Madness Strikes At Midnight

It's done once again, a new home-exam delivered and a seminar discussion together with it. It was a bit more fun, probably due to International Relations more normative outlook. If you have a belief you can always stand by it and take the discussion from there. The discussion got heated some times, especially during the liberalism vs realism discussion. Really fun stuff. Except the writing until midnight last night to get finished and then up early to proofread one more time then print it out. Print it out, notice I forgot to put my name on the papers, go back to the computer, fix the problem and send it to the printer again. Then my card runs out on money, so refill it, try printing out the last 2 pages. Does it work? NO, back to the computer and send those last pages and then print them out. Hope to god that it went well.

Is it over there? No, after the seminar back to the library for readings for the essay. Which I have read one book about, and I shall hand in a PM too tomorrow, of course I have the option to postpone it towards after Easter, but if by some miracle I put together the beginning I can take Easter of and just do my 72 hours Final Fantasy XIII marathon without problems. On the other hand I could sit and do it at the moment instead of watching some boring TV-series and just walking the net, but hey, I'm lazy.

Lights Out

One day left before the home-exam is supposed to be done. One question left, no worries. It's fine. What has happened since last time? I got some waffles. Good. And then it was the "Kravallsittning" at Saturday. All right, a bit short, it had the idea of being well structured but fell a bit flat at execution, mostly due to lack of experience in that area. Of course this is from a person that has been there for 4 years and have an image on what it is supposed to be so the question is: are they doing it just fine or don't they reach my high standard?

Also it was Earth Hour during the "sittning", but we didn't turn the light out... and I don't care. Yeah, you read right. Idealistic Niklas is gone for the moment replaced by the cynical realist Niklas, a bit stressed out by the home-exam and a PM finished until Thursday which I haven't started on or even began reading for. Life is fun. Oh, almost forgot, I got Final Fantasy XIII as well, but I probably will not have time to play it for some time... till retirement with m luck. Nah, not that bad. During the Easter Thursday I will probably stock up on food and candy and just play till 22:00 on Monday next week. That's a total of 96 hours without sleep, with sleep the minimum would be 72 hours not counting the extra hours on Thursday, but those will probably go to food consumption. So that means 72 hours non-stop playing... nonstop chocolate *drool* ahem. Back to the home-exam.

Sands Of Time

Not much is happening actually as I'm more or less condemned to study in the library for the home-exam. The most spectacular thing about that is that I've changed place to a table in the back. Yeah, I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. Anyway, I still miss the last book and time is getting short and tomorrow it's the public sector fair Off. Spring (the off. is short for offentlig which means public). All day so no studying so it means it's time for the weekend push. Of course that one is hampered a bit as we have the final "kravallsittning" at Saturday night which probably means Sunday is out of the question. Hmm, what a dilemma!

Other than that, it's waffle day (yes, I know it's Lady Day in english, but we call it waffle day) and no, I haven't had any waffles, that has to be some other day as I don't have time coming home so late. Even better then waffle day is pay day. Lets see, shall it be Resident Evil 5 Gold or Final Fantasy XIII? Though choices... or maybe I take both? The problem is I don't have time playing them at the moment. Besides the home-exam I have to begin the essay and write something for the day after the home-exam is returned in. And I have only read one book about my subject. Seems like I have to improvise here. Enjoy your waffles!

Blackout

If you have noticed the blog suddenly contains over 200 entries. This was since I found out to import my old blog and fuse it with this so that's why there was no mention of the occasion 200 or why 100 is completely wrong. Technical difficulties you know. Anyway.

As I reported last time the water started leaking in the main water pipe or something like that in Karlstad and the pressure fell and some household lost their water. That has now been fixed so the pressure is up, but the leak hasn't been fixed yet and the water is therefore contaminated. So we still have to boil the water... and it taste awful. They calculate that it will take a minimum of 3 days to fix it and that means Wednesday. 3 days of horrible awful boiled water. At least I can cool it in the refrigerator.

If that wasn't enough the whole Swedish society seems to be falling apart (or at least Karlstad). Around 19:00 today when I've been in the library since 08:00 studying the anarchy in international relations and failed states the power cuts. In the whole University. The power just goes out. It means it was time to go home. After half an hour that is since I tried to stay until 20:00 when they close the ordinary library, but without light I had to read the articles I had in the light of the monitor of my computer, the candle for the high-tech age. Annoying as hell. Still I think I got the home-exam mostly figured out, I say mostly as I don't have the book necessary to finish the last two questions. Not good. And I think I could rewrite some parts of the first question as it isn't read very smoothly. Lots of jumps in the train of thought. Did I mention how much I hate the boiled water?

