Scheduling is a fine art

Rule: A perfect schedule is made in proper time
Exception: A perfect schedule is one when all the empty slots are filled with your wishes coming true...

I am currently doing my planning for my business and freelancework for 2009. Well, I am also rounding up 2008 already as business has been soooooooooooooo slow during the autumn. Although, now, in December, with bad news dropping like Irish rain, it has picked upp considerably.

So I am preparing for next year by sorting out what to do, where to join, where to work- how to change some things (like my lack of web page) and for next January I might have the privilege of returning to Ireland for an assignment that will last during spring. It feels good to have Ryanair flying daily to Dublin only one hour from my home. It actually takes me longer time to reach some destinations in Dublin compared to the whole Sweden-to-Dublin-journey...

If I do get it, there will not be any empty slots for quite a while but instead a rewarding job where I will need all my skills and concentration.

I could have had my January schedule ready...but this is so much more fun so I kind of enjoy it.

I dare you...

Rule: Sales are always on when you are out of money
Exceptions: Around Christmas...because the money will last during that particular sale but be scarce later when all invoices hoard up...

I get offer after offer right now about incredible bargains...the shops are longing for my business but my bank account is waiting for delayed payments from my clients who are also hard-up after this lousy autumn.

I know the money will end up in my account at last but meanwhile it is a bit sad to walk by all the things you know you will end up standing in a hellish long queue for later - closer to Christmas.

Right now I have a special place in my heart for ABBA Singstar on Playstation...

May they still have it when my money arrive...

And until then I can spend my time (instead of shopping) on acquiring some true Christmas feelings. Remember, it is not about shopping. It is about giving and having true peace, awe and admiration and thankfullness and...

I am NOT dreaming of a white November...

Rule: Snow makes the whole world beautiful
Exception: Our hill where snow makes the road slippery and impossible

Here we are again. Ont the one hand I love snow. Snowballs, skies, skates, dashing through the snow, jungle bells, the dark, the special light from glowing snow...
But on the other hand you have that speical obstacle with living where we are living. The last hill leading to our house is always slipepry but when it has snowed it is quite the challenge (ask Lars- I had to resque him once!).

I so want a SUV, a really heavy car with fantastic tyres. Something that never stops. Never gets tired. Never leaves the road and doesn't come back up.

And it is only November! Five more months to go before the danger of icy roads are over (for this time).

Maybe I should make a splendid hermit- never leaving my hut?

Should old acquintance be forgot and never brought to mind?

Rule: You make friends during the years but you do not keep in contact with them all the time
Exception: Thank you Internet for making it possible to keep in touch!

Once upon a time friends were people you shared something with: you lived close, you were family, you were working togeteher, you shared the same hobby or you regularly visited and kept the friendship going.

And, of course, if you moved, stopped going to that specific work place or doing that specific hobby - you lost your friends.

Some of them you heard from once a year when the Christmas cards arrived.

But then, Christmas cards grew out of fashion and there was silence.

Till now. Facebook, Multiply, Blogs (like this one), NetLog, StayFriends - and good old e-mail and text and chatt - they all help you to keep your friends.

Yesterday I mailed two old schoolfriends and was reminded that next year it is 30 years since we left school. I have met them once since then, 20 years ago... And now, thanks to Stayfriends I have met them again. One of them lives in the same town as I do!

I can also keep in touch with my Estonian friends and due to the fact that they share their pictures online I can see their children and grandchildren grow up.

Thanks to Skype I can make longer longer calls and thanks to e-mail I can send pictures and messages that will reach people immediately.

But, as my teacher said the other day: When did I get a hand written letter last time?

I think I can answer - when my dear old friend Ester encouraged us during our stay in Ireland. Ester was a firm believer of the post office and sent letters every week to family and friends.

So, keeping in touch is easier, so easy maybe that we forget the special thing about receiving a handwritten letter.

And exactly how good is your English?

Rule: A native is always worth more than a non-native
Exception: When the non-native has made a bigger effort...

