Merlins och Frejas Blogg

Yup, that's it, Game Over!

After contacting various institutions and so forth, I've found out that there is no available courses, at all. Within the pricerange. Going to Uni costs 70 000 SEK per 6months, and the courses are about 3 years. that's 420 000SEK total. That excludes books and living. It's just the tuition fee.

So back to the drawing board. New plan needed. Eventhough comming home seems nice at the moment, I've got this feeling that I wont be staying for long. I've been abroad too much, and enjoy it, even when it's rough.

New plan: Get everything packed and sorted. Send it home for barely any money at all. (1400SEK / 1m² cartboard cartons) travel home. Start picking up the history course I pissed away a year ago. Finish it off. Go to America. Study..

So when I get back I'm gonna have to get that sorted straight off. I wont be comming back here. Uni is too expensive. I will miss Australia. It's like what Fletcher says in the movie Australia "Yeh, this land has a strange powa". It's true. The bushland is amazing, but so is the oceans and beaches, and forests and parks. There's so much more to it than first meets the eye. I will really miss Australia. But the adventure has just begun!

I reckon Merlins happy, he heard me say I'm comming home and let out one of those sad howling barks that I've only heard him make when I'm not around physically. I actually hope I'll be staying a day in thailand, two would be even better. The long flight is dreadful, and a rest-stop would be nice. Even for just a day or two. Maaaaybe I could find a hotel with a pool, that'd be nice. Not sure I'd like to swim in the rivers or oceans of Bangkok. :) But I would like to see a bit more of it!

So that's it. I'm going home.

John out.

I'm pretty sure I think too much. A good friend of mine once told me that "thinking only leads to suffering". I think there's something in that.

For now I'm down in Australia, beautiful warm Australia, and the only thing that I can think about is getting home. Cus every desition since I got here after christmas has led me from bad to worse. Atleast that's how it feels. The course didnt start as planned, or actually even at all. And of course there were bills and stuff waiting for me when I got back. Bye bye money. Naa, dont sweat it, I still got some left. Thing is that I've had some hasstle with getting the semester fee back. And the easiest way to get it back, is to invest it in a new education, because in doing that, the money wouldnt have to move. Seeing as it's one department that gets them in the first place, and they're in charge of all international student fee's.

Which begs the question, what the, pardon my french, FUCK am I going to do now? Veterinarian lies close to my heart, but the thought of spending a year or two studying the way cows eat grass isn't very appealing. Mom and dad keeps saying I should go for Political Science. And sure, it does interest me, but where does it take me? Not sure. And somewhere it feels like I've been running from that, all along, wanting to do something different, wanting to do something cool. But I'll probobly end up as a polititian anyway. Why fight it huh? ^^

So I figure I've got a few options.

a) Get in to Uni to study either vet or PS or something else. I am indeed interested in becoming a Game developer. Not sure if that's what I should do though.

b) Get a temporary work visa.

c) Go home to Sweden.

Going back home seems appealing, but we have several readers, and many of you, are probobly following my life down under a bit "too close". Going back home now would be admitting defeat, and returning to nothing. Sure there's the dogs and all. But there's no jobs, and as I've got no qualifications yet either, going home would lead nowhere.

I'm not entirely sure about this statement, but I do believe that less options would have been more comfortable. :P

And I am sure that I probobly should have lived a thousand years ago instead of now. In which case I would already have a farm, wife and kids. Work the farm, get the food. Survive. Pretty basic. Instead of going to school, going to high school, going to Uni, and with some luck, find a job that probobly doesnt benefit anyone, get a wife, get kids, grow old, get retired, grow older, die.

Sorry but that's life if you break it down :P There are happy moments, definitly. They just havnt havnt been around me too much since I arrived. So tomorrow I've got a meeting that might decide my future. I will probobly keep you posted, wont be much text I reckon, but just to let y'all know what's happening.

It's sunday, it's late and I'm tired. But the night is always darkest just before dawn, and better times are comming. If not I'm gonna have a beef with the man upstairs when I get there!

