I have no idea what I’ll be doing this summer but I’m ok with that. I’m actually kind of excited about some change. I’ve been studying online for almost a year now and I’m sick of it. Being able to plan my school work myself was cool to begin with and online studies means a lot of freedom. In the end it gets very lonely though.

I will continue study some day, maybe in a year or so. There is a college in Västerås so maybe I could go to school for real instead of just online. Funny thing is I took a online class at the college in Västerås when I lived in Hultsfred.

Other than school worries I’ve got back to my daily walks now when spring is here for real and being outside is fun again. I just can’t take walks in the winter. The nature is just too damn depressing. Colourless and dead. In the spring taking walks is a joy with the colours and life returning to the world. I’m going to take a one hour walk every day now and get back to eating healthy like I did last spring and summer. I lost a lot of weight that way and now it’s time to loose some more.

I feel like things are going my way lately. First I get into three uni courses I really want to study and then I get an apartment. On top of that lately I’ve just been in a generally good mood. I don’t know what’s different this year but I’m not feeling the winter darkness like I usually do. For as long as I can remember I’ve been feeling low during the winter because of the cold and darkness but not this year. I think it’s because I’m different this year. I’ve changed. Adapted a more positive outlook on life.

I’ve also grown up I think. At least I feel like an adult for the first time in my life. Kind of ironic considering I’ve actually been an adult for nine years, had my own income for eight years and lived on my own for four years… Still it wasn’t until I turned twenty-seven that I started feeling like an actual adult. There are several reasons behind seeing myself in this new light. First of all I’m technically no longer a youth. At first that didn’t make any difference because I still felt like one but now I’m noticing that I’m having a ever harder time identifying with the youth of today. I’ve become one of those grown ups who look upon trends among the high school kids with a raised eyebrow and go “Huh… that’s odd”. Furthermore I think that I finally actually look like an adult, especially with the growing number of “fine lines” (the nice word for wrinkles). Personally I think I look like I’m at least twenty-four but others guess twenty to twenty-three. That doesn’t affect the way I look upon myself though. Last but not least the mere fact that I’m getting ever closer to my thirtieth birthday has also made me look upon myself differently. When you’re thirty you’re undeniably grown up and not just that, you’re actually on your way to becoming middle-aged. Sure you’re not there yet but you have begun the journey, just like you’re not an adult when you’re sixteen but have begun the journey towards adulthood. In the end age is about how you see yourself. I don’t think I’m old but I don’t think I’m that young either nowadays. I’m undeniably an adult though and I finally feel like one too.

Then there’s the hate. The hate is because of one reason and one reason only: too much school work. Lack of time. No matter how fun a subject may be, when you’re working on three different assignments in three different subjects at the same time and there’s not enough time, things aren’t peachy keen any longer.

Lately there’s been a lot of hate and a lot of stress. Because of that stress I haven’t been able to begin with what I think will be the best school assignment ever, and I do mean that as in EVER, as in during my one year at kindergarten, my entire nine years of elementary school, three years of high school, 6 months of re-taking high school maths and almost a year at uni. Yes, this assignment is that cool. I’m designing a house in my 3D modelling class. That doesn’t sound so cool you might think but I assure you it is because it’s not just any house. It’s the house of my dreams and rest assured my dreams are elaborate. Think the Addams Family minus the spider webs and filth plus Victorian upper class plus contemporary Gothic influences. That’s the house I’m designing, or rather, will design once I find the time to start the project.

That’s my main problem right now. I don’t have the time to start this amazing project because I have smaller – still fun – but not that fun assignments to take care of. That brings more hate to the situation.

All in all, my life isn’t ideal right now. But I have a solution. When you lack time there’s one thing which is only making it worse and that is… the Internet. The Internet is this great time stealing evil which since I do 90% of my studing in front of a computer (kind of hard not to when you study things like 3D graphics and Graphic design for the web) is distracting me a lot. I mean come on, it’s there, right in front of me, all the time! How can I not find an excuse to check DeviantART, Twitter, Facebook, my E-mail and all the other sites I regularly visit?