Black Water

Well... uhm... funny thing actually... he he. Apparently the whole water system in Karlstad and the neighboring municipality was closed down for repairs as they had sprung a leak. So no water, or so they said in the news. I didn't notice until after my breakfast and morning refreshment. So I had water (lucky me), but before you use it you should boil it was the recommendation from the unquestionably public sector. So have I done that? No, to lazy and it also gave me the perfect excuse to go and by some coke. No one would question that. Buying coke? Didn't boil water! Perfect.

Also the SNES conference (no, not the Nintendo console, a political scientist conference) ended yesterday. Of all the topics yesterday I only went to one in the afternoon, the rest of the time I was in the library writing on my home-exam. Except when I went for the free coffee, cinnamon buns, lunch, candy and mocha squares (or something some Swedes "love goodies" or whatever Kärleksmums is in english). A lot of running that is, so it's questionable if it was worth it as I probably made of with more energy then I got (and I make it sound like a bad thing, must be the coffee abstinent I got now).

Dancing On A High Wire

I feel like I'm on a roll. Yesterday it was cinema time with Green Zone. Fairly decent action-thriller or whatever you call it. Reminded me (and apparently some of the other guys I went with) about MW2, especially the first missions. Of course that disrupted my schedule as we also got the next home-exam in International Relations and European Integration studies. So it's once again two weeks of utter stress and madness... not really, this ones feels a bit better, mostly due to the fact that I studied American foreign policy in 2008 and it pretty much had the same theories with a more center view on the US. Only problem is I have to refer everything I say to a source witch mean I have to search thru my old notes and books to find all the good stuff.

Anyway, I thought on doing some work today, but the faculty had messed up with schedule here and placed an international conference on Europe and the global world. I was only supposed to make a short appearance and what happens? You get stuck there and at the afternoon your friends begin calling you to find out were you are (being here 1 hour before the conference start I had to get a table in the library leaving all my stuff there). The positive side is I got free lunch and two "fika" pauses during the day. Free is good.

Returning to my place and my friends they tell me the result on the last home-exam is out and guess what? My first VG (A or B, in this case B as it was precisely on the borderline and it makes it even sweeter) on a Political Scientist sub-course, EVER. It's fricking awesome, especially since this exam was seen as the worst one ever. And now I have to get this one right and I can put onward a second complete VG on my CV (the other one being Economics). I tell you, I'm on a roll now.

Yeah, and during all this excitement I agreed on representing the Washington Semester Program on Hotspot (work fair) in April. In the middle of the essay procedure and job hunting . I hope my luck doesn't run out now and throw me down the gutter. It wouldn't surprise me though, but I would feel so ashamed to miss the current home-exam as I specialized on International Relations. To fail would be the most shaming thing I ever done and would hunt me till the end. I must not fail, I shall have that VG no matter the cost. Nothing is dear enough to keep... except chocolate... and coke... I'm doomed am I not?

Doin' The Omoralisk Schagerfestival '10 (3)

So it's over once again. Melodifestivalen 2010 has drawn to a close and Anna Bergendahl is our representative in Oslo later this year. Now, I haven't followed this competition all out as I been busy a couple of times, thankfully listening to much better music at parties. So I don't have a full grasp over all contestants. It's a nice song, it just doesn't lift my spirit and tells me it is an instant hit. Of course if we win I will probably just shut up. All I can do at the moment is to brag that I saw here live in 2008 when I came back from Washington. That's right, I've seen here live and would gladly show a photo from that occasion, but unfortunately my computer have either erased the pictures or somehow sent them away to some other place on my hard-drive. I don't know. All I got left is some really disfigured shots that are impossible to make any sense of. Convenient isn't?

Otherwise I don't know what to say about the finale. First thing we are shown is Sylvester Stallone, yes THE Sylvester Stallone greeting Dolph Lundgren then a music number with Survivor's Eye of the Tiger playing and everyone is dressed in boxer outfits. It can't get any cheesier then that with one exception. If you recall I've been talking about Dolph searching for the saboteur of the first show. Do you know who did? No one, it was a F***ING illusion, it was all in their MINDS. GOD DAMMIT what a cheap cop out. The middle act was deplorable, a hard rock version of last years winner that totally sucked, mostly due to the fact that it wasn't a good song to begin with. We also got a montage of earlier Norwegian and Swedish songs that was either hit or miss depending on the songs themselves. Best song was still Roger Pontares song from 2000, När vindarna viskar mitt namn. Here is the Swedish outtake of the song:

And for international readers we even have the English version:

There is of course a big difference in lyrics but it still awesome. Unfortunately it only ended up in 7th place in ESC, but of course, with todays standards in Swedish ESC-songs that's pretty high. Of course, when speaking about Melodifestivalen there is one song that's even better and describe the whole thing perfectly, Doin' the Omoralisk Schlagerfestival:

This one don't have any english lyrics so to all international reader, I apologize for the inconvenience.