It was 7°C yesterday! Can you believe it? I have been so used to the minus temperatures that even 4°C feels so nice.
I haven't seen the sun in such a long time! And its amazing what sun can do to your mind, body and soul. Especially, soul. As much as I love snow, I'm glad spring is finally here. :) We can head down to the beach and have bbqs and volleyball. I can't wait for the green and pink to dispel the gray and brown.
To pay a tribute to winter, here are some pictures of the snow! My international friend are always like "what's wrong with you?" when it snows and I run around in the snow and get really excited while everyone is just trying to get indoors.
These are probably taken at about 10 or 11am. I woke up with the snow falling outside my window and you can't imagine how good that feels. It's like it finally hits you that you are in Europe, miles away from home but still somehow, you receive a little gift from the heavens. On days like these, I realise that the Man above is really not trying to turn my life into a big, fat joke. And snow is so magical, you can even pick it up from the ground and taste it. Pretty much like ice kachang, but somehow, softer. And, snow crunches. Seriously. You would think its soft and fluffy, but when you walk in snow, it crunches.
Last night, I was in tears. I miss home. All the time, these sad thoughts enter and there's no way of keeping them out. I was so tempted to call someone back home, but I knew I had to practice to be strong. I was being such a girl last night. What made me so sad was that there's no one here that I can rant to, or someone that rants to me, and someone that understands. Like really, understand. And that makes me miss home like crazy. It helped that Pollo was there and he entertained all my silly questions like "do you think its better to be old or to be young?". We talked about Anne Frank, how it may be better to think with your penis than with your heart, his family, mine and he made me laugh amidst the tears. And I knew that he was tired but he entertained me because he knew that I needed some affetto. so THANK YOU POLLO :)
So today, with puffy eyes, I needed an adventure! Of course, the exams are near and I always do the stupidest things when I have tons of stuff to do. I'm a responsibility-shirker.
So, me and syida were sitting on the window sill on a sunday afternoon. I have done this so many times.
But today, I decided that climbing out of the window and looking for a treasure would be a fun thing to do.
"Syida, COME!"
And this are our adventures in our own little backyard. In pyjamas and flip-flops, no less.
Being superheroes.
We made quite a din and everyone popped their heads out of their windows. Some were not too happy. HAHA. Fortunately, we are all friends :)
Finding treasures.
Bringing treasure home. Of course, finders keepers.
Decorating our new toy!
Now, it'd be like our graffiti board. Whenever we feel like it, we'd write something on it. And we'd get everyone who visits our room, to autograph it. HAHA. I know I'm fucking retarded. But better than being boring, right? :)
sooo. Today's entry will be all about the swedish parties that consume so much of a big part of my life here in Jonkoping. We party every Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. So this is how it goes :)
The night normally starts at around 8, where we'd have a pre-party. Most of the times, this is on the 4th floor of our block at Grashagen, one of the student accomodations of the university. Mostly, its just the Grashagen people that come and we each take turns to buy drinks. We drink ourselves silly, celebrate birthdays, play stupid card games, foosball or mini-snooker. Here are some pictures from the pre-parties.
Sometimes, we even have happy hours from different countries. My favourite was Italian happy hour where there was lots of carbonara and cheese! And wine! :) When its happy hour, we ask all our friends from other accomodations and the host prepares all the food from their country. There weren't many photos from the French and Mexico happy hour. Just the three Italian boys responsible for my favourite happy hour and lots of people here for the French happy hour :)
But recently, the landlord has received tons of complaints about our being on the 4th floor. Too much noise, music too loud, too dirty, fights, stealing of couches etc. That's what happens when too many drunk people live together. So they closed the 4th floor common room. And so sometimes, we go to Alpha House, another student accomodation for our pre-parties.
Okay, so this is usually what happens at pre-parties.. everyone gets infected by the singapore song :)
We finish our pre-parties at about 11 and by this time, most of us are already in high spirits, aided by alcohol. And this begins my favourite part of the night! The trips in the bus! :) We are always singing and laughing so hard in the bus. Its hilarious.
And this, my friends, is the theme song in the bus. All.The.Time.
And all too often, this is followed by "Angela", a french song that is always sung in dedication to me! It sounds romantic and carribean-esque, but it actually means something like "Angela, I want to do you in your ass, when your daddy's not around. And if you're not around, I would do your cousin too". Yeah, veryvery romantic. But I like to pretend that I don't know what it actually means.
On Wednesday nights, its Akademien night. Its a student club, kinda, and only students from the uni can party there. Its really big, prolly bigger than zouk, has three dance floors, and cheap drinks! :) Mended by students for students. Almost all the international kids go there to party and everywhere you turn, you bump into someone you know :) Everyone parties really really hard, and its ssoo much fun. Dare I say, better than Mambos on Wednesdays.
On Fridays and Saturdays, we normally head to the other clubs open to the public. This is Centrum, where there's a bunch of 18 year olds but with awesome music and somehow, I always have the most fun there. Somehow :)
This is O'learys, also known as the sports bar, where we gather to watch our football matches. But it turns to a club on Friday and Saturday nights and I love it here also because they have a Jagermeister machine, can you believe it? It makes its own Jagermeister. We had a costume party here once and Ale and Daniel playing blackjack so that they can pay off a beer.
And then there are other clubs too like atta-glass. On fridays, there's a great buffet called the 'after work' there and we always head there at 5pm to gorge ourselves to death. Atta-glass has nice decor, but not as nice music.
And then comes another of my favourite bit of the night! The after-parties! We head back, most of us pretty smashed by now, and we do the stupidest things at the after-parties. Sometimes we go into the woods at the back of the flat in hope of looking for a moose, building a snowman, or falling in the snow. Other times the boys try to steal a bicycle, break out into a snowball fight, go outside the building and throw stones at the windows of the girls' rooms or sit in the common room and sing till the neighbours complain.
And that pretty sums up this post! :) See! Nothing emo. It's not my fault that sometimes I'm happy angela and I talk a lot of thrash and sometimes I get deep in thought. It's not my fault I'm a reflective observer. I don't remember events by sights, sounds, or people. I remember them by what runs through my mind as the event unfolds. Everything brings a thought to my head and its a constant struggle to live life as it is without the thoughts that dictate me to analyse everything.
Uh, okay. I am doing it again. I'd leave you with some other rubbish video of my rubbish friends! BYE!
Can you somehow create an expansive enough life that you could synchronize seemingly incongruous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?
The truth is that I want both. I want worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence--the dual glories of a human life. I want what the Greeks called kalos kai agathos, the singular balance of the good and the beautiful.
I want/need/crave both pleasure and devotion.
I'm desperate for all the pleasures of the world and perpetual devotion to You.