Well no more of that. Since I’m very busy I can’t have any distractions so I’m doing something very drastic. Something radical. Something I’ve never voluntarily done before in my life. I’m… taking a break from the Internet. Only until Monday but this is the first time in my life I have set a goal not to use the Internet for a set period of time. Not using it because I don’t feel like it is something else entirely. I will feel like checking my DeviantART fifty times a day, but I won’t. There will be one exception but only one. I need to announce the winners of a contest and give the prizes (premium memberships) in one of my groups on DeviantART on Saturday. That’s not for me but for the group and contestants and I swear to god I will not do anything but that. Other than that, no Internet for anything but school related things.

Whether I succeed or not will be easy to find out. See me on Twitter, DA, Facebook or any other of those places I frequent on the great world wide web, well that obviously means I’ve failed. If not, well then it’s a discipline so rare so please applaud. That last thing might have been a Manics quote but I would appreciate virtual applauds.

And with that my friends I bid you adieu. See you Monday!

Tonight I should be either writing an essay about web 2.0 and social media, designing a scene in 3D, read a book about Swedish working class culture or one about graphic design. Am I doing those things? Obviously not because I felt like blogging instead. Good for my site, bad for my school work. I need to start working on that 3D scene tonight. I haven’t even started, it needs to be finished tomorrow and the tutorial is 27 pages long. Woe is me!

I started a new course this week. Graphic design for the web. I’m really looking forward to this because the graphics bit is what I need to work on when it comes to web design. I only do basic web design based on XHTML and CSS but I do that well. The next step is to become good at graphics too. Maybe in the future I’ll try to learn JavaScript and PHP but for now I feel that mastering XHTML and CSS is good enough. I also really like to learn ActionScript for Flash (that’s what you use when you make Flash web sites) some day. So far I’ve only done animation in Flash.

So what’s going on besides school? Absolutely nothing. And I mean that in the strongest sense of the word. During my free time I hang at deviantART, watch movies and TV-series and actually found myself time to read a book which isn’t school related. Basically I don’t leave my apartment much but why should I? It’s not like there’s anything to do in this town and winter is here so I really don’t want to be outside at all right now. There’s actually snow on the ground. Snow! I hate snow!

I thought I’d end this post with a couple of photos.

I made my desktop pretty last night. A new wallpaper plus changed backgrounds on my calendar and to do-list widgets. The pretty boys are Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire of The Manic Street Preachers during their glam era in the early 90s. Aww, the glamour twins.

Click on image for larger version.

I’ve bought more spooky bottle covers.

To add to my collection of spooky bottles.

I won a photo contest for Buzzador a while ago. Buzzador gives you free stuff which you are to test and have your friends test as well. I was in a Neutrogena campaign and was one of the winners of the contest with this photo. I think they picked me more because of the fact that I made an effort to hand out the free samples to many people rather than because my photo was good, because as you can see it really isn’t. Below is a photo of my prizes. I got two free products to test and by now winning these three I have alot of skin products.

Don’t forget to check out the updates in the sidebar. There’s new photos.

In 3D modelling I’ll soon start working on building my dream house in 3D. How fun isn’t that?! I’m a bit worried about the project though considering I’ll be building a “kråkslott”. I’m not sure how to translate that but think old haunted house minus the spider webs and filth. Something going in this style. My house will be a gothic mansion with four towers, a veranda, four balconies, lots of intricate ornaments and Victorian furniture. I don’t think I could have picked a more advanced style. Designing a modern house would have been a lot easier considering they’re all about straight lines and minimalism but if I had made such a house it wouldn’t have been my dream home.

I see before me weeks and weeks of studies and seclusion. In other worlds, life will continue the way it has been since this term started. In three months I’ve been to three parties. My social life is thriving.

This reading is making me rather sad though because it’s about how the socialist parties reformed Sweden into a country of high welfare, which the current right-wing government now is ruining. What took 100 years to build up is being torn down now. Nope, sorry, I won’t shut up about politics just because the election is over. I’m very concerned about the future of Sweden and the election has made the political interest that’s always present in my life grow even more. Now if ever is the time to talk politics, to try to change things, now is the time to debate and question. The right-wing needs to be exposed for what they are so that everyone sees that what’s called “the new workers party” is nothing but a wolf in sheep clothing, with the same old agenda of reducing workers rights and giving more to those who already have the most. This battle isn’t about this or that political question. It’s about ideology! Socialism or capitalism. What kind of society we want to live in and what effect the current changes will have on not just today but the future as well.

