Deja vu- Early Xmas Spirit in Stockholm

Its the special time of the year again where the whole of sweden is in the ho ho ho spirit, xmas decorations are up, xmas sales and presents are up to be bought, even the snow came down so much earlier. In a week's time, it will be my 1 year anniversary in stockholm, thus this festive period and everythign relating to it., serves as an extra meaning to me. We have the very Swedish pyramid structure of candles by every window sill, the early publicity of Julboard ( xmas table of traditional smorgsbord and food etc )advertisment in all papers since early nov, the early setting of the sun at 3pm, the window displays of christmas decorations , the skating ring in Kungstradgarden, of course my favourite Glogg xmas drink (warm mulled wine with spices) and Lucia.

Lucia is actually a celebration on the 11th of Dec, where little girls wear a white gown and with a ring of candles on their hair forming a halo, to represent the end of the darkest day, as from that day onwards, the day will get brighter gradually back to normal. As in every year, Stockholmers will vote for their Lucia, thus for the past weeks, there have been interviews on the candidate for Lucia, and you can exercise your vote by smsing in to the paper. So far, this is my favourite candidate: Click here . Kinda like a pagent i feel :)

The deja vu feeling was particularly strong when the gang of trainees went to Johnnys, ( the cheap beer hangout place as usual for trainees, which we used to go alot in the past but have stopped for around 6 mths) , which now has gone through a facelift and wants to be known as the posh " Star Bar", we had so much fun there, it was amazing, with the music, talking and dancing. We concluded that coming back to this place beats going to the posh clubs in Ostermalm anytime, thanks again to my roomie Vivianne for her brillant suggestion.

Just kept on getting the flashbacks of how i was one year back from now, when i just arrived, what i did, who i hung out with, as compared to now, with close to 12 mths of stockholm experience, and leaving this country soon. 27 days left and counting.

Bear with me

as i continued to show my amazement for snow and ice, and unmelted snow and ice, i come from an all year round Summer cty ok?

Cant help myself everyday by pointing out to vehicles and laughing at how "funny" they look with a block of snow on top of their hoods ( i know its very childish and mean :P) , and yet the cars still drive on, its like icing as Rajat puts across so eloquently, so in my warped mind, i see big blocks of ice cream driving along the roads. :D And as if this doesnt tickle me enough, i see no way, absolutely no way, can cars get out of the "deep snow fortress that is built around them" aka their parking spaces, its like 30 cm snow all around them...the car drivers have my deepest sympathy, from shovelling out the snow, to warming up the car, to driving out of the "ice fortresses", thats a hell alot of work man! The most painful thing is that they don't have multi storey carparks in stockholm, only in downtown where the prices are sky high so they have to park on the roads, and after all that strenous exercise for getting to the car for 1 day, its back to square 1 for the next day.

Snow storm

Ladies and gentlemen, as i speak, we are experiencing our 1st snow in
stockholm, and its a snow storm, with endless flakes of snow falling
from the sky and twirling around in the winds, its both a beautiful
sight and yet scary..hehe
Well the swedes say that at least the snow brightens up the sky :)
Just remembered how it was last dec, when i just got here, and within
weeks you already feel so into the xmas mood...nice :)

From SR international, radio station in stlm...
Cold Chaos
The first large-scale snowstorm of the season has much of the country looking like a Winter Wonderland, but thats just on the surface. Land, sea and air traffic across Scandinavia has been in chaos. SAS cancelled 61 of its 282 flights out of Stockholms airport and experienced delays of several hours. The storm also caused delays at train stations, pile-ups on highways and had left some 15,000 homes without electricity midday Thursday. But, the storm has passed over Sweden, moving across the Baltic to Russia.

37 days more

This log is dedicated to my boss and colleagues, really like them
alot, will miss them very much...fyi its now 37 instead of 38 as I
managed to get a tix flying back on the 23rd now.:)

Halloween Party

Lineup and Pirate baby
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Went to my 1st ever Halloween Party last sat, which was organised by the Singapore Club in Stockholm,( FYI Halloween is more of an American tradition, and not as widely celebrated here in stockholm) and being in the sub-committee, I helped out with the games of the night. We had fun games and of course catwalk with prizes for the most scary, most beautiful and most innovative dress up.:) The thing that amazed me was also how game the memebers were in dressing up! If it was back in Singapore, even though you specify that its a theme dress up party, i doubt many would turn up in costumes, morever most of the members are in the ahem....."auntie and uncle" category, with the exception of a few very adorable kids who stole the limelight of the party.... they are so sporting, able to have fun with themselves and easy going, that i think puts the average skeptical singaporean back home to shame., :P

39 more days

Effectively 5 more weekends. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
wrote my cousin an email saying that i am not going to London anymore
in dec, want to spend more time back here can't help but feel sad
about the whole thing, so far I have been very positive, checking out
new places as much as I can etc, well guess this is just one of the
days

42 more days

Had weird dreams last night, its like a playback of the past week's
activity, and i saw things that i should have done and not done,
scary. Probably i kinda overstretched myself in doing everything
possible, least i should regret when i go back to singapore, like
spending time with close friends, and exploring new places. My new
motto at the moment is, " If it ain't new, I ain't going" : )

Donate to AIESEC in Singapore!

