tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-144960532024-03-13T13:29:28.456+01:00life as a swede...an exchange student experience in Jönköping, Sweden.Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1150023679426117512006-06-11T12:15:00.000+02:002006-06-11T13:01:19.456+02:00How I was found...Hey,<br /><br />Almost since the day I created this blog, I've used a tracker to count how many visitors I have received on this page, you can see it on the right side beside "ShinyStat" box... and the total page hits is not the only information I get, I almost get wide range of information from you guys such as your operating systems, your browser types, or what country you are in when you're reading this blog.... the most interesting information I have found is the search keywords that people input in google, yahoo or msn search when they wanted to find my blog but didn't know or forgot my www address or those others who searched for some random things and apparently came across to my blog since it somehow fit into their search keywords. I'm gonna display the keywords here just for fun and make a top 10 list of the most strange keywords.<br /><br />The top 10 list will be shown then rest of the keywords grouped into months.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Note: if you notice any mistakes with the spelling or odd grammar or missing dots above the letters such as jonkoping instead of correct spelling of jönköping, I just copied exactly what was used as the search keyword.<br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">T</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 0);">O</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">P</span> <span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 0);">1</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">0</span> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:78%;" >(in random order)</span></span></span><br /></div> <ul style="font-family: georgia;"> <li>how to annoy your teacher - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">September 2005</span> - unfortunately I don't think my blog had any good tips</span></span></li><li>spud separatists - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">September 2005</span> - what is that anyway?</span></span></li><li>good bye from work -<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">August 2005</span> - people actually go online and search how to say good bye from work?</span></span></li><li>pictures of forehead injuries - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">October 2005</span> - that dude has a strange photograph collecti<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >o</span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >n</span></li><li>does matts sundin have a swedish girlfriend - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">January 2006</span> - unfortunately he's taken -- not that you would have a chance :)</span></span></li><li>gay movie swede - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">January 2006</span> - uhm? no porn on my site</span></span></li><li>asl shaved lady pictures - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">March 2006</span> - not even sure how to comment on that :)</span></span></li><li>do you have a pictuer of frogs left and right side in the inside match - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">April 2006</span> - huh?!?!?</span></span></li><li>black-pissing - <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">June 2006</span> - sounds like a problem that I wouldn't want to have</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">sweden law learn asl - <span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">March 2006</span> - get yourself educated, why would it be a law for Swedes to learn a foreign sign language?</span></span></li> </ul><br />Now, the entire search keywords on the record since July 2005.<br /><br />July 2005<br />No Search Keywords - <span style="font-style: italic;">probably because I don't think I created any blog posts at that time.</span><br /><br />August 2005<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bg0ur3</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bg0ur3.blogspot.com</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">good bye from work</span></li> </ul> September 2005<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon & goure & blog & jonkoping</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon goure</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">raslatt party</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">40 kronors lunch i jönköping</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bryden's bar+milton</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">how to annoy your teacher</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">http://bg0ur3.blogspot.com</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">jönköping</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">life at jönköping</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">living in råslatt</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">raslatt 05</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">råslätt</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">spud separatists</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">stockholm party</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">teckenspråk</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">weight regulations for british airlines</span></li> </ul> October 2005<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">"the daltons" "subtitles"</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">amitysville house</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bg0ur3</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bg0ur3.blogspot.com</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon goure blog</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">britta's 2nd birthday</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">http://bg0ur3.blogspot.com</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">innebandy blog</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">innebandy pro touch focus</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">pictures of forehead injuries</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">semester + apartment + göteborg</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">washer sweden kronors</span></li> </ul> November 2005<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">"25 years old" + blog + cambridge + ontario</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">airport regulations</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bg0ur3.blogspot.com</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon goure</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bredäng centrum photos</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bryden's milton</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">life as a swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">sentimental, say good bye, good luck</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">swedes quiet bus</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">teckensprak</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">teckenspråk + "charlotte gustavsson"</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">www winter coat large size in swede</span></li> </ul> December 2005<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">sweden's mayfest</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon goure, ontario</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">britta wiesner</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">innebandy</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">life as a swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">liseberg gøteborg sverige</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">odsp</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">summer fun in sweden</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">sweden life conversation</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">webcam jönköping city weather</span></li> </ul> January 2006<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">life as a swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bg[3] - windows ...</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brugge beligum</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">does matts sundin have a swedish girlfriend</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">gay movie swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">hydro bg users</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">mats sundin interesting facts</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">mini-stick on calendars</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">weather beligum</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">world war postcards and letters</span></li> </ul> Feburary 2006<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brugge beligum</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">cleaning swede shoes</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">definite swede of cooking</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">how to clean swede coat</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">life as a swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">map jönköping ikea</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">max men bg</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">sweden hockeygame 2005</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">sweets food pictuer</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">teckensprak stockholm universitet video</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">translate swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">waffle, how to make beligum waffle?</span></li> </ul> March 2006<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">affect of globalisation on macroeconomics</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">asl shaved lady pictures</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">blog swedish my jönköping elisabet</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brugge beligum</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">djugardens hockey</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">how do you clean swede shoes</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">ho' +swede+it+is+nhl</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">jenny swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">slovak swede blog mattias</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">swede sec</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">sweden law learn asl</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">think near tram user near bus and jönköping</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">ur.se</span></li> </ul> April 2006<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">"have a good day" swedish phrases</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">100% dating .bg</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">beligan waffle mix loblaws grocery ontario</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">beligum waffles</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brussels midi station atm</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">coachline bus company ny</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">do you have a pictuer of frogs left and right side in the inside match</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">fireworkd design shirt</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">getting a swedish personnummer</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">pictures swedes traditional clothing</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">webcam swede</span></li> </ul> May 2006<br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">"estonia clothes"</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">"something about estonia"</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon goure</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">canadian nickname fat swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">crime in bredäng</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">deaf bg people</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">estonia tallinn movie</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">final exams jonkoping</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">gallaudet zoltan tenure</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">http://bg0ur3.blogspot.com</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">jönköping champagne quality</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">kat estonia webcam</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">life of a swede</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">midi in powerpoint dont work</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">most beautiful languages estonian</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">random fact estonia</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">sacred jesus blood brugge</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">skype founded tallin</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">skype tallin mayo 2006</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">swede day rochester 2006</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">swede life</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">swedish phrases you would you like to go to a restaurant</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">tallinn estonia party</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">why city life rocks and country life sucks</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">wikipedia estonia</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">wikipedia tallin estonia</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">window estonia tallinn</span></li> </ul> June 2006 <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">as of June 11, 2006</span></span><br /><ul> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">bg0ur3 blog</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">black-pissing</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon goure</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">brandon mackan</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">capital city of estonia</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">crayfish festival jonkoping</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">jonkoping sweden exchange sudent blog</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">omnitor</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">ryerson exchange student in jonkoping blog</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">screwed in tallinn</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:85%;">swede +car +stories +crazy</span></li> </ul> bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1149620624724060272006-06-06T20:54:00.000+02:002006-06-06T21:03:57.983+02:00Update:Hey,<br /><br />There is a post about my trip to paris just below this post if you guys want to read more. this post is just to summary what I have been up to lately...<br /><br />Yeah, things have been busy as always, with school, work and baseball... I always look forward to those days where I just stay home and do nothing all day... but good news!... I'll be done with Jönköping this saturday! (one last final exam on that saturday) and then I'm gonna be in just stockholm for the entire time I'm in sweden until I go home.<br /><br />Lately I've been out to baseball games and practices... our team is 3rd in our divison now, though with the talent I've seen on the team I'm sure we can finish atop of the standings however I won't be around to see that... the season continues until end of September and obviously I will be in Canada before mid-July.<br /><br />Thank god for our paris trip, or I would have barely seen Elisabet in the last 2 months, she has been very busy with her work... she is one of the people who is responsible for the sign language day www.tsp25.se , its a big thing in sweden where sign language was officially recognized as deaf people's first language and few weeks ago was the 25th anniversary... there was a big gala and all that like toronto's deaf culture centre (the gala was even on the same day) I didn't go to the Gala because my baseball team had a weekend series (3 games) in Leksand, (3 hours north of Stockholm) .<br /><br />Anyway, as you all know, my time here is coming to an end too quickly... I'm beginning to say my farewells to those who I don't meet too often and this weekend I will say my "goodbye" to Jönköping. Even though I hate the town, it's always been a home away from home to me... a place where I can be alone and just chill and do nothing,... in Stockholm it's almost impossible to do something like that... thats the city life for me.<br /><br />anyway, i guess you're up to date about me now :) I guess I will write few more posts before I go home before ending my blog for good since as I said in the beginning of this blog last year, this blog is only about my year in sweden... I ain't gonna bore you with my everyday details in cambridge :)<br /><br />see y'all later<br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1149619979646379772006-06-06T19:28:00.000+02:002006-06-06T20:52:59.706+02:00Weekend in Paris!Hey, I wasn't going to even post anything about Paris and was this close to ignoring my blog for good but after some persuasion from some people, especially Laing! I decided to not disappoint my audience, So I'm gonna post a pictorial blog about Paris and try to keep my words to a minimum if that is even possible.