First Impressions of Earth

Gosh golly, I just dowloaded The Strokes new album. I feel so high-tech. And illegal. So, now: the band name is quite confusing. Do they mean The Strokes as in "she Stroke my forehead" or The Strokes as in "he had a Stroke and now he wears a diaper"? I want to believe that it's the first one. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I do.

And anyway, stroke is such a weird word. Look at the composition of consonants - you'd think it was Polish or something. And I'm Polish, so I would know.

This weekend has been/will be way too much play and way too little work for me. All play and no work makes Nat a happy-happy girl. However, it will also make Nat's grades dull. Very dull. This Friday was Johanna W's 18th birthday (finally!) so a gang of about 10 people surprised her at our regular pub (oh, the shame!): UFO. Let me tell you about UFO: it used to be very weird. They have walls in bright colors and tables in the shapes of feet. And yellow and green plastic sofas. You don't know if you've come to a kindergarten or a pub. Anyway - we started hanging out there because they didn't check for ID's. Then we got our VIP's there (you may touch me) and died a little bit on the inside. Anyway, over the last couple of months, UFO has become some kind of rock pub. Well, to be specific, it has become a rock pub, because that's what the poster outside said. "Welcome to Malmö's only real rock pub". What makes UFO so real? And so rock? You might ask yourself. Well, I'd say it's a mix between the giant Ramones poster on one of the walls and the black sheet with a pentagram painted on it in white chalk on the other. Yes. Pentagram. On a bright, fuchsia, wall. Oh, and also, the new resident DJ looks a little something like a mix between a shabby dog and a shabbier ball of black yarn. The green thing on his head is a BERET. Yes. And then there's a beer, and a hand doing a silly sign. Hello, I'm rock, who are you? He played odd, odd music all night. I don't even know what it's called. Like, metal-rock-hard-loud-non-melodic-loud-rock. With-a-lot-of-drums-and-base-and-guitars-going-oooeeeeeoooouuueee.

After UFO, Kajsa and me went to Golden, the pub that has gone from über-nasty to very cool and extremely indie and then back slightly to nasty. Our ambitions with UFO are actully to make it cool, but I feel that they're really not co-operating, with the new rock thing. After Golden, we went to KB, just in time to catch Advance Patrol performing their last song of the evening, the grand finale: "Välkommen till Malmö" (Welcome to Malmö), which is the only AP song anybody knows. After the concert, reggae night started, and I thanked Sean Paul for having such splendid dancers in his videos, teaching my entire ninth grade class how to dance to reggae without looking too white. Speaking of white, every time mthe DJ played semi-unknown reggae, all the black people in the club would take over the dancefloor. When the DJ varied himself by playing 50 cent, Lil' Kim and Chingy, all the white folks entered the floor, thinking, "oh! I've seen this video on MTV! I know how this song goes! I can dance! Man, I love reggae." It was quite amusing. Yeah yeah, so I danced a lot. It was nice and all, but I have one tip for you: don't drink water if you're trying to get a little tipsy. "Varannan vatten", my ass. Fuck Festmetoden, I spent 400 kr without getting drunk. I just got a hangover yesterday. Without being drunk before... How crappy. Yes, you may laugh.

So, yesterday was spent mainly in bed, except for the evening when I met my beloved Lecille and Ylva, my ladies, the lights of my life. We saw The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and Eurotrip. Eurotrip is like... the teen movie of all the teen movies. It sucked, but since we knew that when we rented it, we didn't mind, and instead, we enjoyed all of the prejudice that were shown. Yes, we were amused at a deeper plane. And watching movies with Ylv-man and Ell is always awesome, so I had a great time.

Today was supposed to be filled with studying. It won't - Johanna H decided that she'd have her 19th birthday today. Goddamn her. So, me, Martyna and Kajsa are getting out into the woods and fields of Skåne in order to eat cake. I guess I could do worse, but then again - I really need to study. Fuck.

Screw this, you only live once. I can sleep when I'm dead. Or retired. Or after I've recieved my Nobel prize. Or next weekend.

How to avoid doing your math homework.

