Housewife..

Time to get used to just being a housewife. Wrong word, since I'm rather unemployed and not married, but the jobtasks are the same apart from reading ads and so forth.

Can't help but it feels like most of the housewife-tasks could be handled by a trained ape. How to find some sort of satisfaction in doing routine work? Especially when there is nobody who really appreciates the result, apart from myself.

Sometimes I try to make things a game or a competition, like "who could run around the supermarket at the fastest speed". The other guys in the store had no clue, but I just improved my personal best time. The trick is to avoid daytime and all the retired people and real housewifes, but to get in there at the most an hour before they close. In the store I've found to have the cheapest milk and meat I never run into my wealthy neighbours or former collegues. On the other hand one can wear anything, but still feel smartly dressed in comparision with the rest.

Another trick is to think about something else, which is not always recommended..

I'd better find something to do. I had a bunch of ideas, but do they really get me anywhere..?

Pointless cameras?

It seems the latest trend in Sweden is cameras along the road. I'd like to know if it works. It was apparently not a success to tell the drivers that there has been a lot of accidents along a particular part of the road...

Before you see any camera they put a sign with a picture of a camera by the road. At that point most people realize that they should slow down. The only problem is to which speed? I tend to ask "what's the speed limit, anyone?". My son believes they deliberately omit this kind of information in order to get some income from putting up the cameras. I don't know.

Most people don't want a ticket, so I guess they slow down. But to which speed? Lately the range of allowed speed limits have increased, so it could be 110, 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50 or even 30.

Then the camera comes and and I tend to look for a flash, instead of paying attention to the small turning or whatever obstacle there is at that same place. However, it seems there is never any flash!

The result of all this is probably that some cars slow down to some arbitrary speed while others just continue, since they have figured out that the cameras don't work.

I guess that the local authoritized have been creative and are trying a new trick instead of taking their responsibility and improving the road. But isn't it a bit like having a photographer saying "cheese" and instead of just repeating the word, people in front of the camera starts talking about different kinds of cheese... kind of pointless?

(please, don't take anything I write here seriously, this blog is written just because I like to express myself or make a point or follow a though. I communicate therefor I am.)

To read minds or be explicit

Have you even thought about how often you have implicit expectations? You might be irritated, annoyed or disappointed about something which actually never has been clearly communicated? Sometimes we tend to expect things from people and then get disappointed when they don't act as we expect them to.

To some people, with a completely different orientation, only the things that have been communicated exist. Everything else is just fantasies. According to the my experience the latter attitude is more common among men than among women, but I admit it is a generalisation.

Since I am aware of that some people don't "read minds", "guess what other wants" to the extent that you might expect them too (especially if you are brough up having developed that skill yourself with some people to whom you are close), I am trying to be clear and speak my mind.

Still, I've realized that I get seriously disappointed in people, while I'm not sure they really understoond what I wanted or how important things were to me. So, my new approach is to clearly communicate and tell people what I would like to have or do. For instance asking a friend "when can I come and see you" instead of being sorrow for not being invited. I tried that at work too, but it didn't work very well. What I wanted was of course totally irrelevant a work! But for friends and family it might be...

I remember my father in law, he always called before birthdays asking "when can I be there"? He didn't sit and wait for any invitation. I think that was great. He was always there and celebrated, on the right day, with his personal presents. That's the way to go!

Poor reporting about the flu, called "basic facts"

Reading about the flu. Some journalists in certain large papers pretend to report "facts". Like the large Swedish newspaper Svd. The reason is apparently to make people calm down. What are they so afraid of? That people shall break in to steal vaccine when it arrives? That our hospitals should prepare for seriously ill people in vain?

What they bring up is selected information, like "hundreds of people die from flu every year". Yes, hundreds of old people in Sweden. They don't show statistics explaining that this flu seems to hit younger people. I think it is a big difference. A very old weak person might not be possible to treat successfully, but a younger person may need intensive care.

They take the figure of how many people have died from the flu so far and compare it with the total number of known cases. Between 400 000 maybe up to 3 million Swedish people is expected to get sick. How many would then die if the current level of death from flu in the world is maintained? It is said to be 0.4-0.5 % in the same article. What annoys me is that they don't mention the real figures.

