September 14, 2004
Success!
Today I woke up at 7 a.m. and hopped in the shower with the best of intentions. Although I didn't have to meet my group until 9 a.m., I wanted to get to campus early to catch up on all my internet-related stuff. I am counting the days (9) until we get internet access in our apartment—it will be such a relief to be able to check the news, email, etc. from home instead of relying on the inherently flaky school internet ports.
But my plans did not come to fruition. Between a shower and getting dressed, I found myself tucked back into bed for a little snooze. Forty-five minutes later, Janie's voice "Good morning, Jen, wake up for school" brought me back to life, and I managed to get ready and catch the last possible bus to meet my group on time.
We had a long and painful 4 hours of making individual presentations and critiques during our group meeting. I made my escape promptly at 1 p.m., checking my email on my way out (but didn't stick around to respond to anyone). I walked over to the Frukt Huset (I'll let you do the translation—look, you speak Swedish too!), where I found a plethora of previously undiscovered goodies. I loaded up my basket with vegetables, toasted couscous, and (of course) a chocolate bar.
I caught the bus home, and began the tedious process of laundry night. As you may recall, last week's laundry experience was a debacle. Fortunately, we were smart enough to reserve a different laundry room this week—with a working dryer!! Also, since only a week's worth of clothing had built up, there wasn't the same sense of urgency. I was able to wash my sheets and all my dirty clothes in only a couple hours (hurray!), and was completely done by the time Jess and Roya arrived home to fight it out for the remaining hours of electricity (did I mention the laundry room's electricity is cut each night promptly at 9 p.m.?).
In the meantime, I took a nap (I'm not sure why I'm so tired today—I have a scratchy throat and decided it would be better to take a nap than get sick) and made a delicious vegetable soup. I've never really made a soup without a guiding recipe, so I was quite pleased that my combination of leek, tomato, carrot, zucchini, and left-over rice turned out so well. I had enough for 2 bowls myself, plus a bowl for Jess, and leftovers for tomorrow. Now that I have a little bit of confidence in my soup-making abilities, I'll definitely be churning them out when the weather turns cold. As for right now, it feels like early October might feel in D.C. There are occasional brisk days, but mostly things are just bright and comfortable. I'm hoping we can squeeze another week or so of this mild weather before things turn really cold. Veterans of Karlskrona winters say we have until late September before winter truly hits.
Now it's 8:30 p.m. and the last tiny bit of light is leaving the sky—each day is noticeably shorter, although we still have ample light for all day-time activities. I will definitely need to get a brighter lamp for my room, but I'm putting it off until it becomes a necessity. I have several books to read from the library, but I've promised myself that I'll finish The Natural Step Story before moving onto anything fun. At this point, I'm beginning to know the TNS framework and examples better than my own life…making reading more about it an exercise in boredom. Oh well, I'm hoping that my other shipment of textbooks from Amazon will offer different perspectives.
