Feb/100
HAPPY
I’ve decided that I must be bipolar, since my mood swings seem to follow the symptoms. Or, if I’m not bipolar, then I must be super de duper – y happy that I’m NOT SICK ANYMORE!
I mean, okay, I’m still hacking and coughing quite a bit, but when I woke up this morning, I practically had my regular voice back! As the day went on my voice deteriorated a bit, but the fact of the matter is that I am feeling great! And I actually get to socialize with people in person – not just on Skype or Facebook!
Today my corridor had a massive cleaning day, and I even found that fun! Just being around others is great, really.
But I’m so happy to be not sick that I don’t want to work on a presentation that I have to give tomorrow. But I must, or I will be screwed. And I have to prepare for my seminar on Tuesday, cause my group is meeting tomorrow night. Effff.
Just wanna have fun =(.
haha.
Anyway, don’t really have much to say, but that I’m happy today!!
XOXO/
Feb/101
Bleh
So, still sick! Not super happy about this. I feel like I’ve wasted my whole week doing nothing! Although, I am lucky that I was able to do nothing all week; my schedule is so light here, and I know some awesome people who will write my name on the attendance sheet, so I didn’t have to go to any classes 
.
At least today my throat really does not hurt that much, unless I go too long without liquids. However, I still sound horrible, but on the positive side, it does not hurt for me to speak that much anymore.
Today I have to go into town and pay my rent at Forex. Usually I will transfer money from my American account to my Swedish account, but that can take anywhere from a week to two weeks to be completed, and I definitely did not plan ahead, so I will just go into Forex and pay my rent there using my American credit card.
So I really should be getting ready to go out, but I’m not super excited about having to converse with people outside of my corridor with the current state of my vocal chords.
I just need to suck it up and do it. Gah.
And then this past Sunday when I went skiing, I biked to Uplands nation (where the bus picked us up), but then bussed it back to Flogsta after… so unfortunately, my bike is still sitting outside of Uplands. At least, I hope it is still there! My plan was to pick it up on Monday after class, but obviously, I was sick and didn’t do that. So I figured today I’ll bus it to town and then walk/ride my bike back. Dependent on how I feel of course. I’ll at least check if it is there, and if it is, I’ll lock it TO something, so that way it will be more difficult for someone to steal it.
Feb/100
Goals for the day:
Ever since Sunday night, when this horrible, kill me now sore throat began, I have laid around and done absolutely nothing. I even brought my laptop to my nightstand so I wouldn’t have to leave my bed, and my only form of exercise was walking down the corridor to the kitchen for tea and food.
So today, since my sore throat is STILL present, but yet doing better, I decided that I cannot spend a fourth day doing nothing.
On my to do list:
- clean up room
- take out trash (filled with tissues!)
- do laundry (sheets, towels, and jeans)
- go to ICA for more Kleenex (toilet paper is quickly rubbing the skin off of my nose)
- start working on Happiness presentation that I may (or may not) be giving this upcoming Monday
Feb/101
Sore throat
So I’m just getting over being sick. Mostly it was a cold, but it started off with me feeling feverish / headache/ aching muscles. I had a stuffy nose, sore throat – which turned into a cough, and was sneezing a bit. Normal cold stuff. Then since last Wednesday I have felt better, however my cough was still “productive” – even to this day. No big deal. Then tonight my throat started to hurt. So I just took my bike light (I don’t have a flashlight) and peered down my throat, and guess what? It’s swollen, red, and generally just looks nasty.
What the heck?
Did I “relapse?” Or did I get sick again?
I really don’t think it’s good that I had a sore throat for about three days last week, and now it’s back.
You think I should go see a doctor tomorrow if my throat isn’t feeling better? Maybe I have strep or something?
Only thing is, is if it is strep, I seem to be lacking other symptoms. Maybe tonsillitis?
Or likely, I just caught another cold.
hmmm.
It’s just really strange because usually I don’t get sick very often, maybe once a year?
Maybe it has to do with the frigid Swedish weather, bringing down my immune system or something.
Feb/100
Blah
Blah is how I feel. Just lazy and don’t feel like doing anything sort of mood.
I was supposed to meet friends for fika at 2, but obviously I am skipping that as it is 2:24. And tonight is Värmlands club, which I am going to try to force myself to go to. But we’ll see.
All I want to do is curl up with some tea and watch movies all day.
Such a bum.
Also, my mom and little brother are coming for ten days in the beginning of April! I’m so excited to see them, and also to have them see where I live and how great Sweden is. We booked our flight to Italy yesterday, so four and half of the ten days will be spent there! We’re planning on going to Venice, Florence and Pisa. No Rome 
. But that just gives me a good excuse to go back!
The week before my family comes I will be in London with my class. Very excited about London; so excited, that I created a nifty PDF which outlines all my flight and hostel information, plus information about how to get from the airport to my hostel, how to get from my hostel to where my class will meet everyday, etc. My whole class was supposed to stay at a particular hostel, but when I went to book it some of the days were unavailable. So I started looking at other hostels in the area, and found a really nice one (free breakfast!) about a mile away (have no idea what that is in km?). So I figure every morning I will walk to the designated hostel to meet my class. Should be a nice walk I think, as Google maps gives several different walking routes that I plan on printing out and having with me.
I’m going to spend six days in London, and then I will fly to Dublin for three days. I’m likely going alone, which I’m not crazy about, but I really don’t care. I also have a PDF for Dublin too, it’s so pretty you should see it.
I’ve been told that you can really do Dublin in one day, so I figure the first full day will be dedicated to Dublin. The second day I will do a tour of Ireland… I’m thinking the P.S. I Love You tour because it is a scenic tour, and I’ve been told one of the best parts of Ireland is the countryside. And then the last day anything that I didn’t get to see in Dublin on the first day, and then my flight is that night.
So stoked about all of this.
I now have Rosetta Stone for Swedish, so my goal is to do one lesson a day (and each lesson lasts about two hours or so)… so by the time my mom gets here I should know a lot more Swedish than I do now.
And I will also start using Rosetta Stone for Italian, because I know English isn’t really spoken in Italy, and it would be handy to be able to communicate somewhat with the natives while there.
I really think Rosetta Stone is a great tool for learning a new language. There is no translation at all. They try to teach you a different language in just the same way you learned your first language: by associating words with objects, repetition, pronunciation, etc. It’s more or less trial and error, you have to guess when learning something new, and when you try you learn if you were wrong or right. It makes learning another language like second nature; you just know.
I’ve only finished the second lesson of Swedish, and I’ve finally learned what the difference is between the letter A and the letter Ä. I can hear the difference now, and I know when they say ‘mannen’ to click on the picture of one guy, and when they say ‘männen’ to click on the picture with multiple guys. And I can do it without thinking about it, which is insane.
I’ve also learned that I cannot pronounce the word ‘pojken’ I spent a good five minutes trying to get past that one. They have an option where you can hear the speaker say the word, and then hear how you are saying the word to see where you are going wrong. I kid you not, I can absolutely not hear the difference between the way I say pojken and the way the native speaker says pojken.
So anyway, go get Rosetta Stone if you want to learn a new language. It’s definitely the way to go (I feel like I’ve learned a lot more a lot faster than when I took Swedish class last semester!).
Hej då!
xoxo.