iki and her dreams

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i've started a new blog elsewhere. if you want to follow it, contact me personally or write a comment here and i'll give you the new link. it won't appear on search engines for obvious reasons.

i hope to keep my followers. i've valued your feedback and i appreciate that you chose to read my thoughts about life. spread your wings and follow me. the first post will be about a twin (a second one, more digital), that i didn't know existed until today.


xx iki

almost all of the original post.....

the small things in life. what a cliché. but they really make me happy! like, walking barefoot in the grass. or seeing flowering löjtnantshjärtan (why do they have so many names in english?). watching someone i care about laughing with his friends in uppsala. and the warm feeling of sun after a buzz cut.



when i was a teenager i listen to hiphop. at that time, hiphop was about politics, not about sexism (or maybe i just found the good hiphop). my boyfriend at the time being was not a hiphopper but rather listened to rock. and i found the first rock song that i really liked, holy diver. it's a classic. and it's still good. so learning that dio has died was sad. i'm glad i saw him live last year at wacken. i hope the rest of the old men survives until sonisphere.. :X

M kindly looked after our jewellery at the aoh, and we are satisfied although we didn't sell much. at all. anyways, i learned something: if we want to make any profit, we have to buy the material online to get the prices down, and we have to re-use designs. it takes so much time to come up with a new design! i've made a necklace for my sister's friend, and i sure will reuse this design - with other colors. pink is so not me. but i'm not the one who'll be wearing this one;

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biking to work this morning, i smelled a fresh mowed lawn. and i felt like 12 again, longing for summer holiday. i wanted to take my shoes off and walk bare-foot, and roll around in the grass. i'm trying to stop myself from the latter when people are watching. possibly i'll go watch the calves' first encounter with grass at the test farm where M works. not sure how i will feel about it. happiness is always lovely, but even though this may be one of the better farms in sweden it is still part of an industry i don't believe in.

the lilacs are flowering. that normally happens in the end of june, at the end of the school term. i love it.

i'm trying to move on with my life. it's about time now.

i was emailing with C about break-ups, and when looking at what i had just written, i realised that while she was talking about my recent break-up with D i was actually rather talking about my previous break-up. but i guess what we concluded is true for both of them; break-ups are never easy but sometimes the relationship is even worse. and i realised that even though looking after my very depressed friend some two weeks ago almost got me to seek psychological advice for myself, it did also help me in the long run. she's a lot better now, she's stronger than she knows. but when she lost her grip on life, i had to let go of other people to take on her pain. so now that she is better, i've already stepped back from these other people, one in particular. and thanks to that, my main concern can and has to be myself, getting my own life sorted out and working proper hours again.

last weekend i was flying. that was so amazing!

a lovely gift from lovely people, C went up too (do we ever do things without each other?) and she seemed to enjoy it too, although she's always more sensible than i am. it was a bit cloudy so we sent around inside the clouds, and then i got to take over the levers, it was surprisingly hard to keep the plane stable while making turns. then halfway through the instructor turned the engine off, it got soo quiet and we kept flying for another ten minutes or so. of course we dived and turned upside-down, my stomach didn't like that part but i love the thrill. yay! i totally recommend that if you get the chance to try it.

jeez gotta sleep now! up in five hours to go hiking. i think a lot better at night so i tend to stay up late, but this weekend is planned according to normal people's hours.

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The one thing that keeps me sane these days is making jewellry. I was nervous when I posted letter to England, with the work of my beloved sister and me. what if people don't like it? what if noone buys anything? it's the first time we try to sell any of our work and i can't really emagine anyone paying for my hobby, but now that we're into it, i want to perform perfectly, as always.

i'm trying to learn to forgive myself.

i was slightly worried that the whole thing would turn into a competition between my sister and me, and i really didn't want that. so we discussed this and she's just so easy talking to. it's so relieving to have someone that i can be absolutely honest with. and we discussed it and sorted it all out. and i think we're both satisfied if we sell one single piece.

one good thing about the jewellry making, apart from that we both find it relaxing to work with our hands and it's good for us to have a reason to leave work at an appropriate time, was that it gave us an excuse to see each other more often. i really really love my sister <3 she's also been an unvaluable support these last days when too many things have gone wrong at the same time.

so since i can't sleep at the moment (hmm that's nothing new about that), i've made some more stuff that we didn't send to England. here's my latest piece of work:

I'm actually quite proud X-D

or actually, i have another even newer thing. tonight C and i went to a glass fusing course, that was totally new to me. we chose among small shattered pieces of glass and combined them. then we heated this in an oven and it all melted (fused) together into one single multi-coloured glass stone. totally amazing! we were four people and everyone's work turned out oompletely different and individual, and it all looked good. i can't manage to get a proper photo of it, but the two larger triangles are yellowish green and greenish blue, and the small one in the middle is dark blue. or so they ended up after the heating process - the bottom layer is one big single piece of black glass, then i put the triangle shaped pieces on that and a clear peice of glass diagonal on top of everything. this clear glass has pressed the middle blue thing down, creating a depth in the final product. this was definitively worth trying.


ok time to sleep i suppose, and stop showing off :)

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I've been so moody this last few days I almost think I'll get my period soon. That would explain a lot. But I think the real, major cause is a boss with too much to do and too little time to listen.

Anyway I did a cheesecake today for the work party tomorrow. Somehow, spending an hour in the kitchen just helped me leave most of the stress behind. It was the same recipe that I used for my vegan birthday two weeks ago (yes I've been a vegan for over seven years now! hooray!). Here comes the cakes I made then. I had planned to take photos of them 'cause the all looked really nice, but as usual I was running late and my guests had started to arrive so I skipped that.