Very cool initative, a very efficient way to source for Alumni
Donations, way to go! By credit card, bank transfers etc, technology
has certainly made life so much easier.So aiesec alumni, or friends of
aiesec, care to spare a penny or 2, just click on the link, and apply
for an aiesec.net userid if you don't already have one? :)

25/11
Finally made a donation today, using my trusty DBS internet banking from my almost non exisitent
account and receiving a one time authorisation password with my singtel sim card, which i still
subscribed to on top of my swedish sim card. :)

Links and Photos for your blog

Links and Photos for your blog

Went through the help section and the trial and error period of updating links and photos to my blog, so i thought it would be nice to share
what little findings i have. Have fun!

To make links on the blog, just follow the examples below, have the url and then follow by the text you want to click for the link:

NOTE! I have removed the "<" from all the starting html, so that they will be shown as links. So remember to have "<" in front of all your a href language. and "/a>" at the back of the word, have to out < in front of the /a.


a href="http://www.yahoo.com">This is the link for yahoo! /a>

a href="http://www.millesgarden.se/uksubs.html">Millesgården /a>


If you want to insert links on the left or right panel of your blog, say for example links to the blogs of other pple,
Go to Templates, and search for the portion underneath your profile

And add:

h2 class="sidebar-title">links to others

p>a href="http://dodyg.org">Dody G (USA)
p>a href="http://dimitris.nomadlife.org/">Dimitris Mazarakis(Greece)

NOTE! I have removed the "<" from all the starting html, so that they will be shown as links. So remember to have "<" in front of all your a href language.Same here for h2, p> and a href and below for img src.

As you can see, its the same format for making a normal weblink, just have to find the right place for insertion.

To have more than 1 photo on your blog:

Upload the photos to www.flickr.com
And then select Blog this! The photo is now on your blog.
Then go to your Edit post section from your login in Blog.com
And copy this string of text from the html of that photo you just posted and paste this into the posting that you already have with the other photo,
put this under the other img src.....br/ sentence, and you will see the new photo under the one with the post.

img src="http://www.flickr.com/photos/xxxxxxxx.jpg"alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" />

Newly found diet formula - Chocolate and coffee

Chocolate bars and lots of coffee (i mean lots.... say 10 cups a day)
have been my staple for the past days. This is the newly found
"stress" diet, you are guaranteed to lose your appetite and thus lose
weight :)

The SMILE >D

Do you have times when you feel shitty and antisocial and would much
prefer to frown then putting up a SMILEY face? But have to, as your
friends "cannot take it" as Miss Tee so eloquently said it hehe...and
they expect u to get over it and rejoin the group asap, you know be
socialble? But why should i? Stay home then.

45 days in S..t...o..c..h..o..l..m

think i am a good target to get mugged after work, coz i am in a world
of my own, you know the dazed feeling and your brain is non exisitent,
just "stoning" as we say in singapore ( i think we meant literally to
be like a stone and not having drugs)
or "vegging" as they say in Canada. Totally oblivious to the world
around you, and just humming random tunes think i am having the
overworked syndrome you think,think you can be sucidial from working?

Millesgarden

Originally uploaded by ying22.

Went to this very cool?(think my vocabulary nowadays is severely limited), pictureque residence cum working studio of
the famous Carl Miller of Stockholm last weekend. You will have no idea what a big deal this scupltor is until
you go to Millesgarden, then you will understand all the sculptures in stlm belong to this dude. From the City hall tower
to the front of the Concert house, there are traces of his statues. He has a distinctive style of making the scuplture
look as if they are defying gravity, with longggg out-stretched hands and legs, or having animals on the hand of a human
who is by the way, balancing on his TOE...so yes...wowwwwwwww

The amazing part of this garden is that it is adorned with Carl Miller's scupltures everywhere, fountains and all, it is
on a hilltop and you can see the river, heard it is fantastic in the summers where pple just sit in the garden reading next to the
statues. Think we got a glimpse of it even though its autumn now.There is this Glass house cafe in the garden, which looks
like the kind of glass hse cafe that i always dreamt of opening in singapore, where you can see the rain falling on the panes,
really like the atmopshere, even thought of having fake rain spewing on the outer panes of the cafe..but as my architect sister says, its going
to be very hot as glass traps heat. so.....darn......