My grammar teacher at University tried to learn us Swedish students all about Swedish grammar. He was Dutch himself but had studied Swedish grammar (why?).
My creative writing teacher at University tried to teach us Swedish syntax and expressions. She was Lithuanian.
And, my rethoric teacher...was Austrian.

Earlier I had a fantastic Spanish teacher, who was Finnish...

And here I am working with English and Swedish. I am a Swedish native but my four years in Ireland, my three more years commuting to Ireland for work and my four years at University studying English does sometimes not count. I was at a business dinner where the man next to me explained how he got this nice English chap to translate his web site. The English chap was neither a translator, nor an editor - he was simply an English native and therefore he could write in English. of course.

Sarcastic? Cynic? Oscar Wilde-quote-temptated?

When I worked as a journalist I always met people who "also loved to write" and also "did a spot of writing" somewhere. It was hard to explain that my training actually made a difference. It is the same with languages.

But as Russian friend of mine found out...sometimes it is true that natives, even lousy-speaking such, are better. She was once complaining about her husband's bad Swedish and explaining that she spoke better English than he. If she hadn't made quite as many language errors in that short speech it would have been better. Much better. There isn't a Swedish native who speaks the way she did. You simply cannot make as many errors as a native speaker (but you can make other!).

And I may have my four years at uni but do I beat Elizabeth at Scrambles in English?

I think not.

Sunday, sunday

Rule: Children do not enjoy Sunday the way adults do
Exception: Very wise children...

I know that Sunday is only hours away from Monday and yet another week of boring work. I know that, and still Sunday is for me a day of rest and comfort. A day of reassurance that life is good and that I am precious. That this day, indeed, is precious.

As a child I mostly found Sundays boring. Now I treasure them, the only decent day in the week. No need to work, no must to work. If I do some work I do it because I want to. I can be as lazy as I want to. I can order food instead of cooking. I can read. Go for walks. Pet my cats.

And...update my blog...

Missing Elizabeth...

Rule: Someone you are in close contact with you tend to take for granted
Exception: When something happens and there is silence

I haven been spoild rotten by having my constant contender on Facebook. With Elizabeth I have tested most text-games on Facebook and enjoyed being beaten in all.

And now - silence. She is doing something else.

Sigh.
Sigh.
Sigh.

Updating the blogg

Rule: When happy - the entries flood in
Exception: No exceptions - when sad...so impossible to write because of all the things you cannot say

I wish sometimes that you could go back in time and prevent bad things from happening. But you can´t. So you have to sit here, stunned by the worst news possible. Seeing images in your mind. And no stopping them.

I am appaled by how cruel adults can be towards children. And the worst part is when they start to defend themselves, putting part of the blame on the kids.

The anger I have felt scared me, but I also know that I cannot carry this anger for long. I choose, instead of bitterness and something in my life being destroyed, to act. I have put up fences and made rules and that is how I prevent this cruel, sick man from ever coming close to any children I am responsible for.

He needs help. But will he understand how sick he is? Will he understand what he has done? Will he stop?

How can you live with yourself?

When rage is constructive

Rule: Rage makes you behave irrational - and often stupid
Exception: When rage makes you act (better late than never)

I have been betrayed and not only I, but several others. After being passive for too long, far too long, I found that it was time to act and the rage that came over me suprised me. I am usually quite afraid of confrontations - that is one good thing about being brought up in a constantly quarelling family.

However, when I should act I am sometimes afraid to take action. People around me judge me from my actions and my passivitiy give off the wrong signals. As if I did not care. As if it did not hurt. As if it is nothing to care about.

This time I feel like a shepherd who has mistakenly allowed a wolf in sheep-skin access to the lambs. I feel like I am ready to slay. No-one will mistake me for accepting that kind of behaviour. I feel like climbing up on the highest mountain and shout it out.

Passivity is as bad as a quarelling spirit.

A heart can only be so sad

Rule: Sorrow affects your whole being; your heart has a problem coping and your breathing is affected.
Exceptions: When you cannot cope with it - and dies of a broken heart.

Earlier this year I read, as a news piece, that there really is a disease called "broken heart" and that mostly women are affected. They mourn till they die.