I'm lacking some baking words in English so if you want to, enlighten me :D

Cheesecake with rum and cherries
(from veganvrak.blogspot.com)
bottom
12 digestives
60g milk-free margarine
a little (a teaspoon or so) vegetable oil, optional
a teaspoon of lemon juice

main layer
400 g Tofuline original soft cheese, or some equivalent
0.5dl white rum or 0.5dl over-diluted cherry squash and 10 drops of rum essence
1dl oat cream
2dl jelling sugar multi

top layer
2dl cherry squash
2dl jelling sugar multi

This is one of Sara's (the creator of the veganvrak blog) latest cheesecakes and it's really nice. I made another one for the Christmas Party in Sussex and it seemed to be appreciated. Sara's cheesecakes takes about an hour to prepare and as with most cakes they're better if made the day before they are to be eaten, and left in the fridge overnight.
The top layer for this cheesecake is obviously a bit more boring than using raspberries or smth, but then again it has to be a more subtle flavour to go well with the rum taste. I decorated this cake with kiwi fruit, but it would probably work fine to make the top layer from passion fruits and water instead of cherry squash to make it more aesthetically attractive.
I guess that the jelling sugar is called different things in different countries, but when I scroogled 'jelling sugar' I found a sugar forum (!! :D) mentioning 'jelling sugar multi' which is a direct translation of Swedish name, so that should be it. You know, the kind of sugar you use for panna cotta. Anyways here we go!

bottom
preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. melt the margarine. you can use 75g of margarine or 50g of margarine and some sunflower oil (doesn't need melting, obviously).
crush the digestives by hand. add melted margarine and some lemon juice, and add sunflower oil if needed to create a digestive paste.
spread the paste in a sponge pan, preferably one where you can remove the sides (springform?).
bake in the middle of the oven for 7 minutes. allow to cool.

middle layer
mix the soft cheese with a spoon to make it smooth. this mixing is especially important if the cheese is fridge cold, you want it to be room tempered and nice. add rum or rum essence and some overly diluted cherry squash (some cherry taste is good but this layer should mainly taste of rum). mix the cheese and the liquid.
i couldn't find tofuline cream cheese in UK, so there I used 4/5 tofutti cream cheese and 1/5 silken tofu, and then added a bit of sour supreme. I'm sure there are better and easier combinations, only tofutti might work fine but that cheese is a bit more firm than tofuline so maybe it's good to add some extra liquid (cherry squash or oat cream) to this layer then. it's not as complicated as it may sound! :D

pour the jelling sugar and the cream in a pan and bring to a boil. allow to boil for 30 second, then remove from the heat. mix with the soft cheese mixture, and spread this in the sponge pan. place in the fridge to cool down.

top layer
mix the cherry squash and jelling sugar in a pan. I used cherry squash that was twice as concentrated as the recommended, but that might be a bit too much.
bring to a boil and boil for 30 seconds. cool down a little and carefully spread this on top of the main layer. if you pour it too quickly onto the middle layer, the layers will mix which is not the point. try using a spoon. you'll notice that if you're too quick it becomes uneven and if you're too slow the mix solidifies in the pan before you're done, so I think it's useful to decorate the cake with sliced kiwi fruit or strawberries or so.


Chocolate cake with a hint of orange
I haven't found a good English word for 'kladdkaka' - it's a chocolate cake made with less flour than a normal sponge cake and no baking powder, so it ends up being a bit muddy in the middle. If you bake it for too long, it bets chewy and then hardens, which is good too but not really the point.
My sister recommended me to do this cake and then melt orange-flavoured chocolate and spread on top. My local supermarket didn't carry such chocolate that was vegan, or maybe I just didn't find it, but anyway I used 70% chocolate and orange peel which was fine too.



Muddy chocolate cake
(dagensvegan.blogspot.com)
1.25 dl soy cream (not oat cream)
3dl sugar
1 teaspoon orange peel (or vanilla sugar)
4 tablespoons cacao powder
a tiny bit of salt
1.5 dl flour
1dl melted milk-free margarine

Top layer
(vegania.net)
100g chocolate
1 teaspoon orange peel (if you didn't find orange-flavoured chocolate)
50g melted milk-free margarine
1.5dl icing sugar

Cake
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Mix all the ingredients. Use soy cream, not oat cream, I don't know why but it just doesn't work.
Spread some oil (another word I'm lacking! how do you call that?) in a sponge pan and add finely crushed bread, cereal germ or whatever you normally use to get a non-sticky surface on the pan.
Pour the mix into the pan and bake in the over for about 30 min. If the pan is wide and the cake is thin, it's obviously done quicker.
The cake is great like this, with ice cream or vanilla sauce or so. or you can make it with orange peel and then make an orange-flavoured top layer.

Top layer
melt the chocolate, add the margarine, mix until everything is melted and well mixed, then add the orange peel.
slowly add the icing sugar and mix well.
spread on top of the cake

Sauce
I made a raspberry sauce to this, by simply boiling raspberries and orange peel for a few minutes.



Muffins
(vegan.nu)
I'm just way too lazy to make cupcakes, so I make muffins. It's exactly the same recipe as for sponge cake, but 15 min in the oven (225 degr Celsius) instead of 45 min (175 degr C)
It's also a wonderful basic recipe, and then it's easy to add whatever flavour you want.

4dl flour
1.5dl sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
100g milk-free margarine or 1dl sunflower oil
2dl soy milk
flavour of your choice, e.g.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder, 200g crushed pineapple without the juice, 0.5dl dried coconut flakes
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 0.5 teaspoon cardamom, 1 finely sliced apple, 0.25dl dried coconut flakes
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1.5dl lingonberry jam (tehn use only 1dl soy milk)

Preheat the oven to 225 degr Celsius (muffins). Mix all the ingredients and bake in the oven for 15 min. Sooo simple!