Having this feeling of beeing pushed out of the nest isnt very nice. I have to spread my winds and fly, but it seems this far, I've only hit several branches on my way down. And to steal a quote from a movie I saw recently, "It's time to Nut-up or shut-up!"

This is John

Thanks for reading. Untill next time:

John Out.

Morning Mates!

I just had the worst night of my life. Second from that one when dad just had been in an accident 94 or whenever it was. 

Waking up drenched in sweat eventhough the air-con was at maximum capacity, and feeling how the walls are closing in on you and how everything I touch turns to shit and everything I do goes from bad to worse. I'm not sure if it was a dream or reality. But it was fucking scary not being able to breathe properly. I think I got what most people call a panic anxiety attack of some kind. it happend 4 times this night. Never ever had anything like this happening to me before. Worst bit is to not have anyone at all to turn to. 

Found a course called Veterinary nursing aswell. It could work as a stepping stone into Uni or, I could go for a diploma in veterinary nursing. But that's atleast a year from now anyway. And after tonight, I wouldnt mind if they say "na! you can't do this course" cus I would now, more than ever want to go back home :P Funny thing, there's nothing to do at home either. But atleast there's family! And the dogs of course! 

Anyway, might just have been some home sickness passing by. let's hope it was ;)

John Out!

Sitting around doing nothing. 

School was supposed to start the 18th but as I showed up, I turned out to be the only one.. Go figure.. So I had to talk to the guidance councillar to find out what options I have. Her suggestion was to start fresh, as I had so many options now. And that's what's so messy.. I have to study something to stay here, the course terminated. What the fuck am I going to do now? 

It's been several days now, and I've searched my soul to find what I'm supposed to do. I want to work with animals, preferably canines, like wolfs and domestic dogs, but also horses. Dont know much about the latter but that's why I want to learn it!

There are some other stuff aswell that would be interesting, but I'm not sure if the job would be worth all the studies. So I think I will have to concider this for a few more days. And as school havnt really started yet, cus of the course and all, the days seem to melt together. There's nothing to do unless you want to spend money, I cant work because my VISA restricts me to not start working before starting the studies. So I'm gasping for air here in my now air conditioned room. It's still rather uncomfortable with the 30+ outside, so I stay in here as much as possible. Still, it gets boring. There's not really much of a view either, like in Disturbia, so I cant keep my self occupied with watching the neighbours, cus I simply cant see them. 

Oh, and speaking of nothing, cus I'm just blabbering on now to write for the sake of it, a beautiful bike pulled up on the other side of the street today.

It was a yellow-sunrise-ish colour and it was gorgeous. A few years younger than the one dad had, and with a few more gadgets and new seats and all, I reckon he would have loved it. It's the second one (Goldwing) I've seen around here. I don't think the Aussies realize how nice it would be to go on a Motorbike roadtrip cross Australia with one of those.. :P

..Wish I had a bike.. 

Anyway, I hope I can figure out how to get out of this pickle with the studies.. But I'll have a solution soon enough!

All the best

J

Wow. where to start.. 

The wait at Copenhagen Airport was totally bareable as I had snitched the first 2 Eragon Books from Jonas. :) Those were 4 quick hours I must say. After a long-arse flight with barely any sleep and like 4 whiskeys, and some shitty movies, I touched down in Bangkok, Good Time City, the Gateway to southeastern Asia. And boy it was WARM! Probobly just around 30 degrees centigrate and high humidity. My plane wasnt going to leave for another 18hrs, so I was told that if I wanted my baggage to come all the way down to Australia with 100% certainty, I had to check it out, spend the day in Bangkok and check back in after 6pm the same evening. I was told this at 5:30am.. -_- 