School is going well but I wish I was more motivated. Don’t get me wrong, my courses are interesting and fun and I do my studying but I often have a hard time concentrating and take many breaks which easily stretch from the planned 15 minutes to 2 hours. So far I manage to do all the reading I need to do and hand in the assignments on time though so I guess I’m doing well anyway.

Here’s a little something I did in my 3D modelling class. My first assignment was to make a coffee cup in the program 3Ds Max. Here it is in perspective plus front view.

www.whirlwind.nu/2009/09/28/usa-isnt-the-world

That wasn’t what I was going to write about. I was just going to write a short update on what I’ve been up to this week. For the past few days I’ve been studying political history and I’m not quite as overwhelmed by school as I was this Monday when I read about the three assignments in three subjects that I need to finish in three weeks. My reaction reading about the hundreds of pages I have to read, the essays I have to write and the 3D graphic I need to create was something along the lines OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT THE FUCK JESUS CHRIST. Of course everything felt a bit more overwhelming before I had opened the books. I’ve still only began studying one of the three subjects since I’m going to focus on one at a time, but getting somewhere in at least one of the three has calmed me down. If I can handle political history I should be able to handle 3D graphics and IT as well.

Studying is actually what I’m doing tonight. I just took a short break to write this post and should get back to the Swedish union movement after WW1 now. It’s very interesting, reading about how the working class of Sweden first got organized, formed unions and finally got into a political power position.

I turned 27 the 29th of July and I promised I’d show you photos of what I got so here we go. Besides these things I also got money.

Rug which fit my kitchen perfectly.

Movies: Bridget Jones Diary, Push and Chicago.

Books: Drömmarnas flod (River of Dreams) by Gay Courter and Alltid Amber (Forever Amber) by Kathleen Winsor.

I wanted a cake with strawberries so my family made me one. Strawberries is a must when your birthday is in the summer.

Another lovely thing that happened this summer was the trip to Stockholm I did and the cruise I went on. The 4th of August I took the train up to Stockholm to visit my friend Milla and on the 6th I met up with my family for a one night cruise to Finland. You can look at the photos here.

As you can see the Happenings gallery is up and running again. It’s my photo blog where photos of the things I do will end up. That means everything from parties to walks in the nature. Photos of the latest stuff I bought and such will still be shown here in the blog.

Other than that today is a big day because it’s my first day of school this term. This fall I’ll study 3D modelling, Graphic design for the web, Information Technology and Swedish working class history. The first three classes are more or less related to web design but the last one is purely for fun. Contrary to most people I find politics very interesting so I’m really looking forward to this class. Studying graphics will be great as well since I’m ok at the coding part of web design but suck when it comes to creating graphics.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I want to finish this with thanking those who stick with me and my blog even though I so rarely update it nowadays. Lots of love to you.

Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you. I got into several uni classes this fall so I’ll continue my studies. I’ve accepted four 7,5 point (full time studies is 30 points) courses but I’m still a back-up to a couple more which I hope I’ll get into after the second acceptance answer. Since you can apply to a maximum of twenty courses people are bound to get into more courses than they need and therefore give up their spot in some to backups like me. Even though I was stupid and forgot to apply in time and therefore only could get in at all as a backup I still got into more courses than I needed and had to turn two down. So, I’m at least hoping for the one I’m backup number two on which happen to be what I most want to study of all the twenty I applied to. Surely two people who got in will turn it down.

I’m ending this with photos of some early birthday gifts I got from my friend Milla. My birthday isn’t until the 29th but I got the gifts when Milla was in town which doesn’t happen that often since she lives some 30 (european) miles away.

Skull antislip stickers.

Sponge which you can attach to a wall.

Sponge and creative use of antislip stickers continues the skull theme of my kitchen.

Shot glasses. “Allt är borgarnas fel” translates to “Everything is the bourgeois fault”. If you didn’t know historically bourgeois was the rich middle-class and nowadays in Sweden the word is applied to not only rich people but right-wing people as well. These glasses are a humorous hint at my political left-wing stance.

Candle holder made of salt rock.