A friend of mine from SFI works part-time at a daycare. In all honesty, she’s over qualified for this job and she knows it. But while she hasn’t mastered the Swedish language and the schools she wants to teach at hasn’t hired her yet, she works at this daycare. I hope she gets a teaching job soon. I have faith that she’ll be teaching in no time. It just takes some patience and time.

Anyways.

This daycare she works for has 3 different departments: one for Swedish, one for English and one for French.
I’ve called the owner in hopes that I will be able to get a job working in the English department. I have no desires to be a teacher or even work with children in my future occupation but I figured that this job is better than no job.

Not to mention the fact that I’ve had experience with childcare since I was 11. I was like a second mom to my brother and I’ve looked after all of my aunt’s kids. I used to also help out my mom when she was taking care of other people’s kids. To put it simply, I am no stranger to looking after kids. This job should be a walk in the park for me.

I’m going to meet the owner tomorrow and I guess it’ll be a casual interview. I’ve spiced up my resumé with information about having experience taking care of children. I’ve never applied for a job that requires the employer knowing that I can look after children.

If it all works out and I do get this job, I’ll be working part-time (20 hours). The pay isn’t that great by Swedish standards but comparing to the jobs I’ve worked in before, it’s the best I’ve recieved. Not only will I have something to do with my time, I’ll also get paid for it. It’s a bit of a win win situation.

I told Fredrik that if I get this job, I’m taking him out for dinner. I’m also looking forward to being able to buy him something for his birthday. We agreed no presents this Christmas because I had no money and frankly didn’t know what I could get him that he wanted that he didn’t already have.

So, here’s hoping that all goes well and I get this job. This time in 2 weeks (I’m going to ask to start the week after next) I’ll be here ranting about my job. 

I will be honest, I suck at spelling. I may be slightly better than the dyslexic at least that’s what I think. It could also have to do with the fact that I’ve been surrounding myself with good spellers. Who knows. But it took me years to sort out “get” and “got”. It’s not like I don’t understand the usage and the meaning. I just had a hard time when I had to write it down. I still need the help of the spell check for the difference between “practice” and “practise”.

Now with the learning of Swedish, I’m trying to wrap my head around Swedish spelling. For those who don’t know, the Swedes have 3 extra vowels. If you’re an English speaking native, the vowels are “extra”. If you’re a Swede, then the English language is missing 3 vowels. In English, instead of having ä,å,ö, we use combinations of letters. I used to write “er” or “or” instead of “ö”. It lead to some unpleasant results. For example hötorget, which means hay market turned into hortorget, which roughly turns the HAY market into a WHORE market.

It’s usually the vowels that trip me up. Like today for instance, I wrote, “Jag är inte saker.” The vowel I should’ve used was an “ä” instead of an “a” in “saker”. Saker means things in Swedish where as “säker” means sure. Basically I told Fredrik that I am not things instead of I am no sure.

Don’t even get me started on the pronounciations. I’m always mixing up the sounds.

Well I got a reply from the program co-ordinator and apparently they don’t take late applications. Sucks that they don’t even take late applications at all. So the game plan is when I finish next semester at Västerås, I’ll register for the last semester at Västerås AND at the course in Stockholm University. The way the course at Stockholm University works is that you write a placement test. If I can get into the course’s last section, then I’ll go there. If not, then I’ll finish up the last course at Västerås and hopefully get myself into either dental school (HA HA, I doubt it) or something undergraduate to prep for dental school.

The goal is dental school or bust!

I’m feeling so strange right now. I know this is not something new. I’ve felt like this before but in the moment it always feels strange and frankly bothersome. I’m feeling the need to do something. Anything but at the same time I’m having a hard time sitting still. In fact, I’m fighting to urge to go do something else at the present moment.

The last couple of weeks I’ve been so focused, I had ideas and I executed them. Now I have ideas and I can’t sit still long enough to even make half way. As soon as I get started, my ideas suddenly sound like crap and I no longer want to continue.