So I walked around, trying to figure out what the fuck I were gonna do next. A Thai man in probobly his 50's, could have been a decade younger or older, I'm bad at telling age.. :P Anyway he offered me a trip from the airport to a Hotel and transit back to the airport along with a breakfast at the hotel and a massage. And all of this, plus my own very luxury room for just 1500 bath. I took the offer and paid at the airport and off we went. I had my massage and then realised, might aswell take a foot massage aswell, as I've nevber experienced that before. That turned out to be a bad call, cus it sucked the last bits of energy out of my body and I just got up to my room and crashed on the bed. Would have wanted to do some sightseeing, but the sleep was amazing so I cant complain. :) 

Checked in in very good time and spent another couple of hours with Brom and Eragon training in the woods, travelling down to.. ehm, not sure where we're going yet ;P Then a 6hr flight down to perth. Where I arrived and forgot that the international airport doesnt have a Transperth (Västtrafik) connection, so I had to spend like 18 bucks to get in to perth, still cheaper than a taxi. Got to Perth central station, or rather the commuter train station, and took my train to Fremantle and seeing as I'm a student I paid 50 cents for that trip, which is VERY good value. Then took the free CAT bus up to the house. Dumped my bags and ran down to cash converters (typ pantbank) and bought myself an Air Conditioner, and without that I wouldnt be alive now. The lowest temperature it's got is like 15 degrees, however, somehow I'm used to -15 even if that's not inside. so +15 is still warm :P Not to mention the fact that it's over +40 outside.

I forgot my iPhone in sweden, so my life is on pause now. Might sound spoiled to some, but my reply is, use one for 6months and you would have a hard time not being around it aswell! :P And I dont have a replacement phone either, so I'm sortof stuck. :P But it should arrive any day now and once that's here, I'll start getting on with my life. I've also come to the conclusion that I probobly will go to new zeeland this winter to check it out. They say it's cooler down there, and the heat here feels a little too much. I'd be further away from home, but they say it's an amazing country. But first I've got atleast 1year of studies to conduct here.

And in all honesty I think NZ is in more need of Vets than Aussie. We'll see what happends. :)

I really, REALLY miss the dogs, and the comfort of being home. And this Jetlag is way worse this time then last time I arrived in Aussie. I have had one dinner since friday, why you might ask, well I'll tell you; because around 4pm every day I accidently fall asleep wether I want it or not. It's rather annoying, I was perpaired to cook yesterday, and brought up the minced beef and all.. and fell asleep, woke up at 10pm, and just walked in to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and went back to the bed and fell asleep. Slept till 8am this morning and now I'm blogging after breakfast. 

Eventhough I might be bitching about the weather in comming blogs for a while, I must say though, It's VERY nice to not have to freeze your toes off or even have chills stepping outside, instead you're greeted by this nice comfortable warmth. For about 5mins then it gets annoying xD

Anyway I reckon that's it for this time. I probobly could write a book right now as I'm bored as hell, but I might just go down to the ocean, they say it's close to 30 in the water, if it's 27 that'd be awesome.

Anyway take care folks!

And dont forget to comment, swedish or english doesnt matter.:)

All the best

J

Ja nu vart man hemma. Igår vart det precis en vecka. Usch för flygresan, hektiskt som attan, var tvungen att checka ut i köpenhamn och sedan kuta runt och checka in igen. Men inte  nog med det, det var tusentals människor som skulle hem från Klimatkonferencen, och därmed vart det packat på Kastrup. Men jag gjorde en fuling och smet före i köerna och kom på planet i tid, men det var med 10 minuter eller så. 

Efter det, kunde man pusta ut, nu var det bara 30min kvar tills man var på Landvetter. Men icke, då hade President Obama fått för sig att titta in, så all rörelse på flygplatsen (utomhus) var förbjuden och inget fick röra sig. Personalen fick inte ens gå omkring, trots att det va långt ifrån flygbanan. Så vi fick vänta 15min på att Air Force One skulle komma in för landning. Efter 15minuter hade planet inte landat och våra vingar hade frusit i vinterkylan, (klockan va nu ungefär halv 10 och jag skulle vart hemma 09:10) Men det var stressade arbetare som skrapade bort isen, och precis när de va klara hade Obama landat och vi kunde börja röra på oss. Strax efter 11 vart jag framme och hemma strax innan 12. Då kunde man äntligen pusta ut efter 2 dagar "in transit". 