And that is news...before it was only called so because everyone had seen it happen but of course the scientists had to find a way to prove it.

I have been so sad this week after receiving news so bad that my whole being has slowed down.
My breathing is heavy, my heart is almost painfully beating away. My throat, my eyes itch for crying and shouting and I can hear myself groan when I do not control myself. And the worst thing, not being able to show it properly.

I do admire societies where you dress in black, pour ashes over your head, rip your clothes - all to show that you are mourning. here it is all so calm, so controlled and all that anguish has to stay inside my body.

People can be so evil and deceiving but I do belive that they do not understand how much they destroy with their actions. It is like a stone thrown in the water, you can see how the whole sea changes by that single blow.

Crying my eyes out....

Rule: A good film makes you cry the first time
Exception: An extremely good film makes you cry every time...

Even if I know what will happen, I know every scene by heart. I still cry. Dead Poet's Society got me - again.

Why? Nothing that really reminds me about anything in my life. And still. Todd, Mr Anderson, when he learns to do poetry, when he makes his last stand. And Puck - making Shakespeare come to life and make sense - charming everyone except his old, rigid father.

And that cave, those poems.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Growing up looks different from this perspective

Rule: When you are a teenager you are just sooooooooo mature
Exception: When your child is a teenager...well...you know the rest :)

My daughter just dressed to pass as a 19-year-old. I am so sad to realise that she succeeded.

Sigh. Big sigh.

My only comfort is that she may look old, but she is still my child at heart.

Starting school in Ireland...memories....

Rule: Starting school is never easy
Exception: When you return to your native country- nothing about school will trouble you…

When we moved to Ireland I had three kids about to start school, in a new land, a new system and in two new languages (English AND Gaelic). My toddler had one more year at home so he got a nicer start.

Here we can talk about culture clash! Our school applications just disappeared in a great administrational pile, mostly it seemed because no school wanted kids who did not speak English. I had to walk down to another school and ask them for places, after school had started. It was ok. I came from there with a list of instructions on all things I needed. For the girls’ school I also got an address (orally given) for where to go for the uniform.

So here I was, a week into the new term with three book lists (but the boys’ books could mostly be retrieved through their teachers), as well as uniforms. I know now that all uniforms disappear already in June but back then I did not have a clue. I went to all shops in September and ended up with trousers without buttons, trousers and sweaters for ten-year-old to my 7-year-old boy and no ties to be found anywhere. I later found out that you bought them from the school office!

The girl school my girl first attended had really posh uniforms, bought in a small shop quite a way from the school. Here the same trouble occurred, they were out of her size but she eventually ended up with a mini skirt, and one day later we had to go back as we had not known that her PE-uniform also had to be bought from there.

All these, for any Irish family so self-explaining, things really made my life hell the first month. But then, one day. I had it all. Except English for my children... We tried in the evenings to understand what they did not understand and to train further on English vocabulary. However, as children they adapted quite easily in front of the telly, watching children’s programs hour after hour and one day they were all talking in English.

And that is how we became Irish because as they did not have their mother’s unfortunate British accent (trained in Swedish schools), they all ended up with an Irish accent. For one of my kids it was impossible to see that he was anything but Irish. And soon I also bought the books second hand and the uniforms in June.

My mum, my kids and all those meetings in school

Rule: If your mum attend the meetings in school - she is bound to embarass you
Exception: If you look back from a mature age...

