending all my late nights bent over a book isn’t healthy, it doesn’t do it quietly. About a week ago, I lost my ability to sleep. Simultaneously, my body decided that all it’s old food allergies should come back at once. Thus, I lay awake until five in the morning, and when I finally fall asleep, I wake up because of stomach cramps. When you’re really tired, locating pain is rather hard, so I wake up because something’s wrong, and I don’t know what it is. Thank you body. That’s not the way to make me relax. It’s actually the only way to make me stressed.

I’ve been attacked by that all consuming tiredness that just wants me to curl up in bed and hide from the rest of the world. Yesterday, I realised at half past five that I couldn’t understand what I was reading anymore. I got up. Got home. Made fish soup for dinner and went straight to bed and watched a good film. I fell asleep before 12, and decided to sleep until I woke up. I slept until half past nine, when my body rejected everything it had eaten during the last couple of days. When I arrived at school, I was still shaky. Now I just want to go home.

What fascinates me about tiredness, is how it’s rarely proportional with what I have to do, and rarely proportional with how much I work. I can have exhausting weeks, where I work from early in the morning to midnight, and still be up for a beer on friday night.

Tiredness often comes in retrospect. I had one of those 8 in the morning to 2 at night-working weeks about a month ago. Then I went to istanbul and hardly slept at all. It was wonderful, and I wasn’t even remotely tired. Then I got ill and still had a normal working week. Then I went to copenhagen. It was wonderful and had a packed program from early morning to late evening. Of course I wasn’t tired. How could I be. I had a wonderful time. Then I had another normal working week. Still not tired. Still feeling fresh. But now. Suddenly at the end of the week if feels like I’m only artificially awake. My body’s still sleeping.

There’s a party tonight. I bet I’ll wake up when I arrive there. Now I’m returning to my coffee and the theory of the absolute monarchy.

I’ve always ben inarticluate. I’ve always been told that it’s hard to grasp what im saying. I like to think that it’s because everyone have a limited time to express themselves, and if you talk twice as fast as everyone else you manage to express twice as much. It’s a good thought, but as i’ve been becoming more and more inarticulate over the years, i’ve come to suspect that i express less that your average person instead. I was talking to my dad on the phone today, and it was so hard to get all the words out. It’s like I’ve been having a stroke, in my sleep. Without noticing.

When I came home today, i just sank down in the tub, and i sat there for two hours reading a novel. Until the water had gone cold and needed refilling. Until my feet had gotten webs and i felt the gills starting to form underneath my skin. It’s how I like it, but it was also because I was a bit tired.

I curled up in bed and watched rockstar on video, and turned it off just after Izzy had made his grand sorti, and way before he went fuzzy with the acoustic guitar that ugly jumper. I hate when they try to wrap up a story with an unneeded epilogue.

I just got my fourth period in three weeks. You should all try it sometime. It’s like having a mood swing surprise every time you don’t expect it. Fun as hell. Gues i better ask the doctor if it’s normal. I mean… I have a body that works those natural cycles to perfection, but then I interrupt it. Voluntarily. Perhaps I should be fertile instead. I guess it’s better than voluntarily embracing anemia.

I’m having the post roskilde blues throat ache, which is a bit annoying. It’s like I’m walking in a forget my lunch - stop sentences in mid air - spill a full cup of coffee over my clothes at work - daze with additional difficulty to swallow. But I’m borrowing some work trousers from one of the men at work, and it rarely lasts for more than a week.

I didn’t get student housing for next year, which is a bit sad as I had settled with the idea of going back to sign studentby. But I’m planning to go and look at appartments in oslo this weekend, and someone i used to know asked me if I wanted to start a collective with them. It sounds like a good plan. I’m not really worried, but I want to find somewhere to live a soon as possible.

I’m able to play a whole song now. Badly, loaded with mistakes and, but it’s a full song. I’m happy. It feels like progress. Actually: life is pretty awsome. And here’s a photo of mr. dresden dolls drummer. Just because it’s cute. though not as cute as this hedgehog.