<br /><br />We got in Paris on thursday may 4, late night. We walked from the Gare du Nord (North Station) to the hotel, about 30 minutes walk and slept. Then on the next morning, the first thing we saw was the Bastille but unforunately there was nothing spectacular to see there if you didnt know the history about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille">the storming of the bastille</a>.<br /><br />Then we went to the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_Dame_de_Paris"> Notre Dame Catherdal</a>...its an ancient church that was built in 1160 or something and can hold thousands of people, it has 6,800 organ pipes or something like that, i dont remember the exact facts since its been a month since i went to paris :) Here is Elisabet and I in front of the church's rear.<br />--<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20018.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20018.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />After the Notre Dame visit (we also went in the catherdal), we decided to go and find the Sign Language Cafe that Paris is known for, it was a huge disappointment... all of the staff there looked as if they were hearing and didnt know how to use ISL but we had lunch there... however before we found the cafe, Elisabet found a Starbucks!! she just had to have a Chai, (Sweden doesnt have starbucks) :)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20031.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20031.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>After our lunch, we went to <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/europe/france/paris?poi=6816">Catacombes de Paris</a>, its a huge catacomb filled with 5-6 million bodies tha were exhumed from cemeteries of paris in late 18th century because Napoleon wanted to revamp the city design and deal with the increasing population and there wasn't any more room to build homes so the cemetery had to go and created a catacomb directly under the city of paris, Elisabet and I went down like 125 steps down on a narrow circular stairway and walked almost a kilometer before we finally saw the bones, then from there, it was almost another kilometer of nothing but bones bones bones, skulls, skeletons.-... it was an amazing sight, one of the must-sees if you're ever in paris.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20040.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20040.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />More bones, neatly arranged, we could even touch them although it wasn't allowed to do so. There was someone at the end of the tunnel that will inspect your bags or pockets to see if you have stolen anything. The end of the tunnel had almost another 100 steps upwards :)<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20055.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20055.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Me going upstairs, exiting the catacomb, i dunno what i was trying to say.... oh well..<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20058.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20058.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Elisabet and I also went to the Louvre Museum... the world's largest art museum and i took this picture only because xff did it too :) if you don't know what i'm talking about... <a href="http://www.neable.com/pix/index.php?mode=thumb&dir=.%2FEurope%2FParis+&view=img&img=31">check this out</a><br />Elisabet and I saw so much there, Mona Lisa painting of course, and greek sculptures, renaissance paintings, picasso, da vinci, monet etc... and more other things, we had to skip most of the museum cuz it was too big and we had more things to see in paris other than ancient art :)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20116.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20116.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Here is Elisabet and I in front of the Louvre Museum from the outside after exploring the museum, we went into the museum directly from the subway station so we didnt know what it looked like on the outside until we got outside.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20129.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20129.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Elisabet and I eating ice cream on Avenue Des Champ Élysées... Europe's most expensive shopping street... I saw that somewhere on internet before going to Paris but i cant cite the source since I dont remember which site I saw it from :) Avenue Des Champ Élysées is a street that goes straight from the Louvre Museum to the Arc Dé Triumph along with lots of restaurants and clothing stores, automobile stores (like ferrari, renault, bmw... none of those cheap fords-- sorry bez :) )<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20136.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20136.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Me in front of Arc Dé Triumph, its the world's largest meeting point of streets, 12 major street meet directly in the middle of Arc Dé Triumph, there is a large circle around the Arc Dé Triumph, the only sane way to get into the middle is to use the underground tunnel.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20147.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20147.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Elisabet looking down on the Avenue Des Champ Élysées, somewhere down there is the Louvre Museum, you can see how far we walked :)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20158.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20158.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Then we were hungry, so we went to an "Italian" restaurant on Avenue Des Champ Élysées, I thought I would order something new, and I saw a pizza with pepperoni, eggs, and some interesting spices... so I decided to go for it... big mistake :)... see the egg on the pizza?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20161.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20161.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>and see my reaction? :)... I couldnt even finish it, the pepperoni, egg were undercooked but I'm assuming its a french delicacy... I also ordered a hamburger with eggs on the nightbefore and I ended up with just half cooked groundbeef with a slab of sunny up egg on the top of the ground beef... "that is a hamburger?" I thought.. oh well...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20162.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20162.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">On the next day, we went to the Eiffel Tower.<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20065.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20065.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20064.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20064.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>That's the view of Paris from the top of Eiffel Tower... the city looks charming but its not really... and note the resemblation between this picture and Washington DC's Capitol Building to the Washington Monument? I guess now we know who the americans copied the design from :)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20094.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20094.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />There is 4 entrances to the Eiffel tower, two of them had looooooong line, so Elisabet and I went for the shortest line and then we found out that it was a short line cuz the only way to get up were to use the staircase... we still went for it, and climbed 668 steps to halfway top of the Eiffel Tower before using the elevator to go all the way top (there wasnt any open staircases to the very top if you guys were wondering)<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20108.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20108.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>My favorite picture of the whole trip!! :)<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20109.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20109.1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Found Canada Dry Ginger Ale!! :) had not drank that since leaving for Sweden... delicious!! :)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20178.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20178.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Overall, Paris was a very interesting experience... their public transportation system were very AMAZING and DISGUSTING at the same time... they had 15 subway lines, 4 train lines, and countless bus lines and it seems like we never needed to wait for more than 3 minutes to hitch a ride to somewhere in the city... but 90% of the stations looks like they havent been taken care of since they were built (first subway station was built in 1900s or 1910s)... or maybe I'm just biased, but Stockholm has very CLEAN subways and stations....paris's subway stations is not even accesible to wheelchairs, theres stairs EVERYWHERE and no elevators at all... but oh well...<br /><br />Paris defintely has lots of history there, I would have liked to stay a bit longer to explore more of the city but the weekend was supposed to be a romantic getaway for me and Elisabet and it was just exactly that, we had tons of fun together which was a nice change of pace from our hectic schedule in stockholm.<br /><br /><br />I've got more stories and pictures but I dont want to stay on blogger.com too long :) if you want to know something more just ask me.<br /><br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1146487687147977402006-05-01T13:55:00.000+02:002006-05-02T18:28:21.926+02:00Tallinn, EstoniaHey everybody...<br /><br />I just got back from a weekend stay in Estonia, I thought I might as well post something now before I won't have time later on. myself and 11 other guys left Stockholm on friday afternoon from the frihamnenport on a huge cruise ship. It wasn't the usual people I hung out in the last 8-9 months I've been here but nevertheless it was a fun-filled weekend.... it had all of the makings of a great movie if the trip was longer than a week :)<br /><br />Before I post some pictures, let me explain a little something about Estonia since most people don't know what it is. Estonia was a country occupied by CCCP for many years until early 1990s when Estonia finally became an independent country along with other countries like Lithuania and Latvia. In the early 1990s after Russia left, Estonia was one of the most poor country in east Europe... many Finnish and Swedish people usually go to Estonia to party hard because everything there is so cheap. Even though after reading about Estonia on the Wikipedia, it said that Estonia has became the "Silicon Valley" of europe... Skype was founded in Tallinn, Estonia, I was still expecting to see lots of badly beaten down buildings with dozens of beggars on the streets.<br /><br />Wikipedia wasn't kidding,...Estonia has come a long way from early 1990s, the prices there are not that cheap... probably 10% discount from Sweden's living costs (perhaps more cheaper in other areas such as housing, booze etc... but not overall)... They have very beautiful "old town" section , coined as one of Europe's most beautiful old town preservation by wikipedia. The old town is right beside the newly built modernized section of Tallinn (Tallinn is the captial city of Estonia, with a population of only 400,000 and Estonia has only 1.3 million in all).<br /><br />I have to say, I was impressed with Tallinn, you can actually see the progress being made for the future - economic wise and socially.<br /><br />Anyway, here comes pictures and my first attempt to post a video on this blog...<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0013.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0013.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The guys I went with on the boat.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0031.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0031.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The business district of Tallinn, like I said, you can see the progress being made.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0037.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0037.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The guys and I went to a nice restaurant, I ordered Garlic Bread and I got this??? :) it was toasted bread with minced garlic with mayo on the side. It actually tasted good :) (sans mayo)<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0041.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0041.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Toffe, Me, and Hans barhopping in the old town district.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0045.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0045.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>A fun cycle-taxi :)... they were everywhere when I was in Cuba but this one is more modernized.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0046.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0046.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Entering the old town district, you can see where the more modern part of the city ends on the right side of the picture.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0049.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0049.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Random picture with some guys pointing at me?...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0050.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0050.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>A lady dressed up in medevial Estonia clothes selling fried peanuts. Tasted good only when they are warm... when they cool up, they're gross. :)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0051.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0051.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Main square in the old town district, restaurants on all sides of the square.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0072.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0072.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>This is one of many windows of a fort, I thought those windows were interesting cuz if you look closer, you should be able to see another mini window on the middle-left square that opens up. I think it was used by the russians for snipers enabling them to shoot out of the window wihtout having to open the whole window during cold winters or something?...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0074.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0074.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Me in front of some fort that was probably used by the Russians during the occupation.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0075.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0075.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Another random picture of old Estonia.<br /><br />Here is my first video posted... I hope this works... its a random clip while walking down on Tallinn streets.<br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ttIexCQPHOU"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ttIexCQPHOU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="350" width="600"></object><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0009.2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0009.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>This is Mackan (I hope I got his name right), an introduction of him is necessary to show you the videos below. He is a very eccentric but an interesting person, I think without him the whole weekend would not have been as entertaining.<br /><br />Here is Mackan portraying Adolf Hitler after a conversation discussing Germany's plans to take over Estonia in the WWII.<br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gKrri9PVQOQ"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gKrri9PVQOQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="350" width="600"></object><br /><br />And this, just one more of his many antics, portraying a scene from Godfather with Stefan.<br /><object height="350" width="425" align="left"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nzw0AqkA2zM"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nzw0AqkA2zM" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="350" width="600"></object><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Have a good day :)<br />Brandon<br /></div> </div>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1144789112368015742006-04-11T22:54:00.000+02:002006-04-11T22:59:25.246+02:00Jönköping at nightHey,<br /><br />i came across this picture while cleaning up my files in the computer. This picture was taken by Alister, my australian roommate from last semester. He took a panoramic photo of Jönköping at night from an outlook point.<br /><br />I just thought you would enjoy this nice picture.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/J%3F%3Fnk%3F%3Fping%20at%20night01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/J%3F%3Fnk%3F%3Fping%20at%20night01.