Why does everyone hate Mondays? Wednesdays seem to be my Achilles...

I was just about to write a semi gloomy tired grumpy message, when I realised that my last entry was exactly that and that I wrote it one week ago. It seems that Wednesdays are not my best days. Today's general feeling: an elephant nesting in my hair...

will try to write something more inspiring soon. now i'm off to pay 90% of my salary in bills... perhaps this can explain today's grumpiness partly ;)

Weather mood

Today the weather reflects my mood almost perfectly. It's a grey day, with a few tiny droplets coming down, some thin reminders of sunrays reflecting through the clouds, a little bit of wind but not enough to mess up your hair, and cold but not freezing, just a certain kind of numbness reminding of emptiness.

3-lingual

Got a comment about the fact that my blog uses several different languages. Although, I am not sure I really agree since the large majority of entries are made in English, with only one or two Swedish exceptions and no French ones, I though I should perhaps explain why. The fact is that I use the three languages in my daily life as I speak, write and read mostly English but also French at work, and speak all 3 languages outside of work with friends and family. The fact is that I do not really make a distinction, if something is written in French on the blog (which was earlier the case for the headings as I never made the effort to change the language of the blog - I did today though, but not sure I like it as I kind of miss the old French headings, liked the mixture of languages on my blog as in my life - what do you think?) I do not really take it in and hence do not take the time to change it.

However, I do try to write my entries in English so that everyone can understand them, since almost everyone I know understands English and many understands neither Swedish nor French. Exceptions are there to confirm the rule ;)

this is my life and i like it :)

student loans....

In Sweden almost all university students accepts the official student loan from the state without second thoughts. In fact, you are kind of made to believe that this is the best solution ever. So you accept it, you go on studying, you perhaps go abroad to study, you enjoy life in a way and never really thing about the debt that is accumulating. A debt you will normally spend your whole life paying off.

Today, there's an article about the fact that many Swedes who study abroad have loan for over 400'000 SEK (about 43'000 EUR) and that they will have problems paying them off and will possibly end up paying approximately 10% of their net income if the loan has not been paid off before they turn 50.... 400'000 SEK - I wish! Mine is a lot higher, and I did not go to some fancy expensive American school either, just the fact of having gone all the way to Master level... And yes, it is already a chock every 3 months when I have to pay approx. 900 EUR to pay off the loan. The worst thing of it all - of the total of near 3'600 EUR i paid last year, only about 56% was actually to pay off on the loan. The other 44% - to pay off interest accumulated during the year!!!!

If I had thought it through beforehand, if someone had informed me/us that student loans are great in that they are open for everyone giving equal opportunities etc and in that they allow you to go off in the world to study but that they will be a burden for you once you start to work. Perhaps if I had been informed about this, I would have put in more effort to survive on other means, at least for part of my 7 years of studies... Maybe it would not have changed anything, maybe I would have had to take them anyway, but perhaps it would have allowed me to have only half the amount in debt, meaning that I would actually be spending most of the money paying off the loans rather than the debts and that I would most certainly be able to pay them off before I retire. Maybe... Why not take the chance and inform kids about the real costs of taking student loans? The real cost of being indebted to CSN for life?

7 loads of laundry!!! hell anyone?

so yesterday was laundry time after a couple of weeks of procrastination since i hate doing laundry!!! used to never even think about it, but ever since i live without my own washing machine it's an excursion and takes the whole evening. no difference yesterday, from 19.30 to 01.00 with about 1h break for dinner... nice huh :( well at least i had someone very special to keep me company for part of the time and he brought me an ice cream in the middle of it all ;)

7 loads of laundry in one evening... that must be a record!?!? well, those that have several kids probably wouldn't agree, but for a single person? and yes indeed, i have loads and loads of underwear!! and clothes, towels....

welcome back miss summer!!!!

lovely weekend with sunshine sunshine sunshine and warmer weather by the day!! must admit that everything that needed to be done (washing clothes - extremly urgent since really down to the last ugly underware; cleaning the apartment...) was saved for some other day and the weekend was mostly spent down by the lake. saturday with some friends, met with one friend and walked to the other side together and then hung out at bains-de-paquis the whole afternoon with more and more friends joining as the day passed. sunday, rollerblade tour with my love, first to the end of the small lake (the lac leman alias lake geneva is made up of the small lake around geneva and what you can see from the city, and the whole lake or big lake which goes all the way to montreux) on the right side for some exercise and then back again and over to the other side to bdp again where some friends then joined! the rollerblade tour supposedely burned some 900 calories according to my love's new cardio watch - if that's true, i should have had even more to eat yesterday ;))

so a lovely start of the summer and the first weekend spent mostly in a bikini :)))
feeling in real good shape, full of energy in spite of my severe iron deficency, but perhaps that's also due to having indulged in meat these last days...

soon off for lunch in the sun, wow i really love the summer!!!! welcome back, you have been longed for!

massage addict

the one-armed monster from a few weeks ago is now more or less history. i'm still using my left hand on the mouse, and i'm not allowed to lift up heavy things with my right arm, but i'm allowed and was even encouraged to go back to do sports and live my life as normal. supposedley if i protect my arm/shoulder too much we will not be able to see if the physiotherapy actually works. yep, am now going to see a physiotherapist 2-3 times per week for 9 times total. not too bad i must say, though i have only been once so far (wasn't allowed to go for the first week since my muscles were too tense and it would only have made the problem worse, and then there was 1 week waiting list which almost drove me crazy especially since after my arm started to feel better following the muscle relaxing and anti-inflammatory medecins my lower back and then my neck started to play up, the latter being the worst as it gave me headaches and made me feel like a complet wreck).

second session this afternoon (luckily i have an understanding boss) which i'm looking forward to as i feel a bit stiff again this morning... the 40 minutes or so there consisted last time of about 20 minutes massage (first hurtful but then nice) of the shoulders and neck, concentrating on the right one, and then 20 minutes of lying on a hot mud-paraffin mixture which was so hot it felt it would burn my skin right off, but which is supposed to help the muscles relax and felt quite good actually, though i must say i prefare the massage, but then again i've alway been a massage addict ;)) hopefully the massage is on the schedule for today as well!!!