I'd like to live here. Have to study math now --> get great grades --> become awesome lawyer --> win Nobel peace prize --> retire and live in NYC. Only... I want to live there now. I mean... I'm practically living the life of Carrie Bradshaw already, why can't God, Faith or Kizmet just stick me in a nice little loft on the Upper East Side? (I don't really know what that means but I'm pretty sure it's a fancy part of Manhattan. As if there are any non-fancy parts, pfft) Now, I don't mean to be stereotypical - not all girls want to be Carrie Bradshaw. Or wait...

We do.

Anyway, I'm seriously hitting the book (800 pages, so it's gonna hurt) in just a sec, let me just tell you about the latest escapade in the wonderful series of Natalie's Occasional Moments of Glory Re: Men.

The story starts with me looking damn good today. Yes, I don't know why, but I did. I felt it as I carefully applied a layer of my Maybelline mascara this morning, and as I gently brushed my cheeks with my Body Shop bronzing blusher. Uh, yeah, anyway. In school I got hold of a picture taken when I was in London with the English class, and I didn't look that bad. Okay, so my face is a little messed up, but still, I'm kind of cute.

See the un-fuglyness? Note my pink Chucks and the IB sweater. Back row: Yours Sincerely, Adam. Front row: Anna, Sarah, Joey, Sophie.

So, anyway. On the bus home I was looking at myself in the window and thinking, "Dang, girl. You are one hot tamale!" (Actual thought.) This added further to my feeling of self-hotness. When mom asked me to go to the supermarket, I happily agreed, since grocery shopping > sine & cosine curves.

There's a kind of hot guy working at our supermarket. I used to see him a lot this summer, when my parents were in Poland. I'd go there at least once a day to buy ice cream, which I would later eat in front of Beloved Sean and MSN. Lame? No! The ice cream-buying paid off! Today! Well, I guess you know where the story's going. Hot Guy, who looks like a mix between Kurt Cobain and a bulimic cocker spaniel (not bad for a guy who works at the grocery store) was indeed working tonight, and just as it was my turn to check out, his shift began at the cashier. When he came up to the lady who was sitting by the cashier while I was in the line, I didn't think much about it. I'm guessing something along the lines of, "Oh, Hot Guy is working. Look at that." However, when he reached into a paper bag that said "Karamell Kungen" by the lady's right elbow and extracted a piece of red and black wine gum, my eyes became filled with desire.

I followed his hand to his mouth, dreaming of the sweet and sour taste of carbohydrates. "Oh, wine gum", I sighed (very quietly). Apparently, Hot Guy must have thought I sighed "Oh, Hot Guy", because he looked me in the eyes and smiled. I smiled back, a little startled, but yet happy at the thought of carbohydrates. Hot Guy must have also thought that the desire in my eyes was meant for him (silly man), because he was awful friendly.

Hot Guy: I love my job sometimes. *Smile*
Me: *Slightly confused, yet carb-smiling*
Lady: Yes, but some days feel kind of hopeless, huh? I mean you wake up and…
Hot Guy: *Interrupts* I especially like to sit here.
Me: *Very confused, tiny, carb-related smile*
Lady: *Also very confused* Oh, you do?
Hot Guy: *Supersmile* Yes, I always get the cute customers…
Me: *Giggle*
Lady: *Giggle*
Hot Guy: Harr harr. *sits down on chair* I bet that guy before you thought I meant he wasn’t cute. He was, but you’re cuter.
Me: *Giggle*
Hot Guy: *Checks out my 3 cartons of milk and 1 bag of cat food* That’ll be 350 bucks, thank you.
Me: *shocked face, looks at the little display that says 45,50 kr*
Hot Guy: I was just kidding.
Me: Oh. *Hands over money*
Hot Guy: There ya go *gives me receit* Have a Nice Evening! (I swear, he said it with capital letters.)
Me: Yes. You. Too. Nice. Evening. Thanks. *packs groceries into plastic bag, exits supermarket giggling and dying on the inside due to own lack of humor*

*Giggle*

Look at that, 105 hits.

Natalie says:
you know what would be lame
Natalie says:
but fun?
Natalie says:
to search for anti-chinese sites on chinese google
Jonathan says:
time consuming

The bloggies!