I phoned my mum today to celebrate that the phone line is operating again (the bliss of countryside life – rejoice when the lines are ok). I told her how my diary was stuffed with parent-teacher meetings, school gatherings, PTA, and so on. She encouraged me to attend all meetings as she said that it was important to take an interest.
And it is true, I remember all these meeitngs when I was a child, and only one out of four. My mum went to all meetings. She dressed up, sometimes even went to the hairdresser before. And she asked questions as well as volunteered, for example – she did once chaperone a dance at school, although I had rather had it that she hadn't if you understand what I am saying.
And now I do the same. I didn't even think about that connection before, maybe because for many other things my mother was so absent from my life. But it is true, when it came to school, she was always there. Embarrasing me, of course, but it would have been worse to have to go on your own (as some kids had to).
She set an example and I follow in her footsteps. Now I am volunteering, making my kids embarassed by talking. But at the same time they want me to be active because they know that they need the parents to help them with school trips and such things. I go to all meetings for all four children so my diary i quite full. I learn to understand three different schools, I meet four different head teachers or mentors and I am at least trying to get to know the classmates in four classes (about 100 people...and their parents...). And still, many parents do not show up. Some miss the meetings once, others I have never seen.
But I am there. You can thank my mum for that!

Writing for ages...nothing saved

Rule: When you decide to write a really long piece for your blog, there is a power cut and all is lost
Exception: When you have saved it somewhere else so you can retrieve it (WHEN WILL I EVER LEARN!!!)

Here you were supposed to read a fantastic piece about my mother and parent-teacher gatherings.
By the clues given initially you might be able to figure out why you cannot read it here...

Being different in class...

Rule: If the teacher singles you out...you will not get popular with your class mates
Exception: Mature students do not care

I do not know how I manage to do it. It doesn't matter if I join a class in Sweden or in Ireland - the teachers single me out from the crowd. Happened today as well. I happened to answer the question if anybody in the class had their own company. (It later turned out that another girl also had a company but she was wise enough only to tell at the end of class). After that I had to answer questions about my company and my success.

Well, in many ways I am doing fine. My problem is to have enough time for it all, the kids, my home and husband, my friends, my studies (Master on the way) - and my business. Now forgetting my garden, my animals and my relatives and my church and...

Working 30 hours a week is enouh for me but it is hard to combine with studying 40 hours a week. So, how do I do it?

Honestly, I do not know. Besides the fact that I manage to make my studies my leisure time favourite topic so the books end up next o my bed for leisurely reading.

However, I do have time for other things as well. It is as if my time expands when I am having fun. Look! I just had time to update my blog...

What a day!

Rule: Your wedding day is indeed a very special day
Exception: Although after some years it is harder and harder to remember exactly what day it was...

It was today. Our wedding day. 18 years of bliss and thunder. And, of course, even if I had pinned it down in my diary I still forgot it. I knew the whole time it would be hard to do something special today as the day was pretty hard scheduled but I had thought that maybe...but no. Not this year either.

My hopes now are for the great jubilees, like golden anniversary or something like that (50 years married...).

However, it is great to once a year look back at your marriage and say thank you. It is not about celebrating one day. It is about being there all 365 days a year.

Strategy for working

Rule: Work is sometimes slow and there is nothing to do (except look at your Facebook account)
Exception: If you have a strategy!

Something I have learnt during my years of work in different places, and lands, is the fact that work is sometimes slow. Like now for example.

And I have also learnt that during these slow periods it is good to have a plan. Study some internal documents, learn to navigate the web site of the company and other things like that. or take a study course for Microsoft on their web site.

You can also learn from the kind of questions you are asked, when you go back and try to find an answer. That is how I learned to insert strange signs in Word (mathematical signs...).

This way it may look like I am lazy surfing around but I do learn new stuff which will one day make my work easier!

To learn to trust again

Rule: Betrayal by someone you are close to makes it harder in future relationships
Exception: When you take a step out on the water and trust

I just returned from a camp where I was surrounded by great people from Friday to Sunday. One afternoon I was met by a challenge- to start regarding these people instead as my family- to form connection.

Not just to say it as well but really to act it.The thought of it made my head spin. I am still letting the idea sink. Because, really letting them into my life is different, it is more. And how can I let myself trust again? Lower my guard.

Well, do I have an option anymore? I think that letting the idea in, allowing myself to dwell upon it, made it more than an idea.

And still, I cannot tell them that they must never let me down, that I cannot stand another betrayal like that. Friendship, relationships, are frail things. There are no guarantees. But, if I can have a new family - a real family - I think that many things will at last be healed.