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /> (click on the photo to enlarge it)Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1143824188437811152006-03-31T18:33:00.000+02:002006-03-31T18:56:28.456+02:00*boo*hope I didn't scare you guys... yeah I'm alive and well. Nope, I haven't been hiding under the rock waiting for the winter to end although I wouldn't blame any groundhogs in Sweden doing that now (if theres groundhogs around here, I know for a fact that sweden doesnt have Raccoons) because know what?... the winter has not ended here yet. In fact, it was snowing today... jeez. It's april tomorrow, back home I would have been wearing shorts weeks ago. Oh well.<br /><br />Lots has happened since I've last blogged, I've been really busy with my school, work and my own personal relaxation time whenever I can get it.<br /><br />Andrew and dad visited me few weeks ago, it was fun showing them what Sweden was like I think I changed their perception on Sweden that it's not full of queers with mullets wearing pink shirts thats several sizes too small. I think they liked Jönköping more than Stockholm, they're just not cut out for the city life... a bunch of farmers they are :)<br /><br />I just finished my final exams for my Economic Geography III and Marketing Management courses, I'm more than confident that I did well in those courses now I've got two last tough courses starting next week Database Administration III and Strategic Planning II courses... don't worry I'm not going to get into the details, I dont have that energy to blog everything these days.<br /><br />One interesting bit of information, I just joined a baseball team that is part of the Swedish Elite League (the top level in Sweden), yeah finally after like 7 years of layoff I'm finally back in Baseball!! --- Softball does not count --- The team I am playing for is called Sundbyberg Heat ( <a href="http://www.sundbybergheat.se">www.sundbybergheat.se</a> ), Sundbyberg is part of Stockholm. I hope I'll do well with them, I think they are interested in having me pitch after seeing some of my moves but let's see what happens.<br /><br />In the end of April, I will be going to Tallinn, Estonia for a weekend... for those who doesnt know where Estonia is, its a country near Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. And then first weekend of May, Elisabet and I will be going for a romantic getaway weekend in Paris, France! :D.... should be tons of fun.<br /><br />Yeah, I am still trying to find some time to go to Rome and Budapest... it looks like that I will stay few days in London, England before going home.<br /><br />oh yeah, most likely it seems like I will be home about July 14th give or take a few days. The reason for that is, I want to be home by first week of August and Elisabet will be going to California for some camp program for swedish kids at some deaf school for 2 weeks after July 16th so I didnt really want to spend last few weeks in Sweden without Elisabet and there is ESAD softball tournament in Buffalo on July 15th weekend and I will be playing for the Rochester team so I'll be home by then.<br /><br />hmm, I promise you that there is actually more for me to tell you but my interest in blogging has completely dwindled for some reason, I guess for me blogging is just another internet fad that has lost its shine... but I don't think I'm the only one though, I see many of you posting with less frequency as each week goes by :p...<br /><br />so, if you want to see me say something more, email me, msn me, come in person and ask me or see me in July :)...<br /><br />I might blog once in awhile now, but not as often as I did in the first few months... :) unless one of you want to pay for each of my posts :p<br /><br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1138231563576095542006-01-26T00:09:00.000+01:002006-01-26T00:54:22.096+01:00what the -?I thought of this interesting swedish phrase few days ago --<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Jag har hår här nu.</span><br /><br />come on, you all english-users admit it, this looks like a screwed up sentence,<br /><br />you all probably read it as -- <span style="font-style: italic;">Jar har har har nu</span>.<br /><br />check out the dots above the 'a' in those har's... it does have difference, that swedish phrase roughly translated into english means "I have hair here now".<br /><br />When I typed "Jag har hår här nu" to elisabet on msn, I told her that I thought it was a funny sentence, and she was confused, wondering what I meant by "funny"... I had to point out that "har" was repeated three consecutive times yet those words carried different meanings. Then she was like "oh my god, I didn't notice that!!"...<br /><br />jeez,... it's interesting to see how the swedes' brain and their perspective on their own language works, they automatically see the 'ö' 'ä' 'å' in their words, they are able to tell the difference from the 'o' and 'a' without any effort and lacks the identifying process to understand that those words här hår and har looks at the first glance.<br /><br />That is one classic example of my struggle identifying those tiny dots above the a's and o's... I hope this example illustrates my problem clearly.<br /><br />Have a good day :)<br />Brandon<br /><br />P.S. for those who doesnt believe me... check out the msn conversation between me and elisabet.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:49:38 bg0ur3 - jag har hår här nu :)... </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:49:41 bg0ur3 - looks funny :) </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:50:24 e- ohhh? </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:50:32 e- hair there? where? :S </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:50:39 bg0ur3 - no i mean.. har har har.. </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:50:40 bg0ur3 - looks funny </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:50:58 bg0ur3 - i guess to a true swede har, här and hår looks completely different </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:51:01 bg0ur3 - but to me its the same :) </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:51:09 e- HAHA </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:51:13 e- of course i didnt notice that </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:51:27 e- jag har hår här... i truly didnt notice.. </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:51:32 bg0ur3 - hehe </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:51:34 e- its a big difference u know : ) </span><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">19:51:45 bg0ur3 - i know its a big difference but it takes me an extra second to realize it :) </span></span>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1138124972831872242006-01-24T17:39:00.000+01:002006-01-24T18:49:32.933+01:005 Months and 1 week since leaving CanadaHey.<br /><br />(Dont think I am counting the days everyday, there is a bar on the bottom of this blog that keeps the count of how long I have been away from Canada, I use it as a handy reference from time to time :p)<br /><br />dang, yeah I have passed the halfway point of my year here and I am starting my second semester this week. I thought I would add a "reflection" of what has happened throughout the year here.<br /><br />I have to admit, Tammy was right that I couldnt possibly become an "expert" in swedish sign language by January (now)... but I don't feel as nervous or lost when talking to the deaf swedes anymore because I understand them 99% of the time now and I guess I have gotten alot better with the sign language however there is still a big need for improvement in that area (especially with my lip movements) :p<br /><br />The school here, don't get me wrong, I think this town -- Jönköping -- is one of the most beautiful town I have ever seen in my life, the school campus and design is amazing but I do not really like their system. There is no consistency with the assignments, deadline dates, teaching session/workshop/lecture/labs or whatever... I have different school schedule every week forcing me to juggle my times with Stockholm/Work and Jönköping/School even more. And, whenever I get my assignments, I always feel that the assignments requirements are so vague which makes it hard for me to get started when I don't know which direction I should take to complete the assignment. I don't know if it is Sweden's general system or just Jönköping Högskolan itself.<br /><br />If you fail a test, or an assignment, you are allowed to re-take the exams or re-do the assignments, I am totally against that idea because to me, I feel like that my motivation for studying or working on the assignments has been greatly depelted because I always know that there will be another "go" at it if I fail the exam. And one of my courses had a paper, programming assignment that was due AFTER the final exam. It's those things that makes me confused with the normal pattern of how a semester's schedule flow should be like.<br /><br />Despite those negative things, I am still learning alot just like I would be if I was in Ryerson right now. I think it's just that when I came here, I was fully expecting the culture, lifestyle and social change but I guess I did not fully grasp the possiblity that the educational system would also require some adapting.<br /><br />I thought it would be fun for me to make a list of things that I would miss and would NOT miss from Sweden and Canada. Since it is something that everybody usually asks me so here goes...<br /><br />What I miss from Canada...<br /><ul><li>Cheap gasoline.</li><li>Conventional transportation with my personal car.</li><li>English captions on tv.</li><li>NHL, MLB, NFL, and even NBA on the tv.</li><li>My pets, (I do not think I have even touched a single animal since I came here eh)</li><li>Abundance of access of ATM machines.</li><li>The couch in my living room at home (the furniture here are too ikea-ish)</li><li>Stores open until 9pm or 10pm.</li><li>Nestea Iced Tea (the powder mix)</li><li>Playing ball hockey, baseball, basketball or volleyball</li><li>Pepperoni Pizza (here, they have just salami, it doesnt taste the same)<br /></li></ul>What I don't miss from Canada...<br /><ul><li>Rush hour traffic.</li><li>Driving at least 1-3 hours everyday<br /></li><li>Working and School 16 hours everyday</li><li>Fast Food restaurants/Junk Food (I probably eat fast food just once in 1-2 months now and my junk food intake have been cut in half when compared to canada)</li><li>ASL (yup just because I know I probably would be using it for rest of my life)</li></ul><br />What I will miss from Sweden when I return in the summer<br /><ul><li>Elisabet</li><li>the vibrant deaf community</li><li>the sense of closeness within the deaf culture (I dont see much of that at my home)<br /></li><li>3G video mobile phones</li><li>the constant learning of new words/signs</li><li>tap water (no difference from spring water bottles)</li><li>great public transportation especially the subway system (however there are times where a car would be useful)</li><li>great bike/walking paths (not sidewalks)<br /></li></ul>What I won't miss from Sweden<br /><ul><li>their "white" sauce</li><li>early darkness during the winter season</li><li>expensive gas</li><li>lack of ATM machines or when they only have 500kr bills available (about 80 dollars)</li><li>almost all sporting events on tv are NOT captioned<br /></li><li>Innebandy</li><li>their tv/dvd/vcr system, I never have learned how to work with them, seems like that their tv has some kind of "Sleep mode", gonna have to teach myself soon :)</li></ul>I am sure there is more to the list but nothing right off my mind now.<br /><br />Also, another question I have been seeing lately.... "when will you be home?"... Myself, I am not even sure, but I know I will have to decide for sure by mid-april because that is when I have to pick the return date for the flight home.<br /><br />So far, I have several options that would impact my decision on when to return;<br /><br />Option 1)<span style="font-weight: bold;"> End of the May </span>- I have been in contact with Toronto CIBC bank headquarters, it seems like that I have a good opportunity to work there however there is one problem. They require all summer students to start working for them on the first week of may which is impossible for me because the second semester here does not end until first week of June. I am able to take the final exam at Ryerson so the earliest I can be in Canada would be in third or fourth week of May that is if CIBC is willing to be more flexible for me (hopefully)<br /><br />Option 2) <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mid-August</span> - The current job I have right now pays very well, I am planning to talk with my boss to see if he would like me to continue working until mid-August if my "option #1) doesn't work out. But one problem, my Student Visa expires at the end of June, so I would also have to apply for an extension to my student visa and then return to Canada in mid-august to get ready for my LAST year at ryerson :D<br /><br />Option 3) <span style="font-weight: bold;">Last Week of June or First week of July</span> - If I dont work at CIBC and I cannot get my visa extension or cannot work at Omnitor in the summer then I guess I don't have much of choice but to return back home and hopefully I find some nice coop employment for few months otherwise I will be back to my old routine working with BRAD... I must be back with BRAD before mid-august before my 1-year Leave of Absence expires otherwise I would have to re-apply for the job all over again which is somehting I want to avoid doing.<br /><br />so as you can see, my return date to Canada has a buffer zone of almost 4 months so I can't really give you a definite answer right now but you all will find out in a good time, I am sure most of you would be eager to see me in person to see if I look the same or if I have became too swedishized :p (right Megan? :p)<br /><br />As for my immediate future, I am trying to find a time where I can go to Italy for a long weekend or something to visit Tara before my Dad, Andrew and Valerie visits me and Sweden. Yup, I said dad is visiting me, for those who don't understand how significant this is, my dad is a 50 year old man who has never flown in a plane before, I'm hoping that it will be a safe trip for him, not like those american lunatics that I see on news too often jumping off the plane screaming :) Anyway, they will visit me from March 10-19, I think i might have an exam that week but it was the only time they could come so.... If I fail the exam, theres always that re-exam (I still dont like that concept though).<br /><br />I guess thats it for now, but, I know how much you guys dislike reading blogs without some kind of pictures so I was nice enough to find a picture :)<br /><br />This picture is of me and my 4 other roommates from last semester, from left to right (Kingsley (Ghana), Peter (Slovakia), Alister (Australia), Kingsley (Ghana), Brandon (Canada) )<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/DSC_0006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/DSC_0006.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Yup, I said Kingsley twice, they both are cousins and have same name, the one on the left didnt have any apartment available so he lived with us until few weeks ago when he found another apartment and moved out. Peter and Alister went to school for just one semester and they have moved out.<br /><br />I have two new roommates now, Frank... from Ghana also, Kingsley had him move in taking Peter's room... and second roommate Zoltan from Hungary.<br /><br />anyway... thats all for now... more to come later<br /><br />Have fun<br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1136926825250744672006-01-10T20:39:00.000+01:002006-01-10T22:39:59.310+01:00Gott Nytt År!!<div align="left">Yeah, after christmas, seems like every second sentence I said was "Gott Nytt År!..."<br /><br /><em><center>"How are you doing?.."<br /><br />"Gott Nytt År!..."<br /><br />"yup, I saw that tv show yesterday"<br /><br />"Gott Nytt År!..."<br /><br />"I'm gonna read a book now"<br /><br />"Gott Nytt År!"<br /><br />"I need a drink"<br /><br />"but first gotta go to the bathroom..."<br /><br />*OOPS!*... almost forgot..."GOTT NYTT ÅR!"</center></em><br /><br />heh... if you havent figured it out yet... Gott Nytt År = Happy New Year...<br /><br />remember when I said that the swedes said "merry christmas" far too often?... I think they worship the celebration of a new year far more than <a href="http://oneninefive.