Come on, go to the Bloggie website and vote for your favorite blogs! And if you, like me, have never heard of 75% of the blogs there, then this is a perfect opportunty to discover a bunch of new, entertaining and lovely weblogs.

Do I need to tell you that you should register at Bloglines and always use their "Quick sub"- function or whatever it's called? It basically means that you add this special website to your Favorites in your web browser, and then, when you find a lovely blog, you just go directly to that 'Favorized' page, automatically subscribing to the blog. It's the bomb.

I am now subscribing to 65 blogs at Bloglines, along with about 65-70 diaries at Lunarstorm. (That was the Swedish site, here's the British for all of my British readers. There's bound to be a whole bunch of ya.) Does this make me lame? No - the question I should be asking myself is: has this contributed to my crappy grades from the last semester?

Yes. How sad. Anyway; VOTE!

This totally describes how I felt last night. I love MSN Messenger.

And OH YEAH: I've updated my Blogger profile. Because I KNOW you want to know more about me.

And again...

I just lied about this blog. Again. I don't want everybody to know that I have a blog, because it will undermine my coolness. Yes! People actually think I'm cool. However, you, the readers of my blog, know the truth. I'm a lame-ass valley girl. :) and :(

Maybe I should profile (profilize? Whatever.) this blog some more. Like, call it The Secret Blog and write about how I try to keep it a secret, and make all of that into several adventurous anecdotes.

Or maybe I should do a rebel-rebel kind of thing, where the text up there ("this blog is about me, only me" etc) could be something like (and this is true): "My mom said I'd be trouble from the moment she saw me."

Or maybe... maybe I'll just stick to what I'm doing here. I'd rather be one more crappy teenage-blog in the blog jungle than a Fredik Virtanen, writing bullscheisse about shit I don't know anything about just so people can get pissed at me. I mean, come on, he loves Ulf Lundell. He's bound to suck.

Burn.

Fabric softener <3

I've been walking around commando for two days now. Yesterday was "too-lazy-to-do-laundry" day and today is laundry day. I'm so happy I haven't had to leave the house for these last two days.

Or am I...?

Hullo. I'm taking the day off. I deserve it, right?

Had a weird day yesterday. Slightly hungover + grandmother visiting = bad mood.

My grandmother has Alzheimer's disease. I quote, from Wikipedia: it is "characterised clinically by progressive intellectual deterioration together with declining activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms or behavioral changes. The most striking early symptom is memory loss (amnesia), usually manifest as minor forgetfulness that becomes steadily denser with illness progression, with relative preservation of older memories. As the disorder progresses, cognitive (intellectual) impairment extends to the domains of language (aphasia), coordinated movement (apraxia), recognition (agnosia) and those functions (such as decision-making and planning) closely related to the frontal lobe of the brain, reflecting extension of the underlying pathological process."

Basically: my grandmother has dementia, and is suffering from memory loss. Sometimes, she doesn't remember my name, or my mom's name. She recognizes us, but she'll call us "honey" or "darling" instead of using our names.

According to the article, she will soon find it more and more difficult to speak, and to move. She won't recognize us. Eventually, and this I found out from my former psychology teacher and current mentor Iaa, her brain will forget how it's supposed to make the lungs breathe and the heart beat. It's one of the most horrid ways a person can die, I think. Any way is horrible, but when your body forgets what it's been doing non-stop for the last 80 years or so, it's just sad.

My grandmother is convinced that there is some kind of thief harassing her, and breaking in to her apartment on a regular basis. How else is she to explain the fact that some of her clothes are missing, or lying in places she doesn't remember putting them? Or the food that is eaten, but that she only remembers buying? It's just a way to reason, to make the illogical seem reasonable. This, with the thief, it's been going on a for a few years, I think. Maybe two... I'm not sure. My grandmother has paid the police office a few visits, explaining, in her broken Swedish, which clothes are missing and what's going on. Often, when she's visiting here, she asks for a few pieces of paper and a pen, because she wants to write down what's been stolen.