It actually means between 1600 and 15000 people just in Sweden. Even if it only turns out to be a tenth of that figure, it is still a lot of lives. (The tsunami in Thailand killed around 550 Swedes on vacation. Just to compare the figures.)

The flu is described as a light desease with a few days of flu-like sympthoms. It is mentioned very briefly that the risk of getting serious complications is increased for people with lung diseases or other serious "underlying" diseases. The conclusion is made that we shouldn't worry.

What they seem to forget that a large number of people in Sweden (and probably other countries too) suffer from "underlying" diseases. Many people have asthma in Sweden. What are we supposed to do?

We can also read (elsewhere) that the specialists believe that they will be able to handle eventual complications at our largest hospitals. Let's hope so. Let's hope that the ones responsible don't read one of the large Swedish newspapers without thinking twice. Let's hope they don't manage to stop the plans to vaccinate people just because it will cost money and some large corporations will make a profit.

I am willing to pay 100 SEK to become vaccinated and decrease the risk of getting the flu and possible complication because of my underlying asthma. Instead of selected "basic facts", I would rather get some advice on what I can do to prevent getting the flu, or rather surviving the flu. Thank you.

Dreams of a young man

We've all have got dreams. I believe my son is dreaming about everything he could do, like travelling and buying cool things, if he had enough money. At least, the possibility of earning money is what comes up all the time from his side.

I've been talking about picking some blueberries, since it's really a blueberry year this year, there are plenty of them and they are big. My son liked the idea because of the possibility to earn money. "I'll pick a lot, and sell", he said. Well, in end we didn't pick enough to sell, at least not today, but his pocket money may be somewhat larger than usual (which wasn't his original idea, because he wants to make his own money from other sources).

He has tested to develop small convenient software programs that he has sold to his friends, but I think he has realized that it won't make him rich since he sells them really cheap.

I just hope I can make him understand that increasing the grades at school will increase the chance of earning money. I just lack a good example. He has already found out that if he could predict the stock market that would make him richer.

Adapting some early African aspects

We all come from Africa. It was an interesting man talking about it on the radio today. He meant that humans had always been cooperating to survive, therefor socialicing was important. Nobody would be left alone, except to die.

Now I'm thinking, if I had been bord in early Africa, I would have liked to go hunting with the guys. Isn't that what I've been trying to do, more or less? Climbed trees and challenge guys in sports (not fotball). I'll never forget at school when I won a game of badminton, and the guy who lost asked me if he could tell the other guys that he had won. Wouldn't I have learnt back then that guys hate to compete with girls and if the do they expect to win?

Now I'm thrown out of the tribe. I was the only woman in my work group, when I was fired. I was told specifically, that I wasn't like the others. I'm not saying that I was fired because I am a woman, since there were female managers there, no, I assume the reason must have been that I wasn't running fast enough. Anything else would have been absurd. But it is also clear that some guys hated to be challenged by me. Especially a few ones that thought they were some kind of tribe leaders, they got nuts, when I questioned what they said, ie their authority.

So what am I going to do now? Go back to the women, or continue to challenge guys and risk loosing again?

Winning concept for rich families

A recommendation for parents with lots of cash is to buy their kids a large summerplace to share. That way the children and grandchildren will spend a lot of time together, whatever the parents decide to do. It has to be done when the children are young, so they haven't had time or money to get their own places.

My children are growing up together with their cousins on their dads' side, since they spend their summers together. And their cousins on my side grow up with their cousins on my sister in laws side. Ehh.. it sounds a bit complicated when explained like that. I believe it is a winning concept for those families, but not for the branches of the families that hardly ever meet because of it. Of maybe it is just a bad excuse..

Parental love

I believe that parents should be able to love their children whatever they do. As a parent you raise you children, as well as you can. You give as much love as you are able to give.

As a parent you may try to steer your children into becoming something you want them to be. The most effective but not the recommended way to steer is to only give your love when they behave as you want. Whatever philosophy or way you may use when you try to raise your children, it definitely has to stop when they are grown up.

My firm believe is that everyone has to live her own life. If the raising and the steering from parents continues, then they try to live your life which isn't fair, they have had their own life with their own choices to make.

