Showing posts with label periodically updated. Show all posts
Showing posts with label periodically updated. Show all posts

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Mistakes

I thought I would just write a little about some of the mistakes I've made here in Sweden so I can remember to never make the same mistakes again. Plus, all of you that are reading can painlessly learn not to make the same mistakes I did. :)

I:
  • tried to turn my refrigerator on without plugging it in.
  • used my bare hands to mix spicy chili pepper flakes.
  • used "hade att" to try to say I "had to do something," when this phrase doesn't exist in Swedish. (var tvungen, or using behöver or måste is better, i think.)
  • bought Comviq Kompis for my phone instead of Comviq Amigos and had to pay $1 per minute for international phone calls. (curse the company that names two completely different phone plans using the same word just translated into different languages!)
  • heard people at Vasakyrkan saying "Kristus, förbarma dig över oss" and thought they were saying "Kristus, förbannade över oss"
  • For at least one month, I thought that the tram stop: Getebergsäng was Geteberg + säng meaning "Geteberg bed" instead of Getebergs + äng meaning "Geteberg's meadow." (I still have no idea what Geteberg means though. Goat mountain? Göta province's mountain...)
(I plan on periodically updating this post along with other posts that are labelled "periodically updated.")

Nya kompisar

Here are some pictures of me with some of the people I've met here in Sweden!


Monday, March 9, 2009

live & love, bland annat.

Every once in a while, somebody asks me or I ask myself what I would do today if I were to die tomorrow. This is really an interesting question and now that I think about it again, I would have to say that there isn't a specific plan or schedule full of things I have to do on the day before I die. Rather, there would be a checklist of goals that I would want to have completed and a separate checklist of things I want to be at least in the process of doing. I think the lists would look something like this:

Things do make sure to complete before I die:
  • Make sure everyone you know knows that you love them.
  • Make sure you eat/drink as much of whatever you feel like eating/drinking.
  • Make sure you listen to whatever music you want to listen to as loud as you want it.
  • Spend some time with people. What people? Those that are nearest and dearest.
  • Spend some time alone.
  • Spend some time with the Bible and God.
Things to at least be working on before I die:
  • Sharing my thoughts and insights.
  • Sharing my love.
Yup, so that's it. Well, I mean sure --- there are also some very specific things I would like to do. These are things like:
  • Go to a furniture store when you're really tired (probably after lunch) and take a nap on the sofa/recliner that you didn't have time to take a nap on before.
Well, that's all I can think of right now, but I'll add more when I think of them.

On another note, there is something else I want to take up right now. It's the concept of "love." I've always had a problem with this word and I say it almost never because it is such a commercialized, self-reciprocating word that has a different meaning depending on the context, tone, who it is coming from, and why it is said in the first place. I don't like saying the word, but people who are without "love" in the sense of having love in their own hearts for themselves and the people around them... are just empty. I don't want to be empty, therefore I feel like I need to redefine it for myself, because like it says on the first item on my list, I need to make sure everyone I know knows that I love them.

This is how it is: My life is a life of learning and I will always be a student, whether in a real school, or just in the school of life (as cheesy as that sounds). If I have ever met you or known you, you have added a perspective to my life that I would not have had otherwise. Whether I liked you or disliked you plays no role because this is really just a matter of whether I liked or disliked the things you did and the way you acted. This has no bearing on the way I feel about you as a person and lucky for you, I love you. I want you to know that I love you -- any & every one of you that I have ever known.

Now, as long as I eat/drink what I want, listen to whatever music I want, and make sure to spend some time alone, with the Bible, and with people everyday... I can die happily. Not that I'm planning on dying anytime soon, but now I can live like most people only wish they could live -- like today was my last.

Monday, January 26, 2009

A journey in food

Here I'll be posting pictures of some of the awesome food I've been eating.