Whatever-berry Pie
Aough I didn't use a recipe and I'm getting really tired so I won't give you a recipe for this one. But it's simple. Might add one later.
I made a raspberry pie late Friday night after my sister had gone home, but then the next morning when I had breakfast I couldn't find my lingonberry jam in the fridge... but I found an unopened raspberry jam in the cupboard. I never tried the pie, I hope it was okay :D

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my heart is still bleeding, and i'm emotionally exhausted. i watch the stars emerge and the new day come. i'm careful not to feel too much. i watch the weather change and the hours pass and i don't see the point of anything. i avoid loneliness but sometimes i'd be better off seeking it. the ultimate loneliness is when speaking to someone and they just don't understand. but still, as time passes, i know that some damage will heal and some ache will fade.

so i listen to anna ternheim and i wait for the tide.

if i dwell on like this much longer, i'll start feeling sorry for myself. and that's not very attractive, is it? last year when i couldn't sleep - for other reasons, for work - H was such great company and support. sometimes, he'd walk with me for hours in a sleeping Stockholm, until i was physically tired and could sleep a little. sleepwise (is that a word?), i'm better now than i was then. and my self esteem is better than it was a couple of years ago. i know i will survive this. it's just that now, being in the middle of the mess, i so need that ease, and i don't see it happening.

i've deleted the last three entries. i still mean every word i wrote. maybe, some things should not be published. maybe, i'm censored.

i'm walking on such a thin line now. i'd need some time to just be me, with no expectations from others. or maybe all expectations are from me? how do i know?

ok this will just be a short note before going back to work. no i'm not 'celebrating' easter :) but apart from eating animals and eggs, there is another obscure easter tradition that belongs to the past - the idea of decorating our homes with feathers from turkeys and other birds.

if you're considering buying feathers, or eating chicken, watch this short documentary first. it's only four minutes. (and don't consider buying those things anymore!)

some good news: http://www.city.se/ the issue from 1st of April, page 8-9

Last week was lovely, skiing in Norway with friends and colleagues (sometimes they’re both, which makes working nicer, but maybe I would leave the lab earlier if I didn’t have so much fun there). We’ve been doing this for some five years now and it’s getting better every year, with more people joining. K had her first days ever on skies, did really well – she even tried a blue slope for a bit! - but got a fractured leg on the second day and was stuck in the cabin for the rest of the week, jumping around on crutches. I knew that she has a positive attitude but I didn’t realise just how positive she is until then; she didn’t complain even once, her joking kept us all happy. Lovely girl she is.

I fell more in the red slopes than in the black ones.. Maybe I’m too careful in the black slopes, going too slowly. It was nice to see that I’m improving – that’s the good thing about being a beginner, it’s easy to improve. I’ll upload photos once my computer is working again. Still haven’t had time to reinstall everything after the virus, and yes I’ll install Windows again, and no I don’t like it, of course I should use Linux and support open source but wtf, both Linux and Windows works perfectly fine normally, but if something goes wrong, I won’t be able to fix it. So I’ll stick to an OS that I have friends who are competent in. Even though I really, really don’t like supporting Microsoft.

The recent (well, couple of weeks ago now – haven’t written anything for quite a while, combination of the lack of a computer at home and too much work lately) study visit to a brewery in Stockholm was interesting. A couple of years ago I tried to find out if crushed bones from animals are still used in the clearing of beer, to know what types I could drink, so I called two different breweries and spoke to two or three people at each, and they all said different things, so I just gave up and first only had what I knew (believed) was safe and later had whatever I wanted. Now the brewery master assured us that crushed bones are never used in Europe except UK where it’s still used in some small breweries and in some American breweries too. Seems so very .. old-fashioned.

Anyway he also said that expensive beer costs more because the label has more colours, or they’ve had more ads for that beer. Apparently the difference in costs when making the beers is minimal. The next week I went to see a documentary about the straight edge community, if you can say that there is still such a community. And I can really understand why people chose to live like that. Although several sXe people I’ve met tend to judge others, which repels me.

... is NOT a day to 'celebrate'. Nor to buy gifts for yourself because some company wants you to think you're worth it; we don't need their products. It's a day to act, as is every day in this society... I've been stuck in the lab all day, but now it time to meet the sisters out there and take the night back.

I've been thinking about this for days but just haven't had time to write... but this will be another post of news that I either like or dislike.

First the news that I believe will affect the most people. I can say loads of positive and negative things about the European Union - and I tend to bring up more negative stuff - but this is really, really stupid. It is, of course, the proposal that women should be ensured money for staying home the first six weeks after giving birth.
This new directive is part of proposals first unveiled in October 2008 but the decision still hasn't been made. The point of the directive is to give mothers a longer and better paid maternity leave just after a baby is born.

Now, don't get me wrong here. It's great that parents are home taking care of their newborn kids. I do strongly believe that kids should have good parents (which is a good reason to allow any reasonable person to adopt children, no matter who they're fucking). But mothers are not necessarily better parents than fathers. So why limit this parental leave to mothers? Why force women to stay at home? This may be better than the current situation in many countries, but it would be a downfall for Sweden. And if we aim at a more equal sitation, why make laws that inhibit that? Why not just write a law about parental leave, rather than maternal?

In some cases, I do believe that we have to use the law to encourage people to make decisions that are good for the society. Like the two months of parental leave that can only be used by fathers, a directive in Sweden that shouldn't be needed since fathers should take their responsiblity (and how could anyone -not- want to be home with their kids?), but since fathers only take 22% of the parental leave, directives like thate one are apparently needed. However, the new EU directive implies that women are more suited for taking care of kids, and excludes fathers from the little family. Why not just make it a non-specified parental leave? Mothers will still take the majority of the parental leave, but at least fathers and maybe even non-biological mothers in lesbian relationships would have the chance to stay home with their little baby. Why limit people? Equality standards that were out of date in the 1950's won't ever help the baby.

From that, let's switch to something good! This is a funny news post, I have a very random way of selecting news... But this is something that made me happy, it's somehow reassuring that people do non-profit actions to gain and spread information.

Latvia suffered a lot from the recent recession, and the unemployment rate at 23%, is the highest in the European Union. Banks and companies have asked the government for help. Now there's a hacker, believed to be a man and calling himself Neo, who's been downloading data from loads of companies and banks, and who is now slowly leaking this information to news sites. Depressingly, he's found that bank managers have not taken the salary cuts they've promised to take, and companies have paid bonuses but at the same time asking the government for economical support. This isn't good at all, but the lovely thing about this is someone investing a lot of time and effort in finding this information and spreading it, so that everyone gets access to it. I'm impressed.