"Singapore weekend" with Chau,Clyde and Huijing

Had the most amazing "Singaporean" time in Stockholm last weekend,
with Clyde and Huijing from Rotterdam, Chau from Finland flying into
Stockholm for a visit,and we spent the weekend the most Singaporean
way ever? Chew gum ? Nah, we talked about FOOD, talked about good
FOODPLACES and ATE alot of good FOOD! hehehe it was incredible eating
away for all of us...guess we just got carried away with the great
company, and talking about singapore, gossiping about the pple we knew
like Grace and Dim Sum, Sandy and her beau, Jenny, Alex, Yen etc
haha...it was definately so much fun :))))

We were talking and talking and little did I realise, it has been 2.5
years since Chau was in Singapore, and yet he can totally recall every
single thing, from shops to food to pple etc..it was amazing...and in
a way yet again it was proven that time just flies, cliche as it may
sound but its just like yday that all of us are in Singapore, when i
was still 21 haha. Chau was in Singapore for a year till 2001, Clyde
flying to and fro, officially left sept last year. Funny thing also
that both the "C" guys missed seeing each other in Singapore, as one
came after the other left but they finally met each other here in
Stockholm, have been telling the other about the other you see in
Singapore you see. And being MY friends, of coz they are cool and nice
pple :)))), they naturally clicked. :) Ahhh, nice feelings...

Hope someone in our circle of AIESEC friends/ex trainees will get
married soon, so the next meeting/catching up will be in Singapore
then! :)

Flashes from the past, present...from home

Scary as it may sound, no no, these are not the flashes you see before
you close your eyes for the last time, as my wicked singaporean friend
said, but ratherI am seeing flashes of scenes from singapore as i go
about my normal routine here in stockholm like taking the t-bana home,
walking down the flight of stairs, and I will have random and
seemingly unimportant scenes from singapore just pop into my brain,
like waiting for the MRT, shopping at Suntec City mall, sitting at the
kopitam, i can feel that I am there, sense the humidity in the air,
hear noises associated with the places, and its really the uncanny
feeling that you are right back in Singapore that makes me go all
queasy.

Sounds like a snapshot from a movie eh? heh...Missing home you think
or just being really really psychic? haha...Its actually kinda cool i
think, as you can walk down a flight of stairs in the subway here in
Stockholm, and think about the MRT stairs back in Singapore, a direct
comparision straightaway... just about on any other thing in fact.

49 more days

Feel like crap, totally stressed with work, working till 9pm these
days, and knowing that there is 1 whole month of it more to go, doesnt
make things feel better...

Lack of sleep, back aches, even my hair is revolting against me, when
it managed to break my comb into 2, when i was brushing it yesterday
Maybe its the darkness as the sun sets around 4plus in the afternoon
now, maybe its the work. Had this thinking the other day on my way
home, after slaving at the office,i totally understand the feeling of
going home after a long day at work and have someone to go home to,
then it kinda makes the whole working your guts out worth something.
So working pple, I know you. :)

Suren and Ruki's Farewell

rukinsuren
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Last week 2 of our trainee friends from Sri Lanka left , felt strange and sad,,,,somehow i have this feeling that they are still around in stlm, though u know its not true,,sad definately, coz this gang of trainees are going to leave soon, next ones to go will be me, vivianne and rajat, a wipeout of the Electrolux trainees....I would get panic shocks like this and scream...." i dont want to go back to singapore" i will lose all my new found freedom, independence and fun friends...and all those that seem so familiar to me right now...but i know i will revert to my rational self again...

Anyways, we are planning to have a reunion next May in Sri Lanka, where Suren is having his wedding. Just to be extra sure that he is inviting most of us,lets say i help him to make his decision on the spot, by "spontaneously" composing an invitationlist with him with a napkin from the cafe...hahaha

Photo of the day- Baby on drums

51 days left

Having old friends over the weekend, lots of catching up to do, feels gd to revisit your old self and relationships, then you will see how much you have grown and how much stays the same. Super stressed with work right now, funny that it gets soooo busy towards the end of the traineeship. Worked till 2030, one of the latest working time i have in Stlm, and one of my Singaporean friends said in a jest, at least its getting you prepared for your life back to Singapore. Yeah yeah thanks man! :P

Hurray!

Hurray after a close to 2 weeks ordeal, my blog is finally up! Thanks a million Dody, have been pestering the poor guy almost every day with my emails :) Next step is for migration from aiesec.ws to happen...and i reckon it will take some time as well!