Our Collective

How fast we managed to evolve into a unit. I've always considered that to be an unhealthy development in any relationship. I still do. But in the neck of time one of us got a job, even if it wasn't me. Yet. Hopefully the unit will partly dissolve now.

We have too many inside jokes, too many things that only we appreciate as a unit. In the private of the apartment that can be quite cosy and nice and in so many ways I am amazed that we still get along like this. I had expected fights, maybe even wanted them to prove that we have a normal relationship. But aside from the occasional nagging about the little things real fights have been completely absent. It'll come though. Fights are healthy. They keep things interesting and help you see things in perspective.

Outside the apartment the unit doesn't work as well. At least not in social situations. Which is why I think this job will do the unit good.

Oh Well....

At college we had a lot of professors and teachers who held lectures on feministic problems in the Patriarchal Society in which we apparently live. The fact that women are treated differently to a disadvantage could be applied to almost all the fields that we studied, not the least from a career prespective.

A lot of people, mostly women, became extremely upset about what they learned from these lectures, a reaction which is common when you first encounter what you perceive as unfair, and so encouraged by the people in power most of these students came to pursuit these feministic problems in many assigments during our education. A noble and much needed pursuit indeed.

In my oppinion there was a little too much focus on these feministic perspectives. They are extremely important and should be given a lot of space but they are not the only problem to adress. And what I felt eventually became destructive in this one sided approach to every field was that the focus always stopped on the problems and gave very little room for the solutions.


It's almost been a year since I finished my studies and I am still looking for a job, a career. The market is though for young academics without work experience in Sweden, that is a known fact, but as the one year anniversary of unemployment is closing in those feministic disadvantages has come in to questioning. Is it harder for me because I am a woman or is that just the "propaganda" speaking?

What if that is true?


"Let's see... we have an acceptable candidate here. Education, check. Minor work experience in the field, check. Good English skills, check. This looks ok." Continues to read in silence. "Oh damn! That's not good, this one has a uterus. It has to go in the no box."


Even though some work places probably panic over the idea of employing a woman with the risk of pregnancy and all what that would mean as an economical and practical setback I don't want to believe that this is common. I always dismissed the thought that my gender would stand in my way and hoped that hard work and talent would prevail. But suddenly I begin to doubt that theory. And it has much to do with those endless lectures about how society discriminates against all women. I am begining to wonder how close to the truth that really is and how my role as a human being holds up against my role as a woman.

For the sake of argument, seing I still refuse to accept it as an absolute truth, I am annoyed and upset over the fact that I was given the tool to acknowledge such information but not to fight it, or be able to do anything about it. So with the risk of ending with the cheesiest line in historyI would like to say this: I've heard the truth. Now what I want are the answers.

Nad the Pursuit of Happiness?

When I was 16 I could recite Martin Luther King's speech I Have a Dream by heart. I had problems in the start with the Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. I had no idea what the Emancipation Proclamation meant and I couldn't for the life of me pronounce it either. Which is why I constantly changed that part when by rare occasions someone asked me to recite it for them. In retrospect, I do wonder what kind of document I had poor Lincoln sign in my recitation.

There was also a typo in the copy of the speech that I had in my possesion which is why in the part: This note (reference to the Emancipation Proclamation) was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I kept saying nad the pursuit of happiness, thinking that the nad was probably a meaningful and fancy word that I just didn't understand.


Today, I can't recite the speech from start to finish. Probably bits and pieces but not the whole thing. I do however know that it is meant to say and the pursuit of happiness and I know what the Emancipation Proclamation means and how to pronounce it. And you've got to be impressed by that ;)

A Fish with Struma

In a previous post I brought to attention the unexpected gay community that had formed in the animal kingdom, more specifically in the penguin community. I thought that was an extremely fascinating piece of information. Little did I know that the unexpected animal facts would soon become a theme.

It happened as I was waiting for my mother in the reception where she works. I noticed that the numerous goldfishes in the reception tank seemed unaturally obese. Naturally I had to investigate.

On a closer look I had yet another shocking discovery. All the goldfishes seemed to be suffering from a serious case of struma! I kid you not, it looked just as if their eyes were about to pop out of their... do you say scull?

I managed to take this photograph with my cell phone and I would like to present it as exhibit one. And quite possible the only exhibit that I will be presenting all together. But it is really true what they say. You learn something new every day.

Broken Flowers

We rented Broken Flowers the other day. You know, the movie with Bill Murray that the critics seems to love.