Another man taking a fight for a good cause - a man who should not have been given the Nobel Peace Prize, although he's taking many important fights - is Barack Obama, who is now trying to change the policy that openly homosexual men are not allowed in the American army. I didn't even know they have that policy! But apparently homosexual men aren't even allowed to mention their sexual preferences. That's. simply. ridiculous.

Someone else had a fight a couple of days ago. A killer whale named Tilikum killed a 'trainer' in Florida. Of course I'm not happy about someone's death. But wtf, killer whales belong in the ocean, not in a pool making performances. Leave them alone.

I've finally sent the angry email I've known for a couple of days I'd have to send, so I feel a little relieved now :) Even had to ask M (not the usual M...) to read it before I sent it, I'm so awfully afraid of conflicts, it's ridiculous. And I don't want people to think of me as the bitch I truly am... ;)

And after all, if my tenant leaves a crack and a hole (!!!) in the washbasin, why am I afraid she'd be upset if I email her about it? I hope I can have it replaced without anyone of us having to pay for it, but I doubt that. And considering the usual standard SSSB, they'll probably refuse to exchange it and then charge me for it when I move out :)

My friends who are handy with their cameras should be in Stockholm now, the snow is beautiful! And the frost on the windows at uni is simply stunning. I forgot my camera today but will bring it tomorrow and see if it's still there. One of the patterns look just like a feather.. pretty pretty. It's -15 degrees where I live, it was -32 at my colleagues place out on the countryside yesterday morning, the water in his house has frozen. Saturday I had frost in my hair after being outdoors for only an hour. Looking at snow from the positive side, my lentil-apple-curry pie yesterday cooled down in just a few minutes when I placed it on the balcony.

Apart from that I'm not overwhelmed by the cold and the Swedish handling of snow.. I kindly laughed at England but even though Sweden is a lot better, it's not that impressive. And I'm not the only one who's tired of the snow - a man in southwest Sweden even punched a snow removal man in the face. And apparently upset people in the same area have attacked snow removal machines. I can't see how that would improve the situation... people are stupid. Guess they've gone mad from living in the cold and darkness for so many months. I miss spring.

Haven't written anything for a week, and a lot has happened, so I'm not sure where to start... How about starting at the beginning? :)

Summarising the last days in and around Brighton in respect to activities, I had a great day out on Isle of Wight with D - who, knowing I would never want him to buy flowers for me on Valentine's Day, had spent Friday night folding papers into a flower bouquet. Anyway, we took an early morning ferry to get the whole day on the island, and we had time to see a lot without rushing. We even had time for a quick tea with D's mom. She's very nice, relaxed and easy talking too although her being a psychologist is slightly unsettling, it makes me feel... watched. But it was great to have so much time together with D, and to see the where he grew up, the beach where he learnt to surf, and so on.Sch! Don't disturb the sleeping dragons in the Devil's Chimney! Climb the stairs carefully... There's secrets hiding in the forest beneath...

Beautiful! Supposedly there's a footprint of a dinosaur somewhere on this beach, but we didn't find it. Didn't search that much though, we were quite happy just watching the sea.



Then Tuesday night my beloved sister came over to support me in leaving Brighton. And how I needed that support. We had a nice day together Wednesday, I cleaned my room and we went for a walk in Brighton, finally visiting the beads shop together and having a cake at the Red Veg cafe before my leaving dinner. And I was delighted, and slightly embarassed, by all the gifts those wonderful friends gave me, and I was genuinly happy that they stayed so late for goodbye drinks. Knowing that it was my very last night in Brighton, I didn't want it to end. As I didn't want to end the conversation the next morning, knowing that whenever we left M's place, that was it. But in the end we did leave, to pick up sister's new hiking boots from Vegetarian shoes's store, and for a last goodbye fika with those who don't work all day in a lab. And although I really did appreciate those last days, I also knew that they were coming to an end. Visiting just won't be the same thing as living here.

I'm so glad for the close friends I've found in such short time, for the generosity of people.

Coming back, I knew I belong here, too. Seeing friends I've missed, I know why I've missed them. And I'm left with the feeling of being split, part of me is still in Brighton, part is here, and I want to be in both cities, to live both these lives. It would be easier if life in Stockholm was only crap.. but of course it isn't. Still, I cried myself to sleep my first night, despite - or because of - the happy smile of a certain pig.

I was told that my last blog entry was boring, and I fully agree. I've allowed work to take over my life, again. It was quite a relief to leave Friday night, sitting on the night bus I realised just how tired I was. Sad to see that I keep making the same mistakes.

Got up early Saturday, and I was glad I had been convinced to go out hiking again. The hike itself was cancelled at 11 but at least I got the chance to say goodbye to the amazing lady I've met here, she's just astonishing, doing ever so much. Continued hiking alone, went to Chanctonbury Ring that I've been planning to visit for a while now. The walk up the hill to get there was in itself reason enough to go. There's something about those old trees...

Got up the hill and walked over to Chanctonbury Ring. Met some nice people on the way there. The area around the ring was an amazing place, simply special, can't explain it. When C and I visited Uluru a couple of years ago (damn it's almost five years ago now! but that trip deepened a friendship I still value), I felt things I've never felt before. This was similar, although not at all that strong. I'm very glad I got the chance to see the place. I sat there for a while and then walked over to Cissbury Ring. I didn't plan on going there, so when I took photos of the map in the car I didn't include the Cissbury area, but I got the direction pointed out for me and it didn't seem that complicated. I surprised by the lack of signs but found my way there without problem. Probably gained an extra kilo of weight on the way there, it was really muddy :)Cissbury Ring was more beautiful than Chanctonbury but didn't feel special in the same way. By then the sun had broken through the clouds and the sky was bright blue, pretty! And it's spring here, birds singing and snowdrops and occassional floodings of some roads. On the way from Cissbury Ring to Worthing station I saw the cutest house ever, high grass growing in front of it, run down in a way that just made it look really old. Broken windows, broken gate, just so lovely... Looked a hundred years older than the houses around it. I just couldn't help loving it.