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-never-met-that-persons-birthday.html">"I-never-met-that-person's" birthday</a> or maybe if you say it in swedish (spoken swedish) its fun to say the words... I dunno... or maybe they just feel the need to inform everybody that it is not 2005 anymore to prevent any misunderstanding when they make plans to meet or whatever... I'm just throwing in some made-up theories, feel free to add yours if you want :)<br /><br />Some examples, on December 31st or morning of January first, I noticed that on my MSN buddy list... I had about 7 swedes online on my msn, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had a nickname with "gott nytt år" or something related to "happy new year" on their msn nicknames.... and I had maybe 20 canadians online, NONE of them even made the effort to acknowledge that it's 2006 now... actually one did... but that person was an american... so that person doesnt count :p... If that's not enough for you, I compared my msn buddy list with Elisabet's. The evidence of eagerness to introduce 2006 was overwhelming... Elisabet probably had 20-something swedes online on her list, and only ONE person did not say happy new year... I know I am just making a pointless point... (by the way is there a such thing as a pointless point? heh)<br /><br />Anyway, I after christmas, moving to Gullmarsplan, it started snowing here non-stop for like 2-3 days giving Stockholm a thick blanket of snow everywhere, it has not melted away yet (it is January 10 now...) Elisabet and I went shopping few times, I thought there would be something similar to Boxing Day Sale, I went shopping on 26th of December, I saw in newspapers that there would be some sale in some stores.... I went to the mall.. and went "huh? that's all?"... it looked like a normal saturday afternoon at the mall... oh well...<br /><br />For the new year's eve, instead of going to a big party or something else that required alot of "Gott Nytt År!!" that I wasn't in the mood for, Elisabet and some other girls organized a small, more sophiscated and refined New Year's eve gathering. Consisting of only four couples, 8 people in all (I said 8 in case you couldnt do the math). Semi-formal dress, elegant three course dinner and so on. Yeah pictures are coming up at the end, but let me tell the story first :).<br /><br />On the afternoon of the December 31st, I realized that I wanted a new shirt that I could wear to those type of parties, (an impulse encouraged by my FIRST paycheque since August heh)... So I decided to go to Åhlens City (a clothing and accessories store) with Elisabet and get a shirt.... Elisabet saw a tie that she wanted me to have, I didn't like it at first but I guess I got used to it... (I bet Elisabet is smiling while shes reading this now)... you know, I made a sacred commitment to myself that I would never wear anything pink.... and the tie was 1/3 purple... too close to pink for me but but but... oh well..<br /><br />After buying a black shirt, I immediately put it on and went to the party I was actually wearing the shirt when buying it :)<br /><br />8 of us at the NYE party, Elisabet, Jenny, Camilla, Carro, Jesper, Mikko, Magnus and Me. Interesting fact about this select group of people, all 4 sweden women had boyfriend of different nationalities... Magnus is a swede and his girlfriend is Jenny. Jesper moved to Sweden last year from Denmark because of his girlfriend Camilla, Mikko from Finland moved to Sweden also last year and also because of his girlfriend. and of course, me, a Canadian moving to Sweden because of my girl :)... Seems like that men are more likely to move for their girls or is it because Sweden is a better country?... you can argue that idea in my comments :)<br /><br />We ate porkfillets with fancy dressings on it, played some games and so... am not in mood to go into details for that. Let's skip ahead to the fireworks part... Other difference I noticed is when it becomes 12.00am January 1st, in Canada everbody usually huddle around the tv and wait until the specific second and begin hollering and celebrating. In Sweden, they do it differently, they just wait until it's 10 minutes before midnight and go outside and light fireworks. They don't care about the precise second when it becomes midnight, strange, with all of the "Gott Nytt År!!"s you would be inclined to think they would be more enthusiastic when they know exactly when it is the new year? oh well..... I thought it was fun to go outside and light fireworks and I also thought that we would be the only ones lighting the fireworks... but actuall when we got outside, there was already dozens of people from their own parties gathering around a field lighting fireworks. I think all 8 of us had an opportunity to light a firework, but my firework was a screwed up firework!!...<br /><br />allow me to explain further... when I received my firework thingy, it looked like a yellow/blue cubic box, about 15cm in length on each sides, and I noticed that the firework would blast off from two opposing sides of the box, I thought it was strange and how was I supposed to light it?. I certainly couldn't light it upright otherwise the other end would shoot right into the ground. I checked the pictorial instructions and it said to lay the box on the ground with the opposing "firework" sides on the side. I still thought it was strange, nevertheless I went ahead and placed the firework on the ground and attempted to light it, at my first attempt, Elisabet, while taking a pictuer of me, noticed that the firework was placed horizontally instead of vertically, she ran to me telling me to STOP!!.. she thought I was stupid enough to light it while it was positioned horizionally... I showed her the instructions... she stared at it with disbelief... we had no idea how the firework looks like but since I was following the instructions then I should be doing it right?.... I also placed it so that all of us were facing the "non blasting" sides just in case... and you won't believe how luckily we were that I did it... </div><div align="center"><br /><strong>My First Attempt</strong></div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20299.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="left">Second attempt at lighting it up, I still felt uneasy, I rushed back at a safe distance after lighting the fuse (15 meters or so)... then as the fuse disappeared, BOOM! the fireworks went off!!... to my amazement, it ACTUALLY BLASTED SIDEWAYS!!!... we were on a field with at least 40 people gathered around in a circle but LUCKILY on one side, there was nobody in the direction of the blast, and on the other side, the people like 100 meters from the firework so the firework blast did not reach them that far... Everybody in our group was looking at me as if I never had lighted a firework before, I was quick to defend myself and tell them that the instructions said to place it sideways and luckily I wasnt the only one to read the instructions, Elisabet agreed with me so... not my fault :) </p><p align="center"><strong>My Second Attempt</strong></p><p align="left"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20302.jpg" border="0" /><br />It had to be the dumbest firework design I've ever seen, who would want to see fireworks flying sideways?... one of the blasts actually went through a tree... ah... dumb firework but it was certainly enteraining :)...<br /><br />After the fireworks, we got back to Camilla/Jesper's apartment (thats where the party was)... and stayed there until like 4am, by then the Subway was closed (they close about 3am and reopen at 6am), Elisabet and I didn't want to wait until 6am, so we took the night bus, it ended up taking us an hour and half to reach our home!!... an average subway ride would have taken us 15 minutes max. But in all, the night was a fun experience.<br /><br /></p><p></p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20223.2.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>The Appetizer, crayfish salad... Like I said in my blog about the crayfish festival, I was never eating it again, and I was true to my word that night. Mikko didnt like it either, so I wasn't the only loser eating Crayfish-less salad :)</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20226.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Camilla, Brandon and Elisabet</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20244.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Jesper, Jenny and Mikko</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20260.jpg" border="0" /> Me, sporting my new purple tie :)</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20272.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Magnus, after finally opening a bottle of Champagne.. (it took him few minutes heh)</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20290.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">All of us outside lighting fireworks, and I think Jenny is saying "Gott Nytt År!"</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20292.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Magnus and Mikko inspecting an firework that didn't go off.</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20320.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Camilla, Jenny, Carro and Elisabet.</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/119-1904_IMG.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Mikko (Finland), Brandon (Canada), Jesper (Denmark)and Magnus (Sweden)</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/119-1916_IMG.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Brandon and Magnus</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/118-1899_IMG.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center"><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;">Gott Nytt År 2006!</span></p>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1136734209190629252006-01-08T15:43:00.000+01:002006-01-08T16:39:12.946+01:00Gullmarsplan and Djugården vs HV71Hey :)<br /><br />Shortly after Christmas, Mattias and Maria went to Venezuela (South America) for a three week vacation. And guess what?... They were nice enough to offer us (Elisabet and I) to live in their apartment in Gullmarsplan while they were vacationing. I realize that this might not seem like a big deal to you guys but allow me to explain further about the benefits of living here.<br /><br />It's only 4-5 minutes ride on the subway to the downtown, less than 1 minute subway ride to where Elisabet and I work. Compared to the 17-19 minutes subway ride to the downtown and 25-30 minutes to where I work from Bredäng (Elisabet's parents place). Alas, I realize that we're not going to be here forever, but a good three weeks here is better than nothing! :)<br /><br />It's small but a nice single bedroom apartment with all of the necessary amenities :) The walk to the subway station takes just a minute, in fact you can see the station when you get out of the apartment building and the view from the apartment, you can see the downtown area. Since living here, Elisabet has became envious of this great location and now the thoughts of purchasing an apartment in the city is coming up more often now :p<br /><br />Yup, like Bezaire (the dude from "<a href="http://buzzair.blogspot.com/2006/01/case-of-missing-frog.html">dude, the where's my frog??</a>"), Elisabet and I went to see Sweden Elite League hockey match during the holidays (Dec 27, the day after we moved into Gullmarsplan). The teams; HV71 and Djugårdens. Djugårdens has been Elisabet's favorite team ever since she was little, Mats Sundin and many NHL greats have came from Djugårdens. Unfortunately this year the team sucks, near the bottom of the standing. Djugårdens were facing the visiting Jönköping/Huskvarna HV71s. I have no idea why they are called HV71 (I believed I also mentioned that in one of my blogs in September or about that time). The HV71 is the best team in the Elite League, they have either won the championship or been at least in the Finals several times in the past few years and this year they are in first place with only 3 losses afte 30 games. I assumed that it would be somewhat unbalanced game with HV71 destroying Djugårdens.<br /><br />But it turned out that Djugårdens had the game of their year! They matched Hv71s on every move, the goaltenders on the both sides were AMAZING, first two goals were just fluke goals making it a 1-1 game... after 2 periods it was 2-2, then Djugårdens made a great slapshot from the board near the blueline through the traffic into the net, the Goaltender never knew where the puck were. The jubliant-filled crowd went crazy, with a minute to go, Djugårdens scored an empty netter to insure their win with the final score of 4-2 for Djugårdens. The announced attendance was almost 11,000 people, the record for this year :)<br /><br />The game was played in the Globen, one of Stockholm's architectural masterpiece, while searching for information about the Globen, some of the information said that it was designed with the idea of creating a perfect acoustics environment. I had seen the outside of Globen so many times (its beside the Deaf House, near where I work, and near where I am currently living in now, theres also a mall beside it) but I never had seen the inside. Now I can cross off one more thing from my "things to-do" list.<br /><br />Here is what Globen looks on the outside...<br /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/09-globen1.jpg" border="0" /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/EnskGlob19.jpg" border="0" /><br />Yup here are pictures of the game inside the Globe :)...<br /><br /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0008.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0010.0.jpg" border="0" /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0014.jpg" border="0" /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0017.jpg" border="0" /></p><p><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0022.jpg" border="0" /> </p><p>Ok that's all for now, keep your eyes open for the NYE blog coming up in few days then I will be finally "caught" up on blogging :p</p><p>bg0ur3</p>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1136584779934489532006-01-06T21:51:00.000+01:002006-01-06T23:02:56.136+01:00The Swedish Christmas<div align="left"><br />jupp... my first ever christmas away from home.<br /><br />my first christmas where I didn't go on a 2-3 hour ride to Chatham for family gatherings.<br />my first chirstmas where I celebrated it on the 24th, instead of 25th...<br />my first christmas without a 25lb stuffed turkey<br /><br />since, this past year has been one big learning experience for me, and of course the christmas season was no exception either. As I said in my post about a month ago, Swedish people's perspective on christmas are much more traditional when it comes to food, decorations and and more...<br /><br />Right after I got back from Belgium, everyday was just Christmas this and Christmas that. Everytime I met someone or left someone's house or whatever, I was obligated to say "God Jul" (in swedish it means " Merry Christmas"). I know back home, we do say Merry Christmas to eachother but I just feel that the swedes say it so much more often than we do or maybe it's just me?<br /><br />Yah, the day after I returned from Belgium, I went to this Saint Lucia ceremony.... Saint Lucia is one of Sweden's biggest tradition, before I explain what Saint Lucia is all about I should warn you that I have gotten many different stories about how Saint Lucia became a big tradition. Something about her becoming a Saint in Italy after saving children during the Christmas eve and some other strange stories but there is one story that seems far more plausible than others so that is the story I will explain here; You know how I have complained about how early it gets dark here during the winter season... and of course you know how weather affects the people... centuries ago there was a special woman that had candles on top of something similar to a tiara (or a crown) on her head with a white robe and red sash wrapped around her and sang songs while walking around to brighten up her village, to ward off the darkness and some more blasphemy :S you can read more about it <a href="http://www.newsweden.org/luciahistory.htm">on this website</a>. Anyway, this tradition still is very important to this day and the Stockholm Deaf House usually hosts a St. Lucia day, they have elections of who should become the Saint Lucia for each year, this year Jenny Ingvarsson (Elisabet's friend) won it. I saw the ceremony, to be honest, I thought it was kinda pointless but but but, I applaud and respect the fact that Sweden are doing everything it takes to preserve their country's historical and culture values. I just can't imagine Canada having something like that since Canada's a baby country when compared to these countries in Europe.<br /><br />Ah, i just tried to find some pictures for the St.Lucia ceremony, and there isnt any on this computer... oh well... :)<br /><br />Julbord... a rough translation would be "christmas dinner", is very different here... they worship meatballs, salmon, minihotdogs, cold ham, herrings with potatoes, red cabbage with rice and some bright pink food thingy that I don't know what was in it..... I know I should have asked but... yup I got pictures of the food coming up! :) (you can see the pink food in front of me)<br /><br /></div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20034.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p>After that, it was gifts time! :D... One other traditional difference is that Swedes usually have a friend or pick someone within a family to dress up and act as a Santa, giving out gifts under the tree... Since christmas are celebrated on the 24th evenings, they dont have that "children-waking-up-at-5am-and-running-down-the-stairs-to-see-the-presents" thing but in effort to uphold the Santa Claus belief, they get someone to dress up and visit the family then the children will think they actually met santa claus on christmas!! ... :)... This year, Maria (Elisabet's sister) had the honour of being the Santa Claus, even though there wasn't any children in the family anymore but they wanted to keep the tradition going... as they say, it wouldnt be christmas without santa claus visiting...