How do you explain a fatal disease to someone who feels she is entirely healthy? My grandmother really is healthy - she doesn't have any physical diseases or blemishes, even though she's in her mid-70's.

It's a bit like that old joke: a man is waiting for the doctor to deliver his diagnose. The doctor walks in to the room and says, "I have good news and I have bad news". The man says, "Okay... bad news first, then..."The doctor goes, "Alrightie. The bad news is that you have Alzheimer's." The man says, "Oh... and the good news?" "Well, you'll forget it withing ten minutes!"

As soon as you're able to explain the disease to my grandmother (who didn't know about it even when she wasn't ill), she agrees to take her pills and to not go to the police again. An hour later, she's almost crying because my parents are telling her that there is no thief, and that she's just making it up. How can she be making it up? She's not crazy. She knows that there has to be someone coming to her apartment, stealing her things. There's no other explanation!

My grandmother's poor memory makes it very difficult to have a normal conversation with her. No matter what you're talking about, she'll be repeating the same questions and comments over and over again, not knowing that she's already said them 8 times before. You'll try changing the subject a few times, but it doesn't matter. She'll be sitting there, saying the exact same things, thinking she's having a normal conversation. You want to speak to her, because you want her to know that you care, but after a while, your patience is gone and you have to choose between being snappy or just leaving her. My mom probably takes on the heaviest burden here - she has to keep my grandmother busy when she comes to visit, and she has to talk to her, ask her why she hasn't washed her clothes ("the thief took my clean laundry"), why she's wearing light summer shoes in the middle of the winter ("oh, it's not that cold, besides, I've always been healthy, I won't catch a cold") and everything else.

Yeah, that's Alzheimer's disease. And oh yeah, did I mention it's genetic? I'm getting it too. And in 25 years, I'll be taking care of my mom the way she takes care of my grandmother. My mom always says I have to shoot her when she'll be like grandma is now. All for euthanasia.

The point of this entry was that yesterday was a boring and sad day because my parents were annoyed by me and my grandmother, and I was anooyed by them, my grandmother and myself. My grandmother was probably annoyed by the thief. The end.

A kingdom for a kiss

Yesterday, I committed one of the 7 deadly IB-sins: all day long, I thought I wasn't going out in the evening, and then I did. This means that I didn't get anything done, because I was counting on the time I'd have after, say, 6 PM. Anyway, I went to Sara’s in Svedala outside of Malmö. She had her birthday party last night, and it was very cosy. The absolute highlight of the evening was observing how this girl was hitting on Jompa all of the time. It was a blast, seriously. She was very... straightforward.

As I was walking home from the bus stop (rather unsteadily), at about 1.40 AM, with a cigarette in my (frozen) hand and the snow creaking beneath my feet, I thought about how many times that scenario had happened, and how many more times it would happen. No, not Jompa being hit on, but me walking home, to this home, this house, in the middle of the night. I realized that, except for the graduation season in May and June, it might not be a very frequent scenario. Please bear in mind that I was semi-drunk, and when drunk, I tend to become nostalgic. Yes, despite my tender age, I figure I have a lot to think about.

The problem is that it's so easy to get caught up in nostalgia. There's two kinds of nostalgia, as I see it: There's the kind when you think about how nice it was to, say, go to the beach with your family when you were a kid, or watch a Disney cartoon with your mom, and that might not be something you'd get hung up on. Well, at least I don't. Usually. Anyway, that was one kind. The other kind is the premature nostalgia... I'll give you a good example. My parents had some friends over for dinner yesterday. When I was about 5 years old, these friends went on a holiday with us, to Tunisia, I think. On the first evening there, we were sitting on the balcony of our hotel room, enjoying some watermelon or something, looking out at whatever sea borders to Tunisia. The lady in the company (not my mom) suddenly breaks down and starts crying, right in front of my brother and me. My parents get all uncomfortable, and her husband asks her what's wrong. Between her sobs, she answers, "Look at how beautiful this place is. It will never be the same here, it will never be our first evening in Tunisia ever again." She did have a point, but her premature nostalgia prevented her from being happy and enjoying the moment. I guess, what I'm trying to say is... A cliché.

CARPE DIEM.