I should stop publishing things before I've read them through! Or maybe I should stop talking to people while writing :) Had to run to the lab while writing this so I just posted it, now I'm adding random comments in italic and rewriting small parts. Guess noone out of my amazing seven followers has read it yet anyway ;)

It's really cold in the room where I'm sitting (and it's getting even colder! there's something utterly wrong with the air conditioning in this building at night) so I've placed a table heating fan next to me, and by now the skin on my arms is getting slightly pink but my feet are still cold. I've taken my shoes off from walking around the whole day - and I've really been walking around the lab the whole day! 15 hours so far and still another five hours in the lab (just three hours left now! yay!), this experiment is killing me. I'm glad there's night buses from uni. Anyway I would have been in earlier if I hadn't stayed home dying my hair this morning ;) Got a haircut done yesterday, no major changes, but that meant I had to dye it.

The hairdresser was surprisingly good! I chose the place because they're open late, until 9 on weekdays which is really good and until 6 on weekends which is just astonishing in Brighton. But I got my hair washed, some head massage (almost fell asleep) and the guy even spent one hour cutting my hair, for just £18! Half price for the first visit. I got exactly the haircut I wanted, and when the guy was finished he suggested a different cut for the fringe and said I could drop by any time next week and he'd do it for free. I don't particularly like the idea of advertise things on my blog so I won't write their name, but I just have to mention them. It was really good PLUS they're open late, which people with odd working hours like me, need.

I just have two more days in the lab now, and I'm quite pleased with some things I've done, and a little frustrated about other things. I've struggled since December with one theoretically very easy thing, and it just doesn't work. I need to do a three-way ligation, cutting some DNA vectors with three different enzymes and ligating the correct part from each of them - not very complicated. But these restriction enzymes just doesn't cut! They all cut in some vectors, so I've finished some of the constructs, but they don't cut in all. We've double-checked the sequencing and the sites are there. Making new preps of the vectors didn't help. One enzyme worked fine for the first month and then stopped working without any obvious explanation, at about the same time as another enzyme started working after E jokingly summoned his ancestors over the tube (he looked a little surprised when it turned out that specific cutting actually worked, but I wish I had such ancestors, seems useful). And one enzyme sometimes cuts twice, although it only has one site in the vector. I've felt like I'm back to primary school, showing gel after gel without cuts for my supervisor here, so frustrating! So this week he did it for me, and it didn't work either. I'm somewhat unhappy that it still doesn't work for no reason, I mean we do need the new vectors, but somehow I'm a little pleased that it's not too simple. I've felt very stupid the past two months.

Had another phone call from Sweden this morning, and what can I say? I really don't feel like going back there. One part of my social life seems to be a complete mess. Someone, I believe it was M, gave me a good quote the other day; be careful what you wish for, you might get it. That applies quite well here, in part to me, but also to certain other people. I just wish I'll be able to keep some friendships that I value.

Time to go back to the lab. Tomorrow I'll sleep in a bit, then I'll have to go and find a gift for my professor here. I ordered a book on a theme that M nicely suggested (seems like I'm not talking to anyone else?), and it was dispatched, then cancelled, and I got an email saying they've sent the wrong book and stopped the whole process, asking if I wanted my money back. So I kindly asked them to send the correct book asap, it seemed better that he gets the book too late, after all the point is that he gets it, not that I personally hand it over to him. But later today I got another email saying they don't even have the book. So why can I order it from their homepage then? And why did it take them two days to tell me this? I'll see what I find tomorrow or if I'll order something online for next week, anyway Y told me where the largest bookstore in Brighton is (I had a very short but nice chat with Y, I was pleased with that), but I can't be in too late tomorrow - my supervisor has promised to show me FRAP and I don't want to keep him waiting. He's increadibly patient and nice, I wonder how much time he's spent on my by now. A lot.

Anyways time to go to the lab. And it seems to be about time to go there again. I've had one single break today that was more than 20 min. This experiment IS indeed taking over my life. But next week I'll be off work! Yay! I have so much to look forward to, disguising the fact that I'm leaving. Another walk in the forest on Saturday, then going to Isle of Wight with D on Sunday, Monday probably to London, then on Tuesday my favourite and only sister comes over, so Wednesday we'll walk all the streets I won't see again for a while, and then I'll say goodbye to the wonderful people here. And then on Thursday I should have plenty of time to get the Brighton reminder that I've been thinking about. I'm obviously trying very hard not to think about how much I'll miss certain people here, and how few days I have left.

After spending some 45 minutes trying to re-activate the sound of my headset microphone (thanks B for your online support.. otherwise i would still be working on it), my grandmother wasn't home :D I feel a bit bad for not calling her often enough, it always seems too late to make phone calls when I get home.


Saturday was nice, went for a lovely walk in the forests again. I have problems getting used to British non-allemansrätt, not being allowed to walk wherever I want in the forest is weird to me. You must stay on the very rare public footpaths, otherwise you're trespassing. Saw loads of snowdrops and some happy rabbits playing with each other, and quite a few deer. My boots were really muddy when I got back home. I was glad I had time to change clothes before having dinner with D's twin brother and mum. She's a psychologist, which is somewhat awkward, she was really nice and I felt somewhat analysed, without knowing what here conclusions were.

Now over to some news that has made me upset lately. First a British one. Britain doesn't have mandatory military service - as D described it, 'we're a civilised country and hence we don't have that'. But still, they spend loads of money on their army and are involved in some wars around the world, a choice that I personally don't find very civilised. So, at a 'homecoming parade' a while ago when soldiers came back, some people protested and called the homecoming British soldiers 'murderers'. Which probably is true. The protesters had communicated with the police on beforehand and agreed on a time and place for this, and according to the protesters' lawyers, police officers did not object to the slogans. Anyway, the protesters have been prosecuted for offending the soldiers, but what I find most upsetting is the comment of the District Judge:
"It is not just insulting to the soldiers but to the citizens of Luton who were out on the streets that day to honour and welcome soldiers home.