If you as a grown up feel that you have to behave, to perform and do certain things in order to receive your parents love, then it is not parental love you receive. Parents should love their children whatever happens. From your birth and on.. If they don't, they should try to accpet themselves and the fact that neither they nor their children are perfect.

Breaking hearts or making exercises

Yesterday I enjoyed some singers performing Nina Simonies songs together with her former group. One of them made a a-capella song, which was new to me, but they way she made it almost made me cry behind my sunglasses. If someone plays an instrument or sings as if her or his heart is going to brake, the listener feels something. To manage to put the heart into something is what makes the difference.

What kind of music you like depends on what you're used to, which also mean that you can get used to and enjoy new kinds of music. If you get influenced by others, maybe you take the time needed to learn to like new styles. I've never taken enough time to learn to like the classical jazz music style. To me it sounds like the participants need to test the functionality of their instruments by playing up and down, up and down quickly. It feels like they will never ever stop because they love to show how quickly they can play after all the hours of practice they have put into it.

When I was young, having a piano teacher, I got some piano pieces to play just as finger exercises. I found them terrible boring so I practiced these exercises very little compared to the beautiful pieces. I played most other pieces so many times so I knew them by heart, but on the finger exercises I made no progress at all.

From one thing to another, it is possible to have a job where one can choose what to do and one only spend time on beautiful music and skip the finger exercises? Kind of..

Improved habits

I adopted a new habit this morning; taking the bike to a nearby beach in the morning before it gets crowded and then taking a longer trip back. That way I get everything, both sun, excercise, air. Why haven't I done that every morning with nice weather? Instead of going back to sleep after I've had breakfast..

Yesterday was totally waisted. Being a bit depressed, not much, but enough to not wanting to meet with anyone. This day is much better already. I'm planning to joing the jazz festival tonight. I am not the one who enjoys a large crowd of unknown people (on the contrary, I think large crowds behaves like idiots) but maybe I run into human beings I know. Being outdoors, eating, drinking and walking around listening to music is ok anyway, especially if the weather is nice. I've been sitting there in the rain too, in a much smaller crowd..

I won't say anything about the music, until I've heard it.

What did I learn from getting a new job..?

Fist time I got a job, I was only a kid. Training smaller kids playing tennis, then handing out packets to people at Chistmas time (not playing Santa), and finally selling things in a big store. My mum helped to get the jobs, by calling up and talking to the people hiring.

I got my first job in the industy by showing a scientific essay I had written. It turned out my coming manager was very impressed with anything scientific, and the essay was in the right field too. It could not have been my clothing that made a good impression, because I was wearing jeans with flowers, a shirt with checkers on and a couple of cool boots.

By the way I also know what sentence in the ad that made my apply. Luckily the job turned out to be quite different than described in the ad.

The second time I got a new job, I was dressed in a more normal way, but the manager wasn't convinced until at the second interview when I had dressed up in business outfit and also made some sort of presentation.

I also remember the ad which I liked very much, but unfortunately I had a bad feeling about my manager, who never made me feel confortable.

The third time I think personal chemistry was important. I liked both my manager and the collegue who was interviewing (he is still one of my friends), but I think it was my grades from school that convinced my manager.

I also remember the grandma I met outside my kids daycare who suggested I should I apply to that company. The grandma happened to a former headmaster of mine.

After that I have learned during the years that making a short but colorful briefing of the shortcomings of your former (or current) manager is not a winning concept. On the contracy. I've also learned that your closest manager need to like you (and you need to feel trust), but he (or she) should also be skilled (know what he is doing) and have an interesting job waiting for you. Or rather for me...

I've got a feeling this time it's not going to be that easy.

Inspiring friends

I've got some creative friends. One of them likes to do all kinds of practical issues. She is making her own sweets and her own sauce that you eat together with a pie (I just realized that they have a new ready made very nice sauce in the store...)

She also likes to do carpenting, but there is one problem. She can not use any tools as long as his husband is around, and not use any wood either. Pretty hard to do any carpenting without any tools or wood... I visited her today and since her husband was not around (what a coincidence..) I suggested we should fix something that she needed to do. She was very happy get the chance to do a bit of carpenting. I can't understand how her husband can deny her to do some of the things that she loves to do.