Oh, and remember childhood? I used to watch my Beauty & the Beast videotape whenever I was home sick from school. God, how 90's. Videotape.

Remember Prague? I do.

I can't believe myself

So, I'm at home and online on a Friday night. Lame, yes, but not unusual. I find it difficult to go out and get crazy drunk at the Suburban Kids With Biblical Names gig at KB tonight, since I have -80 kr on my bank account. Oh, how I love living the poor life of a student.

I also have a shitload of shit to do, and staying home, even if I don't get anything done, means that I'll feel a bit better about it. Maybe it's my Catholic gene speaking: "Don't have fun until you're absolutely sure it's okay!". Or maybe I just know that if I were to go out tonight, I'd be hungover tomorrow, so I wouldn't be able to think properly until say, 5 PM. This, in turn, would mean that I wouldn't start doing my reading and writing until about 7 PM, and, well... I'd do it for half an hour and then download some Gilmore Girls/Desperate Housewives. (I hate not having channel 5.)

So, here I am. Nothing special about this evening, right? Wrong. I got something done tonight, schoolwise. Not much, but still. I gathered the strength to actually pick up my history notes from the bag on the floor besides my bed, double-click on the Word-icon on my desktop and start writing nice, tidy notes. I must be crazy. However, I'm guessing that a large part of this extremely unusual motivation came from the fact that I found this blog, written by a girl that went to PrIB last year. She's spending one year in the States, at this Hogwarts/OC-type school, and it seems so cool. I mean, they wear uniforms! That has been my dream for ever. School uniforms. In a non-sexual way, of course. And, well, anyway, all she did was like study and play tennis and shop. The ultimate lifestyle (if you're into tennis). And in her pictures, everyone looked so perfect and preppy and pretty. And rich. And she mentioned something about an Ivy League-college. All of these factors must have affected me in some weird way (I should know this, I'm pretty sure we did something like this when I had psychology last year), making me feel this irresistible urge to... study.

WWW.PHEROTONES.COM. you need it, i promise.

Lame-o

I'm kind of lame. I hang out at the Swedish Meteorology Institute's website way too much. But hey, can you blame me for wanting to know whether or not I can wear a skirt the next day? No! No, you can't!

Another lame thing I did today was admitting to myself that I like school. Not the school itself, no, but my friends there, and the classes I take, and most of my teachers. I like all classes except for ToK. I hate ToK.

Speaking of which, when will I be done with my ToK-essay? You can place your bets in the comments, right after this blog entry. Please do not insult me by betting on "sometime in April" because I intend to get it over and done with this week. I hate ToK.

In 9th grade, when we were to choose which program we wanted to attend in "high school" or the Swedish 'gymnasiet', I was pretty sure I wanted to go to the IB. Martin and I had discussed it for a long time, so that was no problem. There's just this one thing I remember very clearly; a friend of mine said that she knew this girl who had gone to the IB and that girl hadn't had a social life until after graduation. There are so many logical fallacies in that statement (and me pointing that out is kind of nerdy and ToK-esque (I hate ToK, by the way)), but I guess that's the general opinion about IB students. Well, to be honest, I have more of a social life than many of my friends who attend national programs, such as the Social or Natural sciences programs. The difference between the IB and the other programs is that our classes are usually tighter and socialize a lot within themselves. At least in general. Maybe the IB has the nerd-label because, let's face it, most nerds in your 9th grade class did choose the IB, but at the same time... I mean, my non-IB friends are neither considered to be nerds nor cool, and they still don't go out as much as I do. Not that I go out that much, I'm just taking me as an example.

I guess I do go out a lot. When school's off. Which might be another difference between the IB and, well, the non-IB: we take school more seriously, even though we are (I AM) the worst slackers in the world. Maybe it's because we understand that each and every class is a preparation for exams - the end of life as we know it. And hopefully, the beginning of life as a gangsta bitch ho motherfucker super pimp.

141 days left to graduation.

I just need to test this one thing. Yes, I know I should be writing my math project (due in November) and my ToK-essay (due today) but... yeah, no. I downloaded Picasa and I'm testing, testing, one-two-three. See, my profile even has a pic now. Fancy, huh?