</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20064.jpg" border="0" /></p><br /><p>I got some nice stuff, gym shoes, movie tickets, hockey tickets and some more stuff but my best gift would be getting a new Swedish ID from Elisabet :)... its an official identification card like those in Canada for people who doesnt have drivers license. I think I am becoming more Swedish as each month goes by, I live here, I go to school here, I work here, I pay taxes (income and sales tax) here, I have a bank account here, I have a personnummer (similar to SIN), and now I have a swedish ID :D</p><p>I gave Elisabet exercise clothes, a bag (she later exchanged it for a better bag -- i liked the new bag than the one I gave her though heh), a book and a "scrap book" that I had been working on for days, it consists of 30 pages each with a single photo of nothing but Elisabet and me in it chronciling our life together since we first met. The first page had the very first photo of us from Rochester and the last page had the most recent photo of us and each pages were in chronological order. I think Elisabet liked the scrap book the best :p Here is a picture of me with Elisabet reading the book I gave her for xmas.</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20098.jpg" border="0" /></p><br /><p>After the gifts, there was non-stop supply of sweets, candies, pastries... u name it, it was on the table... I think I have gained so much weight during the week of christmas.... jeez, come spring, I will have to work hard again hehe :)</p><p>Anyway, one of the gifts Elisabet and I got were a poker set from her uncle... even though I loathe card games I thought it was fun to just "have" it :D heh... then everybody wanted to put the poker set into use immediately so we played poker for few hours... I bowed out early (possibly intentionally heh...).</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20135.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>Christmas here is different, just as many things I have encountered during the year... I think I've learned alot especially how to appreciate the different things in life. Not everything has to be "just so" in life.... everybody needs to leave lots of room from flexiblity and of course I'm not talking about just Christmas... everything in life is different depending on the time and place of where you are. Ah before the chrismas sensibilities gets to me and I start blabbing incohrently, I better upload some random images and log off :)</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20006.jpg" border="0" /></p><br /><p align="center">Here are Elisabet and I making meatballs for the dinner later that night.</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20021.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Me and Ellie</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20020.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Mattias and Maria</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20025.jpg" border="0" /> Sandor (Pappa), Nadi (Mamma), Dave</p><p align="center">Maria, Elisabet<br /></p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20028.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Morfar (Grandpa) and Mormor (Grandma) with Maria, Dave and Elisabet</p><p align="center"></p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20109.0.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Check out all of these sweets, you're only looking at the beginning :)...</p><p align="left">Come back later to read more about my experiences in my next posts about Globen, Gullmarsplan and the News Year eve :)...</p><p align="left">bg0ur3</p>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1136154969627327342006-01-01T22:18:00.000+01:002006-01-01T23:36:09.693+01:00BelgiumHey...<br /><br />When I thought I was bad with keeping up the blog posts, apparently, I got worse at it now... anyhow better late than never. This post will focus on my Belgium trip (I know its almost a month ago since I made that trip but better late than never :p)... and next two separate posts, I will add some stuff about my Christmas and NewYears eve experience here.<br /><br />To refresh your memories, I went to Belgium to meet Megan who had been in Kenya for years and she was going to be in europe for a week so I thought I would grab the chance to meet her and do some sightseeing along the way. Unfortunately, Tara was supposed to come but at the last minute she was unable to come, I should visit her in Italy sometime later this year anyway :)<br /><br />I can't exactly remember which date I went to Belgium but I know it was on a tuesday. I finally took advantage of RyanAir.com's insanely cheap fares... it cost me only about 40 dollars canadian for the roundtrip airfare to Charleroi, Belgium. The first night in Belgium was one of my most unpleasant experience I've ever had...<br /><br />When I landed in Charleroi, it was about 45 minutes drive from Brussels, the capital city of Belgium where I was to meet a friend of Elisabet who actually lives in Brussels. The plane arrived like 8pm in the evening and there was a bus leaving for Brussels by 830pm... I figured I should be there well before 9:30pm which was good since that friend agreed to meet me at 930pm and that person told explicitly to get off on the LAST stop on the bus and the last stop would be the Central Station. The bus driver did not speak/read/write any english so I asked a lady sitting near me on the bus to tell him to let me know when the LAST stop was so I can get off... the bus driver made a "no problem" gesture... after few stops, that lady who helped me translate got off the bus... then little after 9:15pm, the bus got into Brussells. That was the beginning of my most craziest bus trip I've ever had in my life, the bus driver, some foreign french dude just started driving like a maniac, he was going like 70kmh on 30kmh limit streets (and let me add, the bus was one of the biggest bus I've ever seen, you know those bus with accordoin centre -- double the length of a normal coachline bus)... the bus was very nice and poshy but the driver didn't seem to care about the well-being of the bus or the passengers in the bus. He just cut everybody off zigging and zagging through the CITY streets, those streets were very narrow and the bus driver decided to use the sidewalk as a road whenever he felt like it. I think that bus trip was one of the most scariest roller coaster ride I've ever been on, the driver went through red lights few times without even stopping, drove towards the opposite side of a one way street because the router was more shorter. I don't think I've ever seen so many drivers swearing in a single night.<br /><br />Anyway, once he finally stopped at a train station that seemed like a central station, I motioned to him if this was the place I should get off he said "no no... wait", I sat down patiently wondering what more I would experience on the bus... I looked back of the bus and noticed that there was stil a group of 20 people at the end of the bus so I figured it wasnt the last stop... after another 25 mintues of WILD driving, and WILD doesnt even justify the description of the experience but I'm not in the mood to check out a thesaurus... anyhow the bus finally stopped in front of a 5 star hotel... the 20 people in the back got off and paid the bus driver with a large sum of cash. "oh no" i thought, since I was the last person on the bus I assumed the driver must have misunderstood me... the driver approached me and asked me "where would you like to go" in some strange french gestures...<br /><br />I went.. "huh?"...<br />Driver: *pointing his finger in different directions*<br />Brandon: *sigh* wrote down *Central Station* on a piece of paper<br />Driver: *eyes widened* *pissed off expression on face*<br />Brandon: *damn*<br /><br />Apparently, the bus doesnt have Central Station on its route and it was already on OTHER side of the city, the driver was clearly agigtated and drove like a maniac again, zippping on streets that I thought was so narrow that even my car couldnt fit the width of the street (i drive a neon by the way) and the worse was to come, he made a sharp left turn and bumped up towards a frigging BIKE PATH and still went like 60kmh or something... while driving he motioned that he wanted some money for the out of the way route. I gave the classic "Pretending-I-am-deaf-and-did-not-understand-anything" expression because I only had 5euros in my wallet and I didn't want to know what would happen if he asked for 50 euros or something. Luckily, he wanted just 5 euros.... then he made another crazy turn towards on an opposite way of one-way street and just stopped there. Told me to get off, I was like "huh??" wheres the central station... he pointed a finger in a direction that just looked like Yonge Street in Torono, nothing indicative of a station... but I had enough of the life-threatening experience, I reluctantly smiled and got off the bus and there I was. Stranded in a strange country, strange city with languages that I do not speak (Dutch or French) and I had no idea what I should do.<br /><br />I found a subway station, I looked at the map (it was 1030pm by now, I knew i was very late but I was hoping that the "friend" would still wait for me) I didn't find any Central STation on the subway map but I saw "Midi Station" and it seemed to be the main station of Brussels and the bus did stop by there... I was assuming that the Midi Station was the stop I was supposed to get off at. So I snuck in the subway without paying anything cuz I had NO cash on me and ATM machines was almost impossible to find in Brussels especially so late at night. I got to Midi Station and it was HUGE, that "friend" was not there... I walked and walked searching for him... I decided to ask a stranger to send him a sms because my mobile phone didnt work in Belgium.<br /><br />Basically the whole night was a screw up... in the end, I ended up paying 15euros for internet, then about 1am I went to almost 10 different hotels before finding one and paid 50 euros to stay in a fleabag hostel, I didn't have any other options all of the other hostels were full and I wasnt going to sleep on the street because Brussels didnt seem like a friendly place at night (at least where I was in at the moment)<br /><br />I never met that "friend" for the rest of the week... so I dont know if that "Friend" is a "friend" to me now... but ah oh well...<br /><br />now, pushing all of the unfortunate events aside, I finally met Megan on the following morning in CENTRAL station, apparently its a small station and not as easibly recognizable on the subway map. Megan was one hour late because she got on the wrong train, I almost thought I was having flashbacks of the previous night but then I finally saw her... everything went smoothly after that :D...<br /><br />It was fun meeting megan, and fun to use nothing but ASL with a native ASL user... although I must admit, after several days, I was getting somewhat anxietic with using ASL... feels like I had to think about which selection of signs I should use at the specific moment... oh well...<br /><br />Megan and I went sightseeing Brussels, I think we almost saw everything in just 24 hours or so including the pissing boy, EU headquarters, many churches, castles, courthouse (it was humongous) . In the end, I did not really like Brussels, so far i think Stockholm is the most nice city I've seen (so far...). Even though Brussels had so much old buildings, most of them were ugly and not well maintained but then Megan and I went to Brugge (a town west of Belgium) and stayed few nights with Kat, Megan's friend from Gallaudet. I thought Brugge was much more nicer... I'm assuming its because that it wasnt tampered with during the world wars by the germans.<br /><br />I ate beglian waffles, belgian fries with mayo (by the way I learned that fries came from Belgium not France :), so it should not be french fries, it should be Belgian Fries)... I saw Jesus' blood... there is a catherdal in Brugge that claims to hold a vial of Jesus' Blood. I thought it was silly but... I'll let them think that its the blood of christ. That catherdal has a specifc time everyday or something like that where tourists can come in and watch a short presentation and touch the vial of the jesus blood... some of them kissed the vial and the priest didnt seem´to appreciate the kissing on the vial since Kat said that people are supposed to just touch it with their hands. hehe oh well...<br /><br />Overall, I thought Belgium was interesting, but not the most pretty or fun country to visit. My recommendation would be to visit there when you have a reason to do like I did to see Megan.<br /><br />On the way back to Stockholm, I took a 45 min train to the airport, then 2 hour flight to sweden, then 1 hour bus trip to stockholm centralen then 15 minutes subway then walked 10 minutes before finally arriving to Elisabet/Jenny's birthday party :) at just before 1am in the morning. Yeah I knew I would be late for the party... Elisabet looked so happy to see me again :p after just few minutes, everybody left the party... and of course know what I was going to do now?... help with the clean up of the party heh... then finally got home in bed just before 5am.<br /><br />It was a strange, exhausting but fun week for me. I hope to be able to meet some more friends somewhere in europe later this year (this means you guys! heh...)<br /><br />Yup here is some pictures of me in Beligum... I don't think I'll type something about Xmas and New YEars until later this week if I ever get around to it :)..<br /><br />Happy new 2006 :)<br />Brandon<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0015.jpg" border="0" /> </p><p align="center">This is the "Grand Palace", basically the Centre of the Brussels, those plastic balls are set up as a part of christmas decoration.<br /></p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0048.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Here is Megan and I in the reflection on one of the silver balls in Grand Palace </p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0050.jpg" border="0" /><p align="center">Belgian waffle with Chocolate and Bananas... tasted good!</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0061.0.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Me in Brugge :)</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0052.0.jpg" border="0" /> This is what Brugge looks like, a nice quaint old town with buildings dating back to 12th century.</p><p align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0069.0.jpg" border="0" />Megan and Kat (stayed at her place for few nights) and the behind of them is one of the "must-take" photos in Brugge (according to Kat)<img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0075.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="right">A Drunken moose sculpture made out of 100% Belgian chocolate... very creative eh? :)</p>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1133468376647404542005-12-01T19:15:00.000+01:002005-12-05T23:26:54.800+01:00Making up for the Lost Time...Hidey-ho...<br /><br />After hiding under a rock for the most of the past month, I decided to finally crawl out and enjoy the sunshine, I thought I could type a blog at the same time :)...<br /><br />Oh well, after 24th person complaining about the lack of my blogging commitment, I've came to this realization that I do have a life now :)... Remember in my last post when I said that things were getting busy for me and it was going to get even busier... boy, I wasn't kidding myself. In the first 2 and half months, I basically did not do much other than doing my school work and bumming around in Stockholm with Elisabet and some others... ever since I got this job at Omnitor and the expectation level of my studies has been ridiculously escalated. I am having a hard time finding a day where I can just do absolutely nothing and just fiddle around with my remote control on a couch.