ENGLISH: Bank robbers and car wreckers

Rule: It is easier to hurt someone you do not know
Exception: Well, you only really know what hurts if you know them...

Yesterday was a very dark day in Eskilstuna. Outside one of the bank offices a supposed bomb was sitting waiting for the bomb squad from Stockholm afetr an attempted robbery (where the robbers got away but left what was described as a "bomb-like" thing.And when it was time to collect our car at the car park, one of the windows had been smashed and someone had gone through the car for valuables. They obviously did not know us :). The only thing missing, as far as we can tell, is Lars' shaving gears, because like all commuters he shaves in the car on his way to the train. Did they know that? Was it a culprit in need of a shave who did this?Well, anyway, glass everywhere, more money for us to pay and a car that is not secure for a while.So, what is your guess? Done by a stranger? Or by someone who has observed us?Which is worst?

ENGLISH: Culture clash or merger?

Rule: You regard your own culture as everythings measure
Exception: When you lower your guard and experience a new culture

This is my fourth autumn back in Sweden so I should be used to it. My problem is of course that during the years I have been used to going back every now and then to Ireland. I have spent weeks there, working as well as renewing the friendship of my new Irish friends. But since November last year the door seems to have been closed.I have received job offers, too many actually, but they have always clashed with something so I have had to turn them down.During this time Ireland has insisted on keeping on changing, referendums have come and gone, the taoiseach has resigned and a new one has sworn the oath - the uninvitable flooding now affects new areas. And I am not there. The world keeps on turning - not regarding my presence at all.It is a pity (and maybe a blessing) that we cannot be at two places at the same time. We have to make choices all the time. In the Narnia-books the Lion always cautions the children about aksing what could have happened had they made another choice. The choices we do make are the ones that matter.I have made my choice but a part of me is yearning to go back.

More Dr Livingstone...

If Sean Connery, aka the James Bond, had met Dr Livingstone in Africa...
My name ish Bond. Jamesh Bond. Doctor Livingshtone I preshume?...
I rest my case...

ENGLISH Worst joke ever?

Rule: A joke will somehow surprise you
Exception: Well, sometimes you see the pun coming and it is still fun!S

tanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first line of introduction:- Dr Livingstone I presume?Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first Wizard of Oz-inspired line:- I have a feeling we are not in Kansas anymore.Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first Star Wars-inspired line:- I have a bad, bad feeling about this.Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first American movies about Ireland-inspired line:- Top of the mornin' to you sir!

English: The Importence of Being Nice

Rule: It is hard to disappoint people
Exception: When you are, in fact, doing them a favour and preventing greater harm in the future.
At Helpdesk I frequently have to disappoint people by telling them that their lost document was lost because they deleted them, or that they owe money because they did not look before ordering a service - or something like that.But even if I hate seeing their sorry faces I have now come to realise that sometimes, just by telling them and showing them where they went wrong, I actually teach them how to avoid this in the future.I have this suspicion now that these people are often treated a bit, well how to put this nicely, like children. And they are not allowed to grow up.Hopefully I can help them. At least I am often trying to...

ENGLISH: Grand finish!!!!

Rule: The summer vacation when you are in school lasts for 3 months
Exception: The last weekend before you go back to school.

3 months? Feels like some days only...Today I arrived back home after a trip to south Sweden and a visit to Astrid Lindgren's World in Vimmerby. I and the kids had great (unexpectedly great that is) fun all day, despite wasps, despite rain and despite increasingly tired feet.The actors made their best to make us pass the line between reality and tales and - it worked. Karlsson ruled! Stefan, my ten-year-old, got in trouble with all characters, he messed with them and they messed back with him.So, grand finale. And now, on Monday, back to school.As if the summer was but a dream...