Now I have different options in how to proceed with my feedback on this movie. I can play along and say that I loved it and that it was amazing so that I fit the profile of the intellectuals. Or.. I can be honest and tell you that I liked it but that I didn't find it particulary amazing. In fact, I am not sure I got the point of the movie at all.

Don't get me wrong, I have lots of theories on what the movie wanted to convey and I prefer a movie that is not obvious over one that is any day of the week. And even if the movie was beautiful in the way that it was shot and carefully planned in esthetics I still didn't feel that it was enough for it to be amazing.

I require something more mind blowing for that.

So I got to thinking. Why has there been such a chain reaction when it comes to praising this movie? I'm still not saying that it was a bad movie, it just left me hanging too much for me to classify it as pensive. Is it simply that people are afraid that they would be considered idiots if they don't praise it. I mean if one critic loves it and another doesn't understand it, would he or she really admitt that? Wouldn't it be easier to just pretend that they understood what was so amazing and join the line of those who understand better than the rest.

Usually the critics are right about movies. At least to my liking. But in this and a few other cases I just have to wonder if they aren't acting out of cowardice.

There is of course another explination. A very plausible one. And that is that I am an idiot who just doesn't get it. Well, if that is the case, at least I am an honest idiot.

At Least there is Still Air to Breath... Right?

Same old same. No good news but instead a confirmtion of what we already knew all too well.

But I did have a new revelation as the scary thoughts subsided the other day. Even if this situation is beginning to be ridiculously trite in the way it consumes my every thought I realized that it is by my own fault completely. And so again, same old same. I focus on the bad parts and completely miss out on the positive ones.

So what that we are broke and unemployed! I get to live with my best friend, my soulmate. Love of my life. And I know for a fact that even if a good job is hard to come by, I have something which is even harder to get. Something which began over three years ago, on a balcony somewhere. Now there is a Romeo and Juliet complex to live up to...

I should therefore stop all my whining (or at least tone them down a bit) over not getting a job and living in poverty and focus on the fact that I get to spend my days the best possible way.

I can do it!

*nervous laughter*

Back in the Real World

I had an awful realization just now. For the first time in over a month I was alone in the apartment, since my boyfriend was on a interview, and I sat down in the living room in complete silence. There are minor details still to take care of here, papers to be sorted, the last two boxes ready to be carried up to the attic, organizing all the small stuff that has no definate location, but the apartment is more or less ready. But in my silent solitude I could feel the reality creeping up on me again.

When you're constantly moving around boxes and have one single tangible goal; to be able to live in your apartment, as it was inteded, there really isn't much thought over for anything else. We've had no weekends to talk of, no time in between to ponder about the life outside our apartment plans or really do anything at all. So when all that is over the space becomes huge.

Huge and scary.

But who knows, maybe there will be good news when my boyfriend comes home. From what we've heard, chances are good that they are. And by now, our luck really should turn around. It has to.

Queer as Penguins

I found this wonderful article in one of the online tabloids. Now, the tabloid has been known to stretch the truth from time to time but I would like to believe that this story is true. (Article in Swedish)

Time, Love and Tenderness

We've been living in chaos for so long now that I can't remember how it was to have an organized home or how it felt to step into my living room without having to jump over boxes of junk. Hopefully this place will recemblance a home in a week. Which we have been saying for weeks now of course.

There is always something missing, always something more to be done. No instructions for the bookshelf, one important missing screw for the dresser, the list goes on. And we have been cursed with some additional bad luck lately.

Parking ticket even though we payed for our parking space. The electrician didn't come, he had forgotten. Then he finally arrived a week later to install our new oven and the fridge decided to break down which meant we had to wait another week before we could make dinner in our new kithcen. And when we lifted our spirit enough to install the computers so that we could start working on the documentary again the screen on the head computer was broken and we now have to wait for two weeks before we can start working with that again.

Sometimes you just have to laugh about it to prevent yourslef from going crazy. But then again, maybe that is the definition of crazy. Just like a mad man laughing at the rain....

My boyfriend has this old bookshelf that he refuses to give up on. There is no room for it. It doesn't fit in with the colors of the room. And it is ugly. I am waiting for him to realize it and until he does it will probably be standing in the middle of the living room, collecting dust, drivint me nuts. Like the Michael Bolton CD that we found. No one wants to confess to this error in judgement, this youthful indiscretion. But some day, sometime, someone will put it in the CD player and then the world will see which one of us who can't resist singing the lyrics.