<br /><br />My another excuse for not posting lately would be it is possible that I've became more integrated with the life here ever than before, I don't have anything tourist-like to tell... but I'll try my best... here I go; (of course, here is another <span style="COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)">warning</span>, - this is the mother of all blog posts, and I kid you not - of course, I got to make up for the lost time)<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">School -</span> November 7th, my last post, I said I had three projects in a single week... man, I feel like that I finished those projects just last week but when in actuality it has been almost a full month. Anyway, yeah, my group and I finished all of these projects and we all got a passing grade on every one of them. Now, I've got two more projects to go... both from the Knowledge Management course... one small one focusing on an article about what "Tacit Knowledge" is... from my research, it seems like the best answer for what tacit knowledge is that "the kind of knowledge that you possess but you do not realize that you possess it but once you realize that you possess that knowledge, it becomes even more tacit to your tacit knowledge"... eh I know, I probably twisted some of your brains out there...here's a simplified definition -- "tacit knowledge is the knowledge that we do not know about". Nope, I'm not going to get all excited and start a lecture about it like I did for Sweden's economy history :)... (is that some cheering that I see on your side? :p)<br /><br />My second project, its a research/analysis paper based on a big grocery store company's knowledge management techniques (a store simliar to Loblaws or Sobeys)... we have not really begun it but one of my partners has interviewed with the owner of the store... I couldn't participate in the interview because that owner is a old, fat, lazy, stubborn and rich son of a ----- and he refuses discuss knowledge management in english because he doesn't have time for that kind of thing. Who does he think he is anyway eh? Bill Gates? (in a unrelated story, if Bill Gates was walking down a street on way to a business meeting and he sees 50 dollar bill lying on the street, should he pick up the money? -- answer is on the bottom of the blog)<br /><br />In my application integration class...one morning I went into our course's first lab class... and found out that I am supposed to have some knowledge of SQL before taking this course, I thought I was in deep trouble. (note: I am taking this course out of order in accordance with Ryerson's curriculm, if I didn't go on the exchange program, I would have been taking introduction to SQL or something like that in this semester at Ryerson then more advanced course on the next semester which is the course I am taking in Jönköping now) But after my second lab class, I found out that only minimal knowledge of SQL was required but there is heavy emphasis on Visual Basic programming (no problem for me)... just gotta refresh my VB memory then I'll be all good... I borrowed a book from the library, "learn SQL in 10 minutes" yeah right... but hopefully I will learn something before the teacher notices something strange :)<br /><br />Tomorrow, I will have another lab class, focusing on Web Services... I think it's fun... to create an application on a client computer with all of the processes and subroutines stored somewhere on the web. It's a new concept for me and an interesting one, I can see many new applications that will be ver benefitable using web services.<br /><br />So, the only things left for me to do in this semester is, 2 Knowledge Management group projects, 1 Web Services programming project, 1 teensy bitsy paper reviewing a guest lecture and a final exam.. (yup I said 'a'... I only have one final exam for this term, woohoo!)<br /><br />Oh yeah, I have this nice teacher who told me that his school had a secret partnership with Microsoft where Jönköping University has access to all Microsoft products for free.,.. heh... nah it's not secret :p but yeah, they have some kind of academic program partnership... any students (i.e., Me) can have most of Microsoft programs for free... Once he told me about it, I was thinking "yay! early christmas for me!" heh, now I've got Visual Studio .NET, windows XP Pro, SQL server 2003, Access and more... (all licensed versions!!) Sorry, I cannot make copies for you all otherwise Microsoft will find out and contact the school then I'll get into trouble... in other words "ha ha to you" :)...<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Weather-</span> It's been a nice "wintery" weather in the past few weeks... with plenty of snow and temperatures hovering about -3c. I already have slipped on snow/ice twice so far :) ... yeah yeah yeah.. I know... its your turn now, "ha ha to me"... happy now?... anyway... yeah the temperature and snow has been nice but the daylight hours have been miserable. Did I explain to you guys that since Sweden is much more north, we get much less daylight hours during the winter months... the sun rises maybe 7.30am here but it already gets dark by 3pm... and the worst is yet to come... some has told me that in mid-december there is only 4-5 hours of daylight or worst if you live in more northern region of sweden where you might not see sun for several days.<br /><br />Of course, during the summer months, it is the opposite. I remember when I was here in June 2004, after partying at the deaf house, I got home at like 3am and guess what? the sun was already rising!!... I was actually racing the sun, trying to get into bed before it feels like I have to stay awake for another day :)... yup only 4-5 hours of darkness during the Summer.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Working -</span> Yup, on November 16th, I officially began my tenure at Omnitor AB. I would think the hardest thing to do there is trying to communicate clearly. With about 10 staff, half of them deaf or hard of hearing, and 9 in total can sign pretty well but all of them rely on their mouths too much while signing. And for me, you know how if you talk with a hearing person who can sign but you still adjust your signing to be more clear and easier for them to undertand you... I do not think that I have reached that level of proficency in teckenspråk where I can modify my signing style to match the individuals' comprehension requirements :)<br /><br />I am not saying that we all do not understand eachother, but it just requires more effort on my part to ensure that everybody understand me... oh well... practice makes perfect. I know I said that I wanted to be an expert on teckenspråk by the end of January but everyday it's becoming very unlikely but at the same time I think I am still getting better everyday. Anyway, at Omnitor, what I have done so far is... preparing a presentation for a new project... set up systems, soldering, testing and testing and testing (you can never get enough of testing with tech stuff), debugging a new software version, working with a France company in solving bugs in the software, some simple powerpoint stuff, designing diagrams to show the connections for some of the new projects. I wish I could write more details but I signed a confidentiality agreement that I intend to uphold. In all, its been one big and interesting experience so far, I've learn so much in the Networking aspects of IT (not my speciality which is Database management but it is still related)... I've been working just two times a week but it already has taken a huge chunk in my schedule making me even busier (if you want to place blame on someone for my lack of blogging, you can take your anger out on Omnitor :p). For the lack of free time, Omnitor makes it up by giving me a nice hourly wage... I'm not inclined to go into the specifications but let's say that it's my highest paying job ever :D<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Stockholm -</span> Before I started working at Omnitor, I usually stayed in Jönköping for a full week if I had classes on just Monday and Friday but now that I'm working, my pay will make up for the more frequent bus/train trips so which means for almost every day that I do not have school, you can almost guarnatee that I will be in Stockholm. Elisabet and I have been doing a lot of "window shopping" for boots that she needed... and I am telling you guys, you are underestimating what "a lot" is... it must have took Elisabet weeks before she finally decided on a pair of boots heh but its a nice pair though :)... Stockholm (and every other town in Sweden that I have seen recently) have had more Christmasy feeling than anywhere in North America. They have this light decoration that swedes places on almost every window in their homes, its called <a href="http://www.tian.nu/index.php?ID=sh&show=1822&PHPSESSID=6938aa895a75425f6f09057acfc0a0d2">Adventsstake</a>, it's a really nice sight to see at nights... feels like that everybody is working together to make the winter nights more spiritually upheaving rather than the corporate-filled full of colours christmas lights that we splatter on all over our houses when compared to the appearance at night here, it feels like the christmas lights in North America are just more of a competition of who has the better and most lights but in the end they all just lose by paying more hydro bills... oh well...<br /><br />In the past few weeks we've had few birthday parties... one for Dave, Elisabet's younger brother turned 17... then another for Jenny, Elisabet's close friend who turned 25... you know when the birthdays come, what does it mean?... yup, more shopping with Elisabet!! :D no no, dont get me wrong, I enjoy the time walking through Götsgatan, Gamla Stan, Åhlens City in the Centralen, where its practically full of holiday spirit. I'm telling you guys, if you want to see real traditional Christmas, come to Sweden... Of course, I might change my mind on the last night of shopping where I'll be all miserable and grumpy and thinking that I should have bought more stuff while shopping with Elisabet hehe...<br /><br />There was a deaf film festival last weekend in Stockholm, Elisabet and I didn't go on friday night, we felt that we needed to take a break from being outside all the time (or was it more of me saying that?... i dont remember :p). Then on saturday, Elisabet and I went to see a film, "Audism", its a renknowned film/play/story in USA and/or Gallaudet... For those who are reading now and do not know what Audism is... basically... when you discriminate against skin colour - Racism, when you discriminate against gender - Sexism, when you discriminate against deaf people - Audism. Point taken?...<br /><br />The film had its funny moments especially with that short, stubby geek with red beard and one inch thick glasses enunciating "nevermind" again and again and again and again and again for like 15 times... ah not in the mood to explain the story behind that, just see the film for yourself... but overall, I think the film needs some work with the quality and techniques. But in the end, I wasn't disappointed. Later that night at some pub where everybody went to after the film festival, I met up with the director of the Audism movie, he's a teacher at Gallaudet, I dont remember his name... Dickens or something?... but he looked more like Matt LeBlanc u know the actor from "Friends" :)... he could not sign swedish at all but he was happy to see how many swedes could use ASL... then of course, later that night, the "must-have" discussion about USA and Canada cultures came into focus after when one of the Swedes said USA was the most conceited and narrowminded culture ever, just thinking about themselves and not educated at all culturally or geographically for anywhere else in the world. The director disagreed, then I stepped in, gave him a simple test, name 10 provinces and 3 territories... before he even attempted to answer, he confessed "you caught me.. okay okay..." hehe... (by the way his wife is from Buffalo, NY...) But I have to admit i was impressed to see that he said Paul Martin was the prime minister... an anomalously ;)<br /><br />I came back to Jönköping yesterday, on the train back home, I sat down with 3 other guys on a table in the train. I was eating a bag of chips as I sat down, this guy sitting across from me in the front just grabbed the bag out of my hands, I certainly didnt expect that then he made this joking gesture that he was gonna eat it. I was like, no, you aint eating it!... then he spoke something, I signaled my deafness, then he got a piece of pen and paper and wrote "we all dont speak swedish, sorry"... I responded "great!, neither do I!"... we found out that I am a canadian and the three guys sitting with me were from Australia, they are part of a pop musicial group and had been touring europe giving performances for more than a month. They were a funny bunch of people, they tried to talk with me using gestures, when it failed, they wrote something on the paper. At one point out of no where, this guy in front of me said that he and the guy beside me were Lactose Intolerant, I responded back "great! so am I!"... heh pointless conversation but it sure passed the time on the train instead of -- like marcia says -- pretending to sleep and ignoring others.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Jönköping -</span> I got back in town last night because I had school today and tomorrow night here. And one of the more stranger things happened here, after talking with dad on the webcam I went to bed...watching tv on the bed... just as my eyes was about to close for the night, there was several quick and hard bangs against the wall of my bedroom... on the other side was the hallway of my apartment. It awoken me immediately then I assumed it was just one of my roommates' drunken friends behaving raucously but then 30 seconds later, I felt the same loud banging against my wall. At the moment I felt that there was something wrong, some fight outside or emergency?... I decided to get up and check it out... and exactly when I stood up, I smelled smoke!!... I immeidately opened my room door, which was locked, and my roommate told me that there was a fire on some floor above me and they were evacuating everybody out of the building. My reaction? "oh okay, gimme a sec to get dressed" heh... yeah, I was just about to fall asleep, my brain was half-turned on... I went around my room looking for warm clothes, coat, hat, gloves... then I noticed flashing lights through my balcony windows, I went outside... several firefighters rushed by me on the stairwells (note: I live on the second floor). As I got outside, I nearly got ran over by this huge firetruck... there was 30 people already evacuated, with other 10 more behind me... then I saw that there was like other 10 people stuck on the 7th floor balcony waving for assistance. My first reaction "where's the fire?"... I was kinda disappointed to see a such show... at least 8 police cars, 4 fire trucks, 2 full hoses prepped to spout water and I'm assuming they weren't gonna be used to water the flowers on the adjunct garden. They had just taped the area with u know the yellow "keep out" or " crime scene" type tape... so I moved even further back hoping that I would at least see some show with flames to make up for me getting out of the bed. Nothing yet... But I saw a nice show of firemen rescuing people with this huge automated ladder from the firetruck, never saw a ladder go that high :) then I decided to walk around back of the building, sure enough, directly above my room, 3 floors above... there was heavy smoke coming out and orangish light through the windows which I assumed was flames burning away their room or something. After a long orderal with the cops talking to everybody living in the building, we all finally got back in about 530am, I couldnt go to bed, so I decided to stay up for other few hours before my class at 9am... but .... I dozed off :(... and missed my 9am class... oh well. Life sucks sometimes.<br /><br />Later in the afternoon today, I found out that 6 people had been hopsitalized with smoke inhalation, floors 5,6,7 were currently closed, lucky for me to live in second floor. And the fire was started by a candle burning against a curtain and the person in the room was sleeping... stupid loser...<br /><span style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"></span><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Upcoming week-</span> Tomorrow, I will be heading back to Stockholm for a julbord (christmas dinner) with Elisabet and some other deafies involved in the stockholm youth deaf club or something... then on Saturday I will be going with Elisabet and some friends to Örebro (2 hours west of Stockholm) for another deaf film festival, this one is supposedly to be a better one... let's see :)... then back on Sunday,... work on monday at Omnitor, then tuesday I'm heading off to Belgium!! :)... Will meet Megan and Tara and I have no idea what I will do there but I'm sure we all will find something to do :D. Then after that, it will be a cramming session for me to finish all of my projects before the christmas break.<br /><br />You know, in my blog last october, I set out some goals for myself... I am happy to say that I have achieved some of them so far, I got a job, I am going to visit a different country, gotten better with sign language, my swedish is slowly getting better, I am proud to announce that I wrote my first postcard to Elisabet in only swedish! :D (postcard from Jönköping). For my studying, I dont feel that I have studied more as I promised myself but my schoolwork is doing pretty good so far, yet still, I have this yearning to learn more and get most out of my courses, after Belgium when things settles down I think I will have more time to hit the books! :)<br /><br />One funny thing I wanted to mention, when I webcam with my dad and andrew, I usually have nothing to say eh?... and in blogs, It's different eh?... I guess in some cases, I express myself better using English rather than ASL when it gets into details. Laing, no, it dos not make me a hypocrite, phony or whatever :)<br /><br />Yeah, I wanted to post some pictures here, but I don't have any on hand right now... so until next time! :)<br /><br />bg0ur3<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Bill Gates Answer</span> - No, he should not pick up the 50 dollar bill because the amount of time it takes for him to stop walking, bend down, pick up the money, bend back up and start walking he would be losing money because Bill Gates is actually worth more than 50 dollars per second :)</span>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1131401866421420602005-11-07T23:00:00.000+01:002005-11-08T18:57:23.590+01:00Oy Vey!Argh....<br /><br />3 Group Projects to be completed in 7 days.<br /><br />Who does this kind of stuff? I just finished the first of my three group projects but there's still the presentation tomorrow afternoon. Yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said that this term will be much more tough than the first two months at Jönköping Högskolan... Especially considering the fact that I haven't wrote any formal essay of any kind since Feburary or March... yikes... but I think I did pretty good on my first attempt in a long time.