English: The importance of friends

Rule: Your friend and you will have something in common
Exception: When your friendship becomes the thing you have in common

One of my first days in Ireland I was crossing a street with my youngest, Stefan, in a pram, on our way home from school where we had left the other kids. A lady was waiting next to me at the lights with her toddler in another pram. She turned to me and said:- Excuse me, are you not Isak's mum?Isak, my boy, turned out to be in her boy Barney's class. She lived on my way home and thus Sally became my first friendly face in Ireland. Maybe she was that observant about my situation because her husband was non-native. A few days later another mum made a similar approach. Her boy Mikey was in my Kristoffer's class. Niamh turned out to be one of my very best friends in Ireland. And she had lived some years in the US.In church the first one to really talk to me, not just polite chit-chat or handing out invitations that never got any closer to a real meeeting, was Ulrike. She comes from Germany but has been living in Ireland for many years. My other closest friends in germany were Stuart and Breda (with their children all living abroad) and Sara-Jane (with a Spanish husband).That made me form a conclusion that the knowledge from sharing a life with an immigrant or sharing first-hand experiences of being a foreigner made you more aware of other foreigners. That is, until I came to know Elizabeth and her sister Bernadette. Both Irish. Both living in Ireland (and nowhere else). Well, Bernadette did have a daughter abroad but she only came to know me from Elizabeth, who came to know me through her daughter Karen who befriended my daughter Petra.So, without having first or second-hand experience of being a foreigner, Elizabeth still gave me her hand of friendship and has stayed my friend through the years. It has even survived me moving back to Sweden. our friendship is what we have in common and from that point of view we learn things about eachother, and it works because she is as curious as I am about how it is to be on the other side.Last, a word about Bernadette. She provides me with a home in Ireland whenever I go back, she does laugh at me when I am crying in front of the telly wathing how Len dies in Emmerdale...but she also shares my obsession for Casualty and Holby city. We buy the same kind of clothes from Penney's. I feel at home in her home. That - is a gift. A gift of friendship that she offers me.

ENGLISH: Summers used to be sunny....

Rule: The summer vacation of your childhood is remembered as permanent sunny
Exception: Catastrophic outings...

When I was a child and had the blessing of a three month long summer vacation, it was always sunny. I used to sit outdoors as long as I could stand it in order to get a tan. But, I always gave up too soon. The only option if I wanted to be forced-tanned, was to take a day-trip to our beach at the lake Sommen. It was quite a long up-hills bicycling to get there so you tended to stay as long as possible.You lay on the green and as soon as you got too hot, you made a quick dive down into the lake.And then, you started all over again. Every sunburn I ever suffered was down to this place. And, to be fair, all tan as well.It was the most magic place and as I got older and became a teenager it was the place to show how brave you were, including a dip at 1st of May (approx 12 degrees in the water) and also midnight swims later in the summer.But did it never rain? It must have rained but the only memory I have of rain during a vacation is when m y father took me, my sister and one of my brothers to Denmark where he had rented a cottage for a week. It was the first (and only) real vacation during my childhood. But, day 3 (as I recall it) rain came pouring down. As you know it never rains but it pours so my father had just about had it - well before the end of the week. We packed early and started on our way back home.And, yes of course, the sun was then back on again...

English: Swedish-English or Swinglish

Rule: Swedes have exceptionally good English
Exception: But they cannot write properly

In Ireland one of the daily newspapers shared some jokes about the foreign staff working in the now booming tourist sector again: like, how do you know it is a Swede waiting on you?The answer was: they will clean the table first - and speak correct English.I heard the same while working in Ireland, many compliments for my English, sometimes delivered with a questioning look as if the person was wondering inside how that was possible. I had, however, to leave my posh British accent behind. The Irish pretended not to understand it. But when it came to writing - well, there I soon noticed that I had to struggle in order to keep it perfect. Suddenly the Swinglish tone would appear, or the Swinglish vocabulary, or the Swinglish syntax or grammar...Now, after three years at the University studying English I have a different style, but still - the Swedish tone would appear even now. But, is that such a bad thing? The English I write would at least be understandable now, even if I would give myself away sometimes as not being native. However, as I enjoy reading Swedish novels written by mutlilingual people, I hope the same is true the other way around.The English speaking world already enjoys the presence of people writing in English although they do not come from the US or Great Britain. Hiberno-English is different, Australian-English is different and Singapore-English is different.That, my friends, is great! Enjoy a more diverse literature.