Another friend called me the other day and asked me to model. OK, I said, since I had nothing in particular to do. I had no idea she had some artistic project in her mind and I was supposed to stand with a plastic umbrella, dressed in a special way with hat too and move when she was waving to me. When I was standing there quite a few people passed (fortunately there were noone I knew), I was thinking how easy it would be to play me a practical joke....

A third friend who never seems to give up on dreams, has some sort of musical project ongoing. I was offered the opportunity to contribute, but I'm not sure I can. Anyway I think it's cool.

It strikes me that if any of those people have something they want to do, they do it.

Isn't that inspiring?!

Trick your neighbours

First you tell your neighbours you are leaving for vacation, and hand out your mobile number if something should happen when you're gone. After some time you turn up, put a broken lamp in the window, leave the window open and then leave the house. Make sure not to answer the phone if someone calls you.

My neighbour did that trick. I am like the old lady in "Morse", I call the police. Yepp..
but next time I won't.

Goals and stupid dreams

I started to play the piano as a small kid. When my older sister were playing together with my mother, I asked if I couldn't play too. "You have to wait until you're five years old", my mother said. Then at the age of five my mother gave me my first pianolessons. At seven I started to take pianolessons for a professional piano teacher. At seven I also performed for an audience for the first time. Just like many Swedish pupils I participated in small concerts for parents and others.
My mother invited my piano teacher to our home. I remember that she was playing like a God. She played Chopin a piece my dad loved and had on a record. About years later my piano teacher asked me if there was any piece I wanted to play (she had actually never done that before) and I asked my dad who suggested that same lovely piece by Chopin.

My piano teacher was very demanding. She was always commenting and correcting and seldom gave any credit, but when I came back after having practised that particular piece she gave me an "eloge" for my work. I remember I performed at some competition at school with that particular piece of Chopin. (The performance wasn't perfect, since I had not played and practised long enough, but it was fun.) After that I didn't take any more lessons for that teacher. I had reached my goal.

When I started to work at a Big Company many many years ago, I had a manager who was a bit of a mentor. He was running a small team and he was very successful when it comes to revenues. The team consisted of specialists in different areas like software, electronics, mechanics and there was a production unit as well. My role was to assist him with investigations and help out with all kinds of things, like customer demonstrations. The challenge was whenever a competitor presented a new feature, to figure out how they were doing things in order to do something similar, to kill their arguments or to come up with something better. I learned a lot. At excibitions I always mingled around the competitors booth to get as much information as possible. My manager did too. It was fun.

I felt my manager treated me a bit like a predecessor. I remember at a conference when he was speaking, he told me he thought I was also going to speak at conferences in the future. I was determined I would try to do that. Sometime in the future.

Many years later, working in another area, I discovered that it was not competence and experience that was important if you ever should get the opportunity to speak at a conference. It was only a matter of having the right title and some presentation skills. A newly arrived manager without any knowledge in the same area where I had been working for many years, was going to make one of those large conference presentations. I tried really hard to get the opportunty to listen or at least to help out with the message and the presentation, but it seems everyone but me I could do that.
A stupid dream, wasn't it?

Time to get some new goals and dreams.

How are the journalists thinking?

I'm still surprised over how news are reported these days. In a democrazy you are allowed to express whatever you think (with few exceptions). In a dictatorship you are not. On the contrary, it is considered a crime to speak up, to gather in groups and of course also to demonstrate. Everybody knows that. Punishment in a democrazy is normally decided by an independant court, which is seldom the case in a dictatorship. So it wouldn't be so strange that people are killed in masses if they are demonstrating in a country where that isn't allowed.

Now suddenly, at least Swedish journalists and politicians seem to have forgotten that. Why? Does it have anything to do with trade, business and important visitors? Or does it have anything to do with the fact that the western world owns a lot to this country where democrazy is considered a luxury. What will happen with the rights to express our thoughts? Will Sweden and other western countries obey the dictatorship in the future?
If it starts with "don't disturbe the relationsships", if might end up with "do as they propose"?

Do we know a shit?