Wtf! Soldiers kill people. Killing is murder if it isn't accidental, and war isn't accidental. There's no honour in being in war. Stop being so nationalistic, Britain! I can't help wondering if the men had been judged differently, had they not been Muslims.
(source)

We can compare this to another case soon coming up in court here in England. Two men had been up in a gyrocopter and went to an airfield to re-fuel. While they were there, on the ground, stationary, a man who had been following them approached the gyrocopter ran into the still moving propeller blades, beheading himself. Sad for him and his family, but honestly, it belongs in the Darwin awards. Now, ridiculously, the helicopter driver is accused of attempt of murder. Seriously, the gyrocopter is STATIONARY on the ground and a man, who's breaking the law just by entering the airfield, puts his head in the propeller and dies - and the pilot should be responsible?!
(source)

Another incident made me feel sick and sad this week. In Turkey, a 16-year-old girl has been missing for over a month. She was recently found, in sitting position with her hand tied, buried in the ground outside her family's house. The amount of soil in her stomach and lungs shows that she was alive when buried, and she had no bruises on her body and no traces of narcotics in her blood, so she was likely fully concious when buried. I can't imagine the panic she must have felt. And why did this have to happen? Well, according to her father, the family was unhappy that the girl had male friends. OMG! She's talking to boys! Let's bury her alive! What's wrong with people?
(source)

Now that's enough of sad news. Let's try and find something positive that has happened in the world lately... Why are the newspapers filled with tragedies? After all, there are good things happening, too.

A funny thing I've noticed in the little family I'm living with here, not sure if I've mentioned it before.. Kitkat, the smaller of the brother cats, eats tofu but won't touch wheat fake chicken, while Shadow completely dismisses tofu but got overexcited and tried climbing up my leg to get the cheatini wheat chicken. The climbing would have been easier for him (and less painful for me) if he had been a little bit more slim. Lovely ones, I'll miss them.

It's only 16 days left now! Unbelievable. I've felt a little sorry for leaving my life here ever since I got back from my Xmas holiday, which is somewhat stupid - worrying about things I cannot affect is kind of like paying a bill twice - but then again, I sort of have to be mentally prepared to leave my life here. In many ways, it has been so much easier than life in Sweden. It's been like living in a bubble of vacation, even though I've worked a lot.

But even though I call Brighton home now, I still managed to get on the wrong bus when going home from work today and got, not lost, but definitively not where I meant to be.. Spent some 30 min wandering around in the darkness to get home. It's good to live on the top of a hill, then I know where to head.

Went for tea at a tea place close by, and played the association game, where you say one word and then the other person has to say the first word ve comes to think about, and so on. Halfway through I realised that D has studied psychology and probably knew more about me than I would want.. He claimed he wasn't analysing, but I'm not too sure. One thing I really like about him though is that I get the feeling that he'd accept me no matter what I said. I'm afraid I don't give him the same assurance.. I tend to expect too much from people, hope for more than I maybe should. Especially friends. I want them to be good in so many ways. Ironically, I've spent the past months trying to escape from other people's expectations on me. Am I repeating the behaviour I'm avoiding myself?

A black snoring dog is sleeping on my bed and I don't want to wake her up, a good excuse to stay up and read Nemi. It used to be a lot better though - is it me or the comics that have changed?
The dog is running in her sleep and it makes quite a lot of noise, I'm afraid my landlady will assume there's some more interesting activity going on in my room.

Thursday night I was supposed to go to the pottery painting café with D but unfortunately the quick-but-decent place where we had planned to have dinner was closed that night. So we went to another place nearby but they were also closed! We were running out of time by then and had to chose between a quick burger at Grubbs before painting or proper dinner somewhere else and no painting. I thought the choise was obvious :) D didn't, thought about it and made the wrong decision :) Well I didn't care too much, so we went for dinner and we'll go painting next week. Apart from that, we just kept finding overlapping interests.

Had a long chat with M today (yesterday? it's way past midnight but for me it is still Friday), I panicked over my PhD situation in Sweden and desperately needed someone to talk to. M don't read the rest of this you will just get conceited ;) It meant a lot to have someone to talk to even though noone except me can solve my problems. Chatting with someone who's been through it and understands my dilemmas finally made me calm down and I started the day's workload at five in the afternoon.. so today ended up being a very late day at work.

I have some nice things planned for the weekend, so I will should be back to my usual self by Monday.

The snow has long since melted, buds have started to emerge and I've heard some occassional birds singing, so spring is slowly coming to England. And still my pink room is as cold as ever - I'm glad I have that pink blanket :)

Jens was an incredibly easy visitor, as he had promised. He happily joined for the farewell dinner for M at work, stayed out as long as I wanted and went home when I got tired. We spent Saturday wandering around Brighton in general but especially the North Laine, had lunch at my favourite café there (but I resisted the soy milkshake this time..), and went to the Pier for my first ride at the funfair there. I probably laughed more than anyone else on the whole pier. In general it's been a very relaxing weekend.

The hostel in London was an exhibition in different kinds of moulds but close to a lovely old-fashioned pub and the tube, which was convenient the next morning. So our Sunday included fika, a nice walk in Hyde Park, lunch at a lovely café close to Camden Lock (rice cheesecake.. vegan chocolate mousse cake.. i didn't need dinner after that lunch. the rice cheesecake was amazing btw, wonder how they made it), hours of wandering around Camden and Camden Lock, and some more fika. Lovely day, and I found some really nice laminated Banksy posters.

Back in Brighton I've cooked a lot to have lunches for the upcoming week. I accidentally woke up my landlady the other night when I got home from really late and started cooking my dinner at midnight. I felt really bad the next day when she had left a polite note asking me not to cook after 10 pm. I'm simply too used to living alone, and didn't realise she would notice, I've never woken her up before. Anyway I'll stay out of the kitchen at night now, but that will be tricky since I'm normally not home before 10. Tonights cooking became very lentil-based since I didn't have time to go shopping, so I now have a green lentil and apples pie and a carrot, red lentils and grapefruit soup in the fridge. Yummie. Couldn't eat much though, that chocolate mousse cake was really rich :)

As were the chocolate truffles D and I had at Food for friends Wednesday night. I liked the place. And he thinks that tardigrades are cute (and they are). And he went from Isle of Wight where he lived back then, to London just to attend the big march against the war in Iraq some years ago. And he cares a lot about the environment. And there's so many small things about him I really like. And when I look at him, I get the mixed feeling I have when thinking about M and other people here I care about - I'm happy because I like them, and I'm sad because I know I'm leaving soon.