Things just keep getting worse

Not only am I not done with my ToK-essay at 1.09 am, but all my friends are offline and I have no one to procrastinate with. Not even Lunarstorm will keep me company, the servers seem to be fucked.

This means I have 2 options: 1) do some actual writing or 2) go to sleep.

Oh, I'll just turn in my essay early on Tuesday morning. Nobody will know the difference from me leaving it in the pidgeon hole late on Monday afternoon. Right?

G'night!

Right!

Have you noticed my last.fm chart? Scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar.

I'm diggin it.

Song no. 6

Hello world!

I've been "writing" my ToK-essay all weekend, and it still feels just as worthless as when I started. I mean... Have you ever had to write a very important essay about something you didn't really understand? Because I really don't get ToK.

I've never felt like this before about an essay. I usually know what I'm writing about. Not this time, though. I don't know what my conclusion is supposed to be, I don't understand the aim of my essay and I don't even know how to reach it. Such an odd, weird and desperate situation. I feel stupid and I can't remember the last time I felt like this.

Dang. This is strange.

I don't care, I don't care, I don't care

It's amazing how quickly things can change. Only, 'amazing' sounds too positive, it's not the right word.

I want

• a feeling of accomplishment
• spring
• carefree days
• a feeling of excitement
• new jeans
• good jokes
• a feeling of unity
• bad jokes
• nighttime swims
• a feeling of readiness

I have

• a headache
• no life
• too much homework
• gone in over my head (?)
• a feeling of vacuum

Hey! Rollover DJ!

Hello! I've been procrastinating this for a while. Sincere apologies to all my faithful fans (please, no pictures). I didn't get all that many comments on that entry, ya know, were I asked for comments, but I did get some. Fair enough, I won't ask too much. However, I really do know that more than like the 6 people who have commented here are reading my blog. You might ask yourself how I can know that... Well, it's a secret.

Not really.

So, we're two weeks into the new year, and I'm liking it. So far, my year has consisted of

• Being home alone
• Having party due to previous point
• Getting drunk at before-mentioned party
• Going back to school and actually doing most of my homework, even the boring stuff
• Only skipping one class last week (math...!)
• Getting a 7 on the written commentary we did in Swedish last month. It was the day after the IB Cabaret, and I. Was. Hungover.
• Seeing the IB Cabaret movie and realizing I'm not as fugly as I thought I was
• Seeing The Chronicles of Narnia last night. I cried. And when I left the movie theater I got this unexplainable urge to go to a church and pray.

Yeah, that's about it. Except for New Year's Eve.

That evening started with Kajsa and I going to Burger King for a fancy dinner, and then hooking up with Ylva and Ell at Ylva's place. After an hour or so of make up, hairspray and blue liquor we left for Jompa's place, which held plentiful amounts of beer and happy happy people. Here, we danced to Call on Me, Slagsmålsklubben and M.I.A. 'Twas great. At midnight, we went out to Stortoget (= the Big Square) and watched the pwetty pwetty fireworks. Everyone goes Happy New Year and kisskiss blah blah blah. You know the drill.

The highlight of the evening was going to KB, a hip/bohemian nightclub for three hour's dancing. I like to dance, I really do. I met a 24-year old guy who wanted to crash at my place. Yeah... no. Still, it was two offers in less than a month. Wow, I'm le cool.

After KB, we went for falafel and then Martin and I walked back to Jompa's. At like 5 am. I felt very... well, very 18. I took the first bus home, which made me feel like tha wild party animal I am. Did that make sense? I don't know. Had a good evening though.

Oh, it so true.

you're the conor that is bright eyes. you keep
pulling out brillant beautiful songs from your
head and they just get better. you rock the
house down on stage and are a sweet shy kid off
of it. you're the best conor to date.

which conor oberst are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I KNOW YOU READ THIS!

So please leave a comment so I can see who my regulars are. I'm so sick of just getting comments from people I already know. I mean, they're so boring and predictable.

When I get enough comments, I'll tell you what happened this Saturday... Sounds tempting, huh?

Happy New Year!

Let's hope it's a good one...!