Didn't believe my eyes and my ears today. I was watching Aktuellt (a Swedish news-show) about the so called ethnical problems reported from the big country in the east. The way it was reported made me think that all critical reporters had left for summer vacation. So I checked the web and a famous news paper from a large country in the west.

First the journalists reports about the (eastern) government that restricts spreading of information from the public. People can not upload videos to YouTube, they can not use Twitter or other user generated content to spread their witnesses about what they experience (what is normally refered to as the truth, although it's by no means some sort of objective information). The professional journalists tell us how they have been fed with a story that the government want to have spread. They were even taken on arranged tours..

OK. Now everybody should realize that the information they have receieved and what they have seen can not be trusted. At all.

The next that happens is that all media reports more or less exactly the story they are told!! (as far as I understand)
Isn't that disappointing and scaring? Why tell a story at all then (if you know the information should not be trusted)? Why not just report "we don't know a shit"?

I am just imagining what it would be like to experience something horrible, but not being allowed to communicate it. That the story is rewritten completely by someone, and then being repeated in all news and media across the world. I believe that is happening all the time.. don't you?

Corruption, what's that?

Corruption is something that is happening in other countries. Not in Sweden. We tend to close our eyes and call it innocence.

There is a recent example in the papers; a company producing non quality food portions to be delivered to hospitals for millions. What's wrong with that? If the people being responsible for hospitals (in Sweden it's called landsting) want to save money by giving sick people lousy food, what so surprising with that? Kids get lousy food in the schools every day in order to save money..

Well, the problem is, as far as I understand, that maybe they don't even save money in the end, because the very large several year contract was not (according to the papers) trieted properly, having several companies bidding and a decision taken according to sound business principals (now again, I don't have a clue, I only repeat things I've understood from the press).

In this particular case they have pointed out the responsible person, a politician. (Poor woman, it must be stressful to be interviewed in the papers when something has gone wrong.) Of course she claims that she didn't know about any details, she trusted some other people, some paid experts to deal with these things. And when the papers ask if she isn't planning to resign, (isn't that rude?) she sais "no" with the following explanation; "people resign here and there, but the difference is that those people did things deliberately wrong, but I didn't." Being incompetent and not being aware of what was going on seems to be a reason to hold on to a position as responsible politician.

Let's ask ourselves some elementary questions in relation to this business. If it is true what is written in the papers, the company that won the contract, knew that they were going to win the contract long before the decision was taken, and even built a factory in advance. And that some reports with negative information about that food, never reached the politicians taking the decision. Then the question is; who gained something on this business, apart from the company that got the deal?

Did any of these people handling this purchase had any connection to the company? Were they relatives or best friends? Or was someone working for the landsting paid in order to make sure the company won the deal?

Those type of questions would have been asked in any country that knows the meaning of the word corruption. Not in Sweden. The papers (as far as I've seen) only deal with the question if the politician had made something wrong or not. Only if she only was innocent (and incompetent) or not...

My conclusion is that Swedes are a very innocent people. We don't think corruption is happening around us. We also think it is ok to be incompetent.

Another interesting questions is; what would have happened if she would have done her job properly?
Let's imagine that there were some sort of connection between the people that was hired to handle the purchase and the company that won the contract. Let's imagine that she had revealed a large corruption in the landsting bureaucracy. What would the difference had been?
1) she would not have been innocent any longer
2) she would have gotten a lot of enemies, internally in her own organisation. Those enemies would propably have known how to play the game and managed to get rid of her one way or another.

Maybe she understood that. Maybe she was a smart politician who didn't want to investigate a possible corruption in her own organisation, and possibly destroy her own carreer? What do you think?

Positive?

Just a word about being positive. Some people say "I try to be positive", or "every cloud has got a silver border (or line or whatever...)". Yes, sure. But if it was that easy, then there wouldn't be a big business with all those books about "how to succeed in life" and "how to become a happy person".

Maybe i'ts like being afraid of dogs. I happened to be a little bit scared of dogs. Or rather my body is. My body starts behaving in the wrong way in certain situations, like when a dog stands in my way in the streets and stares at me. My body is trained to react, since I used to turn and run like crazy when I was a kid and met a dog. It doesn't help that my very logically mind tells me that "the dog is smaller than you" and "it has probably never attacked anyone before".