I started this blog as a means of telling people at home what I'm doing here, so that we could focus our chats on more important things, instead of me telling everyone the same things. But it has slowly become a personal diary rather than a travelling one. I appreciate this way of reflecting about life in general, although I often delete what I realise has become to personal.

The more I do here the less I write. Tonight I'm writing while cooking dinner, and it's 1.30 after a long day at work and I want to finish and go to bed. So I will mainly summarise some impressions from the weekend in Belgium... Eight people from eight different European countries on a trip, officially to celebrate the birthdays of M and AS, but mainly to have a weekend off together. I'm grateful to this funny gang who have literally adopted me, and what I mainly appreciated this weekend was to get to know them all better, and watch how they interact with each other. But it was also great to have a weekend off work.
We left London early Friday morning, using the most environmental-friendly way possible to get to Brussels. That's another reason to like these people, they care about things that are important to me too. Spent one day wandering around Brussels, drinking belgian beer of course and seeing the most important touristy things. And we even managed to find an almost-nonsmoking pub that night, with surprising interior. I'll have to ask M for the photos. A mix of skulls and south american masques, which may not sound as a very appealing combination, but I liked it. The pub was part of a street where you could bring drinks from one place to another, and this particular place was mainly renowned for having 500 different kinds of tequila. I didn't know there were that many.. but why did they have to put cow's milk in the one with belgian chocolate? I would have liked to try that :D Although the lack of tequila probably made my next day nicer.


Some mysteries still remains unsolved, though. Why was there still ice on quite a few canals in Bruges but nowhere in Ghent? Why was there so much more lace in Bruges compared to Ghent although they're only one hour away from each other? Why were three people taking a bath in a bath tube on a random street in Ghent? And what happened to the pirates in the incredible and long story we came up with on boring hours on the train? I hope a certain unemployed Dutch fellow writes down the story, it's long enough to be a book and at least creating it has been quite entertaining.

And why does one of the cats here in Brighton like tofu? It's a very random thing for a cat to like. I made a curry wok with apples and tofu for dinner and Kitkat kept stealing the tofu. He's normally very polite although curious about my food, but he's taken tofu from my plate on several occasions and last time I ate soya mince he licked the plate when I had finished eating. He seems to have the same tofu taste as I have; he clearly prefers Taifun's basil tofu compared to the marinated tofu from Clearspot.

Monetary contributions are needed to save lives in Haiti after the earthquake. Several Swedish organisations are asking for money, including Rädda Barnen and the Swedish Unicef. I don't know yet if the Doctors Without Borders are going there. Most other organisations seems to be religious in one way or the other...
updates on the situations can be found on e.g. http://topics.cnn.com/topics/haiti

I've been in a weird mood the last days, feeling mentally disattached from everything I'm doing. Especially Monday night I had the odd feeling of only watching what was going on around me, rather than participating, which isn't appropriate for karaoke. I didn't feel it Sunday when I walked in Stanmer Park with M, so maybe the phone call that night triggered it, or maybe the total lack of sleep that weekend.
Stanmer Park in snow was lovely, and it was nice to spend some more time with M. It snowed again this morning. I simply love it.

M has to forgive me for using one of his photos, but it's simply so pretty! Brighton really looks like on a postcard. The sunset was nice but not as pink as the settings on M's camera indicates..

The feeling of not being present where I am started to wear off today, I had a busy and productive day at work but still had time to sneak out during an incubation to build a snow figure with E. It was about my height and E isn't that tall either, but we got the head in place and put a big smile on it's face. Met up with D later and had dinner. I really like my colleagues but it was nice to talk to someone not related to work.. We met Saturday at AS's birthday dinner at the vegetarian pub - that was a great night! AS is a very vivid person so when the club where we'd been dancing closed we went to the shore and tried to lit a lantern, to watch it being carried out over the sea. Lucky for those concerned about the environment it was too wet, or too windy, or both, and it just didn't lit. And since we didn't want to wait in the line for the only club still open at that time we walked over to AS's place and watched a movie and drank wine. It was one of those weird nights that you can never plan, and not everyone would have liked it, but I thought it was very cosy when we all fell asleep in a heap on the couch.

This group of colleagues I'm spending so much time with are a funny bunch of people. They all have strong personalities and are quite different, but still end up being good friends. They quickly adopted me when I arrived as an orphan in the centre. I'm looking forward to the trip to Brussels this weekend.

Seems like my sadness have changed into frustration, which is much better, easier to canalise that energy into something useful. I was a bit annoyed yesterday night when the buses still weren't running, but after walking all the way up the hills to where I live, I felt a lot better, so I probably just need to go swimming again. It's almost embarrassing that my mood is hugely affected by such small things.

I almost got stuck at uni again last Wednesday when all buses and trains suddenly were cancelled in case it would start snowing again. Luckily I could get a taxi back to Brighton for a nice chat with M and E. Thursday night the buses weren't running either, and every second train got cancelled. So to be on time at uni Friday morning for the early coach to the meeting in Cambridge, I stayed over at Y's place. That saved me a two hour walk from my place to uni early in the morning, but honestly I wasn't very grateful. It's interesting that I allow myself to get so much more annoyed with Y than with anyone else around me. Can't he just respect that I want to be left a bit alone now, and stop talking all the time? I've said for two days that I'm not interested in discussing what's been bothering me lately, and he keeps asking, until I doubt that it is for the nice gesture of listening, but rather because he is curious and wants to hear. And it makes me feel really bad that I don't fully appreciate that he offers me to stay over, and gives me warm home-made bread in the morning. It was very kind of him, it really was, and I should try to focus on that rather than notice his... needyness.