<br /><br />My first group project was about Service Oriented Application Integration... you don't want to know the facts, and second project will be about XML and XSLT and the third project for my Knowledge Management class is about the roles and skills of Knowledge in the society today.<br /><br />Veeeeery interesting, ja? :)<br /><br />In total, there's 6 Swedes and 1 Turkish girl in my three groups, and obviously they all are not exactly proficient in english which of course means I'm bestowed with the wonderful responsiblity of ensuring that the english makes sense in all of the projects, oh what a fun! But in some sick, twisted and psychopathic way, I'm actually enjoying this term than I did in the last term... call me a loser if you want at least I feel more busy and energized with schoolwork...<br /><br />and oh yeah, Omnitor contacted me and they would like me to work with them after some few days of probation... which means I will be much more pressed to finish all of my assignments in a timely manner and work at Omnitor as much as I can because as any college student, I need the money :) and that also, I have to devote alot of my time with Elisabet of course,... which really means I must be on my toes for the next few months before I can settle into some kind of routine :)<br /><br />to quote Laing "already another blog!(?)"... yuppers, like I said, I can't afford to get behind in anything right now.'<br /><br />Oh yeah, between December 5th and 10th I plan to go Beligum (hooray for me to finally go somewhere)... heh, I can imagine most of your reactions would be "huh what's in Beligum?, out of all of the places in Europe you go to Beligum?"... First of all let me tell you, Beligum is a decent country with alot of history... ah hell, what am I saying? I don't know what's in Beligum :D... but.. Megan who has been in Kenya for more than 2 years will be returning to Canada she will be making an extended stopover in Europe and Tara (from Italy) and myself will be meeting up Megan in Beligum for a mini reunion. Should be fun! :)<br /><br />Alright, I think I've said enough to satisfy my blog readers for at least another week :)<br /><br />until then! :)<br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1130958361542280502005-11-02T19:35:00.000+01:002006-01-26T00:59:49.986+01:00generic ramblings from sweden<div style="text-align: center;font-family:lucida grande;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Heeeeeey...<br /><br />man, I can't believe it that it has been about two weeks since I made my last blog post. So, this means this post will come with this warning - <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">WARNING: AN EXTREMELY LONG POST</span><br /><br />You've been warned....I remember before leaving for Sweden, I came across this random blog in blogspot.com about a girl from Netherlands (Holland) who at that time recently went to Australia for exchange student program similar to what I'm doing now. The time period between her posts was becoming less frequent as each post passed by and I remember one of those posts she said something like "Jeez, sorry for not posting as often, I've been busy "living" blah blah blah"... I thought to myself as I was reading what she typed that this would never happen to me, I would make at least two posts every week chronicling my Sweden journey with every exhaustive detail I could conjure up. And after 2 and something months, I find myself in similar place as that dutch girl... oh well :)<br /><br />But,.. I think I might have a decent excuse for not posting up something lately :)...In the last week of October was my first ever examination week in Sweden. Remember how I said how easy I had it in my first two months in school, that there never was much homework and/or that there were not much "class time"...I sure changed my perspective on the courseload once I realized the magnitude of information I had to absorb to know everything for my two final exams. For my macroeconomics class, I had two different books, one regular American-based textbook for Macroeconomics theory and second book, written by a professor from the school I am in right now. My intial reaction to that second book was "come on, that professor is only trying to make some money by forcing us to buy that book." I kept putting off reading that second book until just a week before the final exam when I finally read the book.<br /><br />The book "Globalization and Welfare State" written by Bo Söderstrom, an economics professor. The book basically outlined the defintions and effects the globalization had on the Welfare system with a huge focus on Sweden's economy policies (I know most of you are going 'ho hum' now but bear with me :p ). I think I learned so much about Sweden's politics/economic system and the culture state Sweden is currently experiencing now especially with the second wave of immigration and loads of abuse in the welfare system, apparently Swedes take twice as much sick leave as any other countries in the OECD. The book argued about the immigration strategy how it was lacking productivity by placing immigrations in job-deprived communities such as Malmö thereby forcing more immigrations to depend on the welfare which causes Governement's social spending to be at ridiculously high level, about 50% of the nation's GDP which made Sweden's economy experience recession for almost 20 years in mid 70's to early 90's... the book also compared and contrasted with the miracles of Denmark & Netherlands' economy system since they enabled a powerful welfare system and yet they escaped recession shortly after the oil price shock in 70's while Sweden never recovered for another decade later because of mistakes in fiscal policies (devaluating the currency and rising taxes).... heh... My point is that that book taught me so much about Sweden and in retrospect I'm glad that the professor forced me to read that book since that kind of stuff is what I actually wanted to learn about when I am here instead of reading American-Based Macroeconomics textbook where I can always read when I am in Ryerson University. When I applied for the exchange student program, during the interview process I said that I wanted to experience the different perspective and knowledge of business and technology systems which could help further my career in IT, I think I just got that knowledge. And, that I always thought Sweden always had the perfect economy system but it turns out that I was half right, apparently Sweden's economy were nearly perfect for almost 100 years until 1970s even though their economy experienced the WWI WWII and more international economic depressions, their economic system were known as the "Sweden Model", many different countries have attempted to copy the model but without success. The failures didn't occur until recently but in the last 8 or so years Sweden have gained their crediblity.<br /><br />Anyway... after much studying, I do not think I did well in my finance exam, in fact I will be surprised if I passed it because the exam had many different questions about Leasing, Present Value of Money, Inflation, Discount Rates, Bonds, Stock Options, Loans and stuff like that, in my very first question of the exam, it was something like, 100,000 kronor loan, 20 year term, 12% interest rate, 3.3% inflation, straight amortization... that 12% just stuck into my head after having to make like 50 calcuations using that 12% for the first question then when I jumped ahead to other questions... after 3 hours or something I realized that it was interesting that all questions also had 12% interest... then suddenly it hit me!!... that 12% interest rate was just completely etched into my brain I completely ignored that every question had a different interest rate and by then I was almost done with the exam and I was not sure which questions I had actually used a differnet interest rate or used 12%, I actually had to recheck my solutions for each questions then from there I just got toooooooo confused then just handed in my paper before the time expired. Oh well, this school's policy is if you fail an exam, you can re-take it again, so I'm not too worried since I can re-take it and it won't be shown on the permanent record or anything and I'm also not worried since I'm confident that I know the stuff but just have to read the questions more carefully next time if there is a next time!<br /><br />My Macroeconomics exam was so much better... I answered every question with confident and finished with plenty of time to spare... this school's exams are 5 hours long!!... but most of us usually finished within 3 hours or so. I won't get to know the results of both exams until sometime later this week or next week.<br /><br />After the macroeconomics exam, I went directly to Stockholm, Mattias had a small gathering at his apartment in Gullmarspan (I know I spelled it wrong... if one of u swedes want to criticize me, please do comment in my blog :D)... After being awhile in Jönköping, it took me more than few minutes to allow the teckenspråk to be interwined into my communication capabilties :) och att jag ocskå behövde några öl till... och jag är skriv med svenska nu därför jag vill inte min far till förstå mig :p Mattias, Patrik, Stefan, Seb, Niklas, Jeb, and I hung out for few hours chatting before going to the deaf house. When I got to the deaf house, I was soooo tired, (I had woken up at 5am earlier that morning to study for the macreconomics exam, then take the exam, then 4 hour bus trip to stockholm then had to use a foreign language for the rest of the night... my tiredness was understandable :p) Elisabet and I decided to just go home a little earlier than usual.<br /><br />Then for most of the weekend, I just rested, felt soooo good that I didnt have any school stuff hanging over my head... went to the local shopping plaza, malls, and went to the city... just moseyed around before I came back to Jönköping for the new term which started yesterday for me.<br /><br />My two courses for this A2 term, is 1) Knowledge Management - its about understanding and how to put knowledge into use, knowledge is the link between the raw data and information. and 2) The Principles and Practices of Information Technology System Architecture and Interaction (I think that course wins an award for the most longest course name in the history of education in any level) Abbreivated by the School, the course is known as PAPOSAI... its actually about Application¨Integration for Service, Informatoin, Portal oriented systems...to simplify it further its actually all about how to make two different information systems to be able to communication with eachother using various applications along with XML, XSLT, ebXML, BPEL4WS, UCCNet, RossettaNet or webservices like SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. uh oh, I think i just made it more complicated :)... simply put in layman's terms, if you have a french person and a russian in a same room, you get a translator to help them to communicate with eachother, thats what application integration is all about.. translating, enabling different systems with different languages to communicate with eachother.<br /><br />Anyway,... enough about my school, I think I have either wasted your time reading this or taught you some things that you might find useful with application integration and swedish economy history eh? :)....<br /><br />I want to mention this interesting thing, while talking with Patrik and Stefan last friday night, Stefan is a hard of hearing Swede but he went to Gallaudet for three years in 90's so hes very fluent in ASL and Patrik is a Swede with a deaf family and he has travelled alot he is not as fluent in ASL but he knows English well... while chatting with them Patrik felt that when talking in teckenspråk he feels that he cannot truly express himself and often has to resort to using International Sign Language or ASL for select signs, Stefan said the same way, he said that he found some signs in ASL that fits the written language's meaning much better than what some of the teckenspråk's signs would fit. At that point, I realized with hundreds of sign languages in all over the world, if we all ignore the written and spoken language, it would be fun to work backwards and try to find a sign that best fits the meaning of the expression itself rather than creating a new sign that satisifies the criteria for international sign language. I can't think of a way how to articulate this more simpler but I will attempt to do so by giving some examples such as... in ASL.. you know how we say "not allowed", we actually say "not" then "allowed" in Sweden teckenspråk they say uhhmmm... you know how old ladies like to wag their fingers "no-no!!" but in a single movement, they move their index finger on the right hand from left side to the right side. I think that is a much better "not allowed" sign than ASL's "not allowed" sign. There is a swedish sign I dont like -- "oh i see", they use this Mipple style "3" (for those who does not understand, contact me or mike wiesner personally) and brush their middle finger on the right hand on their right shoulder and repeat few times. I think its the most exaggerated sign for a such insignifcant expression, I prefer ASL's "oh i see" sign, its more low key toned which fits the expression the best. Possibly there is some other sign in some other country that might best fit the expression of "oh i see" or "not allowed".<br /><br />I just feel that it would be very interesting if we all could decide on one best united sign language that fits the expression charateristics rather than following the systematically rules fixed for some of the languages. I'm saying this because I've come to a point of realization where I feel that it is possible to express myself better in some expressions using Swedish sign rather than ASL. Note that I used 'Expressions' rather than 'Words' because I believe they contain two different principles/rules that comes into use when creating a specific sign. Of course, there will be contradicting opinions for those who read this blog partly because of my inability to exhibit my understanding coherently or partly because you all are just arrognant and narrowminded to say that it is possible ASL is not the perfect language... heh.<br /><br />Ahh, yeah this has been a long blog :s, I was just about to end this blog but then I realized I forgot to add one event that I hosted about a week and half ago. I missed the Canadian thanksgiving back in early october... I didn't really dwell on it much but then I realized one of the reasons I came here as an exchange student was also to disseminate the Swedes with Canadian culture, I can't just always stand back and completely absorb the swedish culture into me, I should be able to expose them with some of my traditions. Then Elisabet and I decided to host a thanksgiving dinner for the Farkas family. Yup, me, Brandon!! cooked a 12 pound turkey (it was the biggest I could find, I originally wanted a 25-30pounder heh) along with all of the thanksgiving trimmings including mashed potatoes and my family's traditional pasta. Needless to say but Elisabet's grandparents were very delighted with the delicious dinner, they kept saying thank-you to me in awe that I was able to cook a such elegant meal :) of course, thanks to andrew and dad for the last minute advices on how to cook the turkey and how to make "home-made" gravy... everybody was so full... I took some left over turkey to Jönköping and sure enough it was the only thing I ate for several more days heh... nothing beats thanksgiving's leftovers eh? :)<br /><br />Ok, I guess that's all I have to say for now... I sure made up for some lost blogging time? :p... Since you all have been so good, patiently reading my blog, here's a treat for ya, some pictures for you below :)<br /><br />uh-oh just talked with Laing and he reminded me to add something, if you are pissed off now, talk to him...theres this cool website... <a href="http://www4.ur.se/teckensprak">http://www4.ur.se/teckensprak</a> ... </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=""> In there, u will see many different links educating people how to use teckenspråk (swedish sign language)... the most interesting part is that almost everybody who signs in that website is actually prominent hearing people who is famous in Sweden (politicans, chefs, olympians, news anchorman, tv actors) They all did not know how to sign before working together to make that website....the purpose of this website was to show the Sweden public that ANYBODY can learn sign language including the hearing people because when the general public (hearing people who doesnt know how to sign) see the website and see those famous people actually signing they will start thinking that maybe they can learn how to sign... I've learned some new signs or learned new words that I already know signs for but didnt know the swedish word for it :)</span><br /><br />ok onto the pictures now!...<br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />bg0ur3</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20254.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/Bild%20254.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Me on the Laptop :)<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/1-Turkey.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/1-Turkey.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Me with my finished Turkey! (no tofurkey, thank you)<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/2-Home.