It’s just really hard right now ’cause the feeling is driving me nuts. I’ve been pacing around the flat looking for something to do. I wish Fredrik was around to give me a hug. 

There’s this cooking show on SVT4 called Leilas mat. It’s not a terrible show but there are elements of the show that make me go, “Huh?”

For example, there was a show where she made hamburgers and fries. She cuts the pickles and raw tomato on the same cutting board as the one she put her raw hamburger patties. Maybe there was a swap out but I certainly didn’t see one. Then when she’s making the French fries, she gives a little speech about safety and testing the temperature of the oil by putting in a piece of potato. But she’s deep frying in a pan with oil that’s filled up to less than 1 inch of the pot edge. When she puts in the potato, the oil splashes over the edge of the pan on to the stove. This woman is giving us safety tips on deep frying?!

For the most part, her show’s not too bad and her recipes look pretty good but shit like that makes me cringe so much.

Now that Fredrik is in the studio, I’m back to fending for myself. Being by myself is nothing new. I lived for most of 3 years by myself while I was in college and one of the downsides of being with a touring musician is that he goes on tour for many weeks at a time.

One thing I’ve noticed about living on my own is that I end up eating a lot of frozen foods. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not living solely on TV dinners and frozen pizzas. Although, every so often I do get a craving for TV dinners and frozen pizzas.

Anyways. Most grocery products are geared towards those living in a family unit. Not to mention buying in bulk saves you money and can be environmentally friendly. What we usually do is buy steaks and pork chops in the big package and chunk. We cut our own steaks and pork chops. Then I freeze the meat flat in a ziplock bag. After it’s frozen, I take the bag out and give it a few whacks to break the chops and steaks from each other. Now I can just take out 1 steak or pork chop when I want it.

Biggie over at Lunch in a Box has a great suggestion on how to freeze minced meat in individual portions using a ziplock bag. (http://lunchinabox.net/2008/04/11/speed-tip-make-individual-portions-in-freezer-bags/)

I tried it out when I made bolognese last night. Unfortunately the bolognese was a bit too runny to use the chopstick or ruler to divide. I just folded the bag in half instead to make 2 portions. Since Fredrik will be coming home on the weekends, we tend to need bigger portions of bolognese.

I used a zipper bag from IKEA. They’re pretty handy and each box comes with 25 larger (red) bags and 25 smaller (green) bags. You can’t find ziplock bags here in Sweden. I brought over 2 boxes of the ziplock brand freezer bags. They’re so versatile. We actually use them to store our medicines and for taking our shampoos and toothbrushes on vacation so if there’s a leak it doesn’t get all over our clothes.

Just Bento also has a great tutorial on how to make individual sized servings of shepherd’s pie. (http://justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/individually-frozen-shepherds-pie)

Ull scratched me last night during one of his fits and the cut rubs against the desk while I’m typing. I think I’m gonna take a wee break from typing now.

A couple weekends back, a friend of mine from my former SFI class told me about an UNLISTED Swedish course at Stockholm University. Deadline for application submission was April 15th. I’m going to have to send in my application as late and hope that they have the space for me. I really hope that I will be able to get into this course because I’m so sick of the one I’m currently part of. We found out the other day that the teacher we weren’t particularly fond of would be taking over next semester’s course. The only ray of hope in that is that they’re hiring a new teacher and he will be part of the course also. Here’s hoping this guy is amazing. The best thing about this new course is that it will be in Stockholm which would mean no more commuting to Västerås. So I REALLY hope I get in. **fingers crossed**

The other thing about this new course that’s a pain in the ass is that they want me to resubmit my school credentials. That means I have to make new copies, get them signed and send them over. I’m gonna see if they have any affiliation with the agency that is normal in charge of post secondary admissions and have my credentials on file. That would save a lot of time and hassle. I mean, where am I going to find 2 people to “witness” my photocopies? Fredrik’s in Örebro and I don’t know if the people I do know would do it. It feels a bit strange to ask them to.