The meeting was nice, good talks, great to see Lara that I haven't seen since the Canada meeting although I had very little time to speak to her, and nice to see some of the Oxford people too. I sneaked out during the lunch break to catch up with Mark in a nearby pub, it was relieving to see him less worried than last time we met. He had spent a nice christmas and new year's with his wife and kids and was quite relaxed, which is great.

The bus trip back might well have been the best part of the day. We had a very girly chat in the back of the bus and I'm quite sure the group leader sitting in front of us were doing her best to overhear part of the conversation. The dinner conversation was fairly girly too, let's see what we'll discuss tonight.

I had some silly vision of getting up early today and go for a walk but of course that didn't happen, got up late and had the laundry, spoke to my sweet grandmother in Sweden for quite a while, and now it's past 4 o'clock. Can't decide whether I should go out now or just stay inside until it's time to go to the vegetarian pub and celebrate AS's birthday. I still need to go to the vegetarian shoes store and buy a belt for A in Sweden, but it's not at all tempting to go out, slide down the hills on these dangerous icy pavements, then struggle up the hills again, knowing that I'll immediately have to go downhill to meet the rest tonight. Being in my lazy Brighton mode, I'll probably stay inside and at the most clean my desk today. It's been great to have a day without any must do's.

It has been snowing lightly for the last couple of hours, another reason to stay indoors today :) It gets dark so quickly here, not the long period of dusk Sweden has. I remember noticing the same thing in Australia, where C and I almost got lost one of our first days in Sydney after staying for too long watching the flying foxes and then hurried back on the darkened streets. Good memories.
My feet are cold, despite three pairs of socks. I think I'll just sit here and drink chocolate milk with a warm furry cat in my lap until it's time to go. It's about time to pull myself together.

It's snowing again, and I'm probably the only one in Brighton appreciating it :) I left uni earlier than normal to get home before the snowing would start, but didn't quite make it. I got to walk the last 20 minutes in snow and it's so beautiful! Since I was alone, I danced on the street in the snow. I must have looked crazy. Uni might be closed tomorrow, I have some small things that have to be taken care of but if the buses aren't running I don't really know how to get there. I'm not particularly impressed by the British handling of snow - a couple of centimeters is not 'severe weather conditions' and no excuse to cancel all buses - but then again, considering that they normally never get more than one occasional day of snow during the whole winter, I'm not surprised. They're much more prepared for floodings than Sweden, since that's more common here. However, being a visitor from North, I do find it funny to see how handicapped the society is after the tiniest bit of snow.

It was good to see Marcel yesterday, not only to ensure that the nasty cut in his forehead after the icy accident before christmas, is healing properly. The heating in the pub where we met was broken, so the girl working that night had started a fire in the fireplace. Smoky, but I like the smell of burning wood.

I loved all the snow in Stockholm during my Xmas break, and I'm so glad all the kids got a white Xmas. It was only -10 when I was there but my beloved sister says it's almost -20 today - 40 degrees colder than their family vacation last week. Must be quite a shock.





I've been cooking quite a lot again this past week, normally a sign of me being less worried and stressed. Today's dinner is soy mince fried with apple juice and green bell peppers, plus the usual carrots and tomatoes.

I'll start off with a tribute to the best bed and breakfast in all of Sussex, Stephi and Niki. First they invite you over for a New Year's Eve Party. When you arrive, they serve you dinner, and they've even bought two types of soy cheese since they didn't know which would go best with the roasted veggies. Then they make sure that you enjoy the party. And when the party is over and it's late, they assure you that you're more than welcome to stay over, make the bed for you - and give you a toothbrush and a case for your contact lenses. I was so touched :)

I also appreciated to watch Stephi and Niki, since they seem to have such a nice relationship. It looked healthy. And they looked happy, which is wonderful to see.

The next morning, I woke up from the sound of them preparing breakfast for me. Amazing people. Then I went for a walk with Stephi, which enabled me to see the Lancing Ring - not as well known as the Chanctonbury and Cissbury Rings a couple of miles from there, which I now really wan't to visit. According to the Friends of Lancing Ring, the track alongside Lancing Ring may be as old as 4000 - 6000 years, and wikipedia somewhat supports this. Those who have an obscure interest in mushrooms, lichens and snails found at Lancing Ring should check out the homepage of the Friends of Lancing Ring (http://www.glaucus.org.uk/LancRin2004.htm), where they report such findings around the area. It's actually quite cute.


Lancing Ring Dewpond, last picture before the camera gave up in the cold weather

When we got back to the house, I realised I had spent 22 hours with Niki and Stephi - and they offered me to stay for tea. If I had, I'm sure they would have made dinner for me. But I went home and changed the necklace a little. The black heart broke on the night of the 30th, so I bought another one and finished it at work before going to Lancing, but it was a bit too long and had to be changed.And this is hopefully the last time I have to work with the black headpins from Panduro. They're so much harder than the silvery headpins from the beads shop in Västermalmsgallerian, horrible to work with. That's why the first heart broke. And they're only black on the outside of the pin, so if you cut it or bend it, the coppery inside shows. Maybe it would have been easier to paint normal silvery pins with black nail polish.

Should I change the lower blue heart for something smaller? Any suggestions?

At New Year's we discussed resolutions for the new year, of course. I normally don't bother to come up with resolutions, I prefer to work in projects that are not limited by year. But I think my main plan for the next couple of months, at least a year, should be not to have resolutions. Not to put too much pressure on myself. Not allow people to hurt me, but be more clear on what is important to me. I don't regret anything from the past year, but if there's one thing I won't repeat, that would be cancelling my vacation to work. The damn paper still isn't published and realistically it won't be before next summer.

This has to be it for today. It's one o'clock and I have to be on time at work tomorrow. I haven't left bed before 11 any day during the past week, so that will be a challenge :) Thought swimming today would make me tired, but no. Helped clearing my thoughts, though. I tend to think and to worry too much, so swimming is good.