..Det värsta är att det är lika långt tillbaka i mitten på Januari sen.. *suck* Men skönt är det där nere, och trots att jag har vart lite depp ibland när jag skrivit i bloggen har livet där nere verkligen förändrat mig. Det är väl först nu, när man kommit hem och landat ordentligt som man börjat processa de senaste 6 månaderna och allt som hänt. Låter kanske lite knasigt men jag känner mig mycket mer vuxen nu än innan, och hemma i Göteborg känns inte riktigt som hemma längre. Mycket skum känsla. 

Och på tal om skumma känslor, söndagen innan jag åkte hem vart det 42 grader i Fremantle, på jobbet vart det runt 47 och i rummet hemma hade jag mysiga 37 grader. När vi mellanlandade i Phuket var det 38 grader och 98% luftfuktighet, och på kastrup va det -6 och snö - nästan - storm. Här i sverige vart det -6 när jag kom fram. Snacka om temperatur skildnader. Men att ha den bitande kylan i ansiktet, få dra på sig varma kläder och promenera med Merlin var en fröjd. Han drog som en slädhund, men han var väl bara glad att husse vart hemma igen ;) Och att sedan få komma in och dricka varm glögg och mysa inne, vetandes att det är skitkallt ute, har jag längtat efter i flera månader. :)

Snart är det nyår, sen MyDog, och efter det tillbaka hem igen. Känns som att jag kan låta morsan blogga här hemmifrån, även om jag är här, men just nu tyckte jag att det krävdes ett par rader från min sida oxå. Jag är ju trots allt på _FEL_ sida jordklotet nu ;) 

Kram på er alla och god fortsättning

John & Anneli
Freja & Merlin

G'day mate! How ya goin!

And whilst the dogs and parents back home are battling the cold, I have a bit of a struggle myself here down under. It's mid-spring and I've encountered an old enemy, the hay-fever! I thought that I was only allergic to swedish plants of various kinds, mainly grass. But it seems I'm allergic to ALL pollens down here. Sneezing and a constantly runny nose and itchy eyes has become an everyday thing. Even though it's extremely annoying. Everyone looks at me when I sneeze and are probably thinking "swine flue". Good news is that I've already had it, was sick for four days, had a temp of about 40 degrees but I made it. Other than that, we went diving today; it was the first dive in the Advanced Openwater Diver Course and it was hell fun eventhough we were in the murky swan river. The visibility was about 3-4 meters, unlike the 50cm we had last time we were there during the open water diver course. I saw a lot of fish, but mostly crabs and anemones. We focused on refreshing the knowledge and underwater compass navigation. My first compass (which is built in to the device which holds your dive computer, and the gage that shows how much air you've got left) didnt work, so I got a new set of regulators and stuff. When in the water it turned out that the "new one" didnt work either. I was swimming around in circles, and various other shapes, as I tried to swim in a square which was todays exercise. Matt our instructor handed me his wrist mounted compass, and I knew how to use it, even though it was the first time I used one, and man, that was extremly accurate. Now I could go in whatever shape I wanted, square, triangle, I always got back to the exact same location without a fuzz. I reckon that's why I've got most of the gear myself. Because when hundreds of people use the same gadgets, gears and whatnot, the things wear out. But I reckon I do need to buy myself a wrist mounted compass, as that would be more accurate, and I'd be able to spend more time on watching stuff underwater, than trying to get my compass to work so I could get to the right location atleast in time.. 

Other than that, I got a formal paper showing my completed units a few days ago, it was for the past semester, and I've passed everything!! They didn't grade us though, it was either competent or not. Either you pass or you don't. I reckon that's good enough. 