Now my neighbour has bought a puppy. I see it as a good opportunity to get some training. To teach my stupid body not to react and prepare to run, even if the puppy jumps at me.

The training in this particular situation might be to try not to see myself in the future looking for cans for recycling just because I've lost my current job. It is not a question about being positive. It is rather a question of not expecting a disaster.

Digging to get some order...?

Someone once told me "dig where you stand". I'm trying to apply that right now. Since my appartment has got stone or wooden floors and the garden isn't mine, I'm digging into my wardrobes.
The only problem is that the more I clean and the more order I get at one place, the more disorder I get in another part of appartment. For the moment I am pretty sure I will never get a nice and tidy appartment. Never.

what the hell is this..

Maybe I should explain. This is a blog for me. I need to talk to myself or someone else, let's call it a therapy blog. I've forgotten to whom I've given the link and I'm sure that most people don't want to read this crap. Now I've started to write in English, or Swenglish as we call it when the English isn't perfect, but rather shows sign of being written by a Swed.. it gives me the opportunity to practise the few words I know, and it gives non-Swedish people the satisfaction of reading. hehe.

Grandchildren

When I was about 17 or so, one of my best friends were talking about her goals for the future. She said that if she was going to become old, she would like to have collected fine crystal and silver and be living in a beautiful place.

Me on the contrary, I thought that even if I had all that, it wouldn't stop me from being a lonely old woman. So, I said "I want to become wise". I thought that it would make my grandchildren want to come and see me. I wanted to become a person to whom they could bring their problems to get some advice.

Now I am witnessing how my older generation is doing in that aspect. I see that their grandchildren don't want to go there. They think it's boring. They also feel that there is someone who always knows everything best. Who even knows what's best for them.. That persons feeling is all that matters, not their feelings.

There is however one exception; someone who want to visit his grandparents. A little guy who realize that he doesn't have many grandparents, and he really want to be with them as long as they are around. He misses his grand-dad, and he feels really sorry for his dad who hasn't got any parents any longer.

So I guess it is all about the grandchildren and what they need...

Take personal advice

Some years ago, I realized that a friend of mine was perceived in the wrong way by the environment. We were on vacation together and I heard and understood what people said about us and especially how she was perceived (by her look; hairstyle and clothes). I frankly told her, and I gave her some advice. Was she happy about my advice?
No, she wasn't. Of course not. She took it as an insult. Of course she was right to be insulted by the prejudices of the environment, but she was also insulted by me, for telling her.

Looking back, what can I learn from this? People don't always want to know the truth, and it is risky to tell a friend something negative. But I guess I am also like her. I tend to get insulted too.
When people tell me how they perceive me or something I do or say, I should be grateful and listen carefully. Not be insulted.

An interesting experience

This is a very interesting experience. You probably know by now that I've lost my job.
What's so interesting, is how people react. Some people more or less say that I have myself to blame. They say; you're too stubborn, you're not political correct, you have to much temper, you are a bit of a besserwisser. Oh, it really sounds like I'm a bitch when spelled out like that :(
One person even said that I had too many ideas and proposals. Come on, that's not a bad thing, is it?

Some other people, they do everything they can to help me. They are generous with their ideas, with their contacts and they really want to cheer me up, and get me going. I'm so happy for knowing these people. I really am.

The rest, they don't say a word. Not to me, anyway. They probably gossip like crazy and inform everyone they know, but to me directly they don't say a single word. This large group of people are not my friends, are they...?

The first group that thinks I'm a bitch, maybe they mean well too. Maybe they just want me to change. But how is it possible to change a middleage woman that has been a pain in the ass since she was a little kid? You know, telling the teacher when she made a mistake and so on..

I've actully been trying to change. I try not to fight about everything these days. I don't know to go into details here, but I've recently "let things go" when I felt I should have been discussing and claiming my right. I did not. I don't know if I will regret that.

Maybe in the end I will be like those people who just let anything pass without reacting, without saying a word.

Someone said that when you get into trouble, then you'll find out who are your friends. Can't say I'm in trouble, at least not yet, but I think that's true. And I'm happy to say; it turned out that I have some very good friends.