I also went down to the bank, Commonwealth as it's called. Inquiring about getting a bigger loan, because I'd REALLY want a sail yacht, however, It turned out that with the money I'm making I wouldnt be able to take a loan for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, so instead I'll go to plan B: Getting a motorbike with license. As you're not really watched while practicing for the license, I reckon I could get away with say 7 lessons, because I am a quick learner, and as soon as I know how to drive the bike, I could get my own. With a decent 250cc bike, gear, lessons and license I'd end up spending around 9 grand. However, that, over 3 years would be $37 dollars per week, with insurance and petrol maybe $100 per week. Completely affordable considering I'd be able to get anywhere and everywhere!! A fun fact is that when you get a MC license in AU you need to stick with a 250cc for a year before you are allowed to drive heavier bikes. However, if you'd get a Harley straight away, and you are such a shitty driver that the cops stop ya, you only get a fine for $600 for driving above your class. Oh, and it's a one-time fee. But I probobly wont do that. Mainly cus the 250cc is cheaper and getting a heavier bike when being a rookie doesn't seem like a good idea. Dad went straight to goldwing and he got a couple of scratches in it. I'll try to avoid the same misstake, and avoiding the urge to go 300km/h is the main reason for going for a Harley type of bike instead of a ninja. :)

...but first I need permanent residency. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to get the loan to afford all this. Permanent residency isn't citizenship but pretty much the same thing. :) I'm becoming an Aussie :D 

Reckon that's all for now. Got to go to work!

Peace

J

G'day mate! ;)

Woah, where to begin.. hmm.. how about the beginning? Naa, would take too long.. How about picking up where I felt like I left off last time? Sounds like a plan: Here we go:

I've finally found a way to make money on a regular basis. Pitty I have to spend my days inside the prison walls though. =/

..That is true, it really is.. but a few details might be that I'll be working in a Café and the prison itself doesnt host any inmates.. it was closed 1991.. :P There's only tourists and staff on the inside of the walls so I'm safe - no dramas. 

It was initially a work experience/internship that turned out to be paid, and I've been given several shifts outside the work experience hours so I got a job!! :D

However, an unpleasant surprise was that I've worn out my shoes. As I walked to work I noticed a hole in the sole. (höhö) And spending 5hrs in a kitchen with a hole under your feet is both uncomfortable and dangerous. So I had to buy new shoes today. I had so many choices, and Aussies seem to be able to wear thick winter boots during the summer.. I knew that I needed something that wasn't a skate shoe, even though people here might be able to wear them warm non-breathing things, I know that in warm weather (we've had 5 warm days since I arrived) my feet tends to die. And as I don't have a drivers license, my shoes is my car, I wear them all day every day and I walk a LOT. So it had to be a good shoe for walking in, it had to be very breathable and equally comfortable to walk in within the cities as well as in the outback. My result: A military desert boot. They cover the ankle so they look really warm. Funny thing is that they're not. A nice and cool (in both meanings of the word? ;) boot that is made for soldiers. Nice and durable. 

I'm really sick of being "moist" all the time though. And no, I'm not talking about sweating. It seems to constantly rain and my jacket never fully dries up.. Might have to get me a raincoat.. But I dont really want to spend money.. Then again I do have a job now.. hm.. ah well. 

so to sum it all up:

My shoes broke - got new

Got a job

Longing for warmer weather and a rainjacket untill then :P

see ya!

J

So I havnt written in a while, that could, and probobly is because I havnt had time to do so. Eventhough my previous entries have seen a bit gloomy, that is not at all how things are here Down Under. Life is actually hell good! I litterally fuckin love my situation! Spring is comming and with it all the flowers, and smells that comes with it - not to mention the sensation of noticing that it gets a bit warmer every day :D

And I'm also pleased to say that I'm now a happy non-smoker!! :D

All creds goes to Allen Carr's EASYWAY to stop smoking, for that achievement. However it's been 4hrs since my last smoke so I cant say that the book actually works yet - but I have confidence in both the book and myself and know that together we can pull this off! 

I bet I say this all the time, but I hope to be blogging more soon. I will take every opportunity to do so anyway. However they are few atm but I'll see if I can turn that around ;)

Untill then

All the best to you all

Cheerio

J