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/2-Home.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Elisabet and her family lives on this townhouse complex, they live on the far left side of this building.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/3-BredangNature.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/3-BredangNature.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">This was taken just few minutes walk from Elisabet's home, she lives in Bredäng, a suburban community of Stockholm, just like what Etiobcoke is to Toronto. Just showing the nature of Sweden in the city :)<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/4-BredangStation.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/4-BredangStation.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">This picture was taken in the entrance of the Bredäng subway station, about 7 minutes walk from Elisabet's home<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/5-Centralen.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/5-Centralen.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">This is in the central city of Stockholm known as Centralen (The Centre), similar to Yonge Street, filled with busy shopping centres, its always overflowing with people during the peak hours.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/6-City.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/6-City.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Some more pictures of Centralen with some sort of outdoor food market.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/7-Halloween.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/7-Halloween.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Last picture, nothing important, except for that odd oversized Ghost balloon in the middle.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I wanted to show you some pictures of the Gamla Stan (old town), but I did not have the chance to take any pictures, so I'll save that for some other blog post... meanwhile you can finally can stop reading and do whatever you were doing :)</span><br /></div></div>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1129418985653801002005-10-16T00:36:00.000+02:002005-10-16T11:33:22.936+02:00after 2 months...<ul> <li>A1 term almost finished</li> <li>5 roundtrips between Stockholm and Jönköping</li> <li>better understanding of basic Swedish</li> <li>dramatic improvement in teckenspråk</li> <li>biked countless kilometres</li> <li>2 computer mishaps (virus & mis-installation of linux)</li> <li>improved capability of getting around in Stockholm on my own :)</li> <li>diminished english skills :(</li> <li>met many new swedish people</li> </ul><br />Yeah, today (october 16th), I've been away from Canada for 2 months... and it doesnt feel like 2 months... time has gone by too fast!... Looking back two months, I've realized that I've gone through the "oh okay, I am supposed to do that" and "oh, I should not do that?" phase. I feel that I've learned everything I need to know about living here, but of course everybody will tell me that one never stop learning in his/her lifetime... what I really meant was, I feel that I have gained much better understanding in the social, law, political, academic facets of swedish life/culture. Everyday, I feel like I say "oh i see" less in my mind...<br />In other words, I am beginning to feel like home despite the fact I don't have all of the luxuries here that I have in Cambridge :)<br /><br />What I expect from myself for the next two months is -<br /><ul> <li>have a job</li> <li>study more (as my courses in A2 term will be much more difficult)</li> <li>see much more improvement in my written swedish</li> <li>possibly travel to another country at least once? I should take advantage of ryanair.com!!</li> <li>have more people thinking I'm actually a Swedish by my teckenspråk :)</li> </ul> Hopefully by December 16th, I can look back and say I've achieved all of these expectations I have placed upon myself.<br /><br />Anyway, here's whats up with me so far... I've been in Jönköping for a week now... I will be going back to Stockholm this tuesday morning since for next week I only have classes on monday and nothing for the rest of the week... also, this monday is my last day of regular classes before I take exams for the A1 term. I forgot my shaving razors in Stockholm, and before I left Stockholm I hadn't shaved for like a week, so yeah its been 2 weeks so far :) I'm developing this so-called beard and my neck is constantly itchy :( I can't wait to go back to Stockholm and shave! :)<br /><br />In the past week I've ran for 6-7km twice, biked total of 60km... 30 km in a single day once... this might be nothing to some of you guys but my legs feels like huge pieces of rubber flopping around now :) I hope to keep up my exercise regime since you all know how much free time I have here... It's funny, in Stockholm, there is not many deaf people with my size... I've seen probably 2 or 3... and when I tell someone that I just ran for 6km, and they will say "YOU?!?"... I don't think they have ever seen someone like me run that far... :)<br /><br />Yesterday, I made this nice dinner... a wok mixed with chopped chicken this medley of vegetables including green & red pepper, green beans, broccoli, onions and then sweet & sour sauce to top it off... my roommate from Ghana, Kingsley, saw what I made and asked me if I could teach him how to make it today... Of course, I was willing to do so,... he was so excited learning how to make different food... his daily meals always had pork and rice everday...<br />I was curious and asked him, who does the cooking at his home in Ghana?... turns out he has a wife and a daughter... he said that in Ghana its his job to provide the money, everything else the Wife does... childbearing, cooking, cleaning and everything else... heh... Although, he has admitted that he realizes that this generation is changing so he occasionally helps out in the kitchen with his wife but his society basically frowns on that. He owned a communications business in Ghana, but he wanted to pursue a Masters degree so he decided to come to Sweden for his Masters so his business can benefit from more education.<br /><br />hmm... last week I realized something,... when I talk with Elisabet and there is some people around or everybody else other than Elisabet in Stockholm I always use teckenspråk, nothing else... but when Elisabet and I are alone or when we talk about something really important, we always revere to ASL... it's only first language, its the language we gain most understanding from eachother... but there was this one time late in the night, Elisabet and I was discussing about.. uh.. i dont remember the topic... but it was important... we talked in ASL but my swedish signs tried to take over ASL, I was actually thinking in English but expressing in Swedish signs... I wondered if this was the beginning of a transformation since teckenspråk is becoming a less of struggle everyday for me.... although being in Jönköping doesn't help since theres no deaf people around here and of course I always use ASL with Marcia and Laura otherwise they will kill me :) But, yeah... I'm hoping that I can evolve from being too dependable on ASL into being able to switch to both language at my own natural will given appropriate time, place and person. Although I don't think this transformation will happen anytime soon.<br /><br />Anyway, I guess thats all... I still don't have WindowsXP... and am struggling with Linux, the new operating system is a learning experience for me :) I figured in my field of profession I should be open to all computing aspects... hopefully one day I will have 3 computers devoted to windows, mac, linux :)... would be fun eh?... ah thats the geeky side of me talking now :)<br /><br />ok, shutting up now :) see ya all later...<br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1129067957223037782005-10-11T22:56:00.000+02:002005-10-12T00:56:39.480+02:00the long-awaited post*sigh* I know there have not been new posts lately... but at least theres one now :)<br /><br />I can't really remember everything that happened since my last post but I'll do my best to recall them. Oh yeah I said something about the difficulty of me understanding Swedish, I just thought I have something else interesting.... recently I realized that in English, we use the word "for" often, when simply translated into swedish it means "för" but it can also mean "till" or "åt".<br /><br />"I will buy a drink for you" = In swedish, they use "till" instead of "for" essentially saying "I will buy a drink to you"<br />"Can you drop off Billy for me?" = In Swedish, they use "åt" instead of "for", I'm not 100% clear on why "åt" is used...<br />"Thanks for loaning me the money" = In this case, "för" is used. (I think?... you swedes who read this blog, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)<br /><br />buy my point, you can see how confusing it is... I'm sure from Swedes' perspective English has some unnecessary words that confuses them when compared to their native Swedish :)<br /><br />Anyway enough with the swedish :)....like I said before my school schedule is sooooo light, I'm used to a heavy academic schedule and working 30-40 hours a week with just few hours left to do homework and being tired everynight... right now I just have maybe 6-8 hours worth of classes during the week and almost never get any homework to do (but of course theres always lots of heavy reading) I feel that my time here is being wasted.... so yeah I've started job hunting... I got in touch with this company, Omnitor (www.omnitor.se) there is an english version of that page, just click on the United Kingdom flag... anyway, that company works with videophone technology, somewhat similar to what Sorenson is doing right now. The boss there were intrigued by my email and wanted to meet me on the next day, so I did... I don't know if I would call it an interview but it was a very informal meeting and I think it was the first time I've ever tried a full hour-long conversation in teckenspråk (swedish sign) with a hearing person who signs swedish.... you all know how it is harder to understand a hearing person signing ASL (if they arent an interpreter) in Canada or USA, imagine me with a swedish man :) but I think the meeting went smoothly.... he needs someone to work as a Project Assistant or some Java programmer... I told him I would be very interested working with him on a part-time basis. Hopefully everything works out well soon.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.omnitor.se/"> </a>Last weekend, Elisabet and I went to Elisabet's friend Cissi's 25th birthday party. Her birthday was actually in January but she didnt have a party so she decided to host it last weekend... Yeah, in Sweden, people who turns 25 years old (or any other age but more often when 25) tend to host their own birthday party... that's something that we don't see often in Canada unless I'm missing something? :p The party was full of women but yeah there was few guys there too...Cissi decided that the party would be more fun with formal attire... I don't know if it was more fun that way but everybody sure looked nice heh... maybe for my 25th birthday party I'll make tuxedos mandatory ;) Anyway, here's a picture of me and Elisabet at the party.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_0144.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/IMG_0144.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>On the next day Elisabet and I went to a Theatre in KTH, a university theatre, there were 5 actors - all deaf - there was also like 150 deaf people in the audience watching the play. The play was pretty good but it had some "uhhh?" moments :)... probably because I didn't understand it 100%, of course the actors signed in Swedish but I understood the overall story plot... it's about an alcoholic father trying to hide his habit from his family, a passive and over-accepting wife, a son struggling with his homosexuality identity and another son who is over burdened with the responsiblity of keeping the family together and keeping his father's business intact. The play had some moments that included some sign language in unison that cannot simply be sufficently explained in English, so remember to ask me about the play when you see me in person next time :) After the play, I rushed to Centralen and caught my bus to Jönköping with just 10 minutes to spare :p<br /><br />Now, I'm back in Jönköping, and since I had some extra time I decided to experiment with Linux, I created a dual boot with my PC but stupid me, I made my WindowsXP parition inactive so after I installed Fedora 4.0 I can't boot up WindowsXP now, I'm stuck with Linux for now... I hope Laing will come online soon so he can send me some files that I need to fix my computer! :)<br /><br />I had just one class last monday and will have just one more class this week, this friday... then just 2 or 3 classes on monday and tuesday next week before my A1 term is finished then focus on studying for the exams... actually I've been doing some extra studying lately because I have no idea what Sweden exams' expectations are like and I don't intend to disappoint anybody :)... yeah, I've seen some old exams but still, I prefer to continue some extra studying until I am more comfortable about what the expectation level the teachers has on us when we write exams. Tomorrow, I'll bike to the school and study there, try to finish up all of my macroeconomics textbook, 7 chapters to go :).... oh yeah, did I mention that I have a bike here now?... Elisabet lent me her bike... made my life easier without having to pay for the bus and giving me some well-deserved exercise :).<br /><br />Dad and Andrew told me that theres been some mini-heat wave in southwest ontario? temperature in high 20s?... I haven't seen any days warmer than 15c since the first or second week of September :)... and I like it that way... I need a break from Ontario's infamous humidity eh!<br /><br />Allrighty, enough for now :), have fun...<br /><br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1128293242030365362005-10-02T23:50:00.000+02:002005-10-03T00:47:22.043+02:00swedish/svenskaHello again,<br /><br />Just thought I'd type up something to pass the time.<br /><br />The A1 (first part of the semester) is approaching faster than I thought, my final exams are coming up in few weeks which means I have to start studying which is what I'll be doing tomorrow. I'm seriously looking forward to October 28th, when I take the final exam for my Macroeconomics class... because after that exam, I will not have any more math-related classes for my remaining time in Jönköping AND Ryerson :)... and my classes will (should) be much more fun and interesting after November.<br /><br />Yesterday, Elisabet and I went to watch few deaf ice hockey games between stockholm, örebro and finland, Finland was the better team yestserday winning both of their games. Then later on the night, we went to the deaf house (club), many deaf people went.... met lots of new people... it was fun.<br /><br />You know what's the hardest part for me learning the written sweden?.... its those letters, å, ä, ö... they might seem alot like an 'a' or 'o' but when spoken those letterrs sounds veeeery different so you cannot just say 'a' instead of 'å' or the word will have entire different meaning. My biggest problem is recognizing those letters and remembering to use them at the appropriate time. For example, the word "Sök" means "search"... When I read that word I automatically think of "Sok" but then I have to re-read the word again to ensure I didnt misread it,... I think I'm getting better at recognizing those three letters now but I've still got a long way to go.<br /><br />For the sign language part, I think I'm getting there :) I remember I had a such hard time understanding the differences between "still" and "still"... yeah, I know I said "still" twice heh, but the Swedes have two different signs for that word for that the word has two different meanings.<br /><br />Still #1 example - He's still running! (in this case, the "still" refers to the continous activity)<br /><br />Still #2 example - No matter which road you get, it will still take you an hour to get home. (in this case, the "still" refers that the result is still the same no matter which option you take)<br /><br />You ASL-users know that for both cases, the same sign of "still" are used but not in sweden, there are two different signs for "still",.. it was very confusing for me but now I think I'm getting the hang of it.<br /><br />There's still some words and signs I don't know when is the appropriate time to use it, such as "you", sweden has "du" and "dig"... it means "you"<br /><br />There is one general sign that Swedes has too much use for, I don't know how to explain what the sign looks like but it looks similar to saying "please" or "my"... get what I mean?... anywa in Sweden that sign can be used for "my", "hope", "love", "what do you think?", "want", "like"... all of those words has very similar signs its easy to get confused with one or other word... they rely on the lips movement very much. It's harder for me because I don't know all of the swedish words and much less their lips movement, sometimes I have to ask again to clarify which sign they just used :)<br /><br />nevertheless, yup, I've promised myself that by January I should be almost fluent in swedish sign language as a second language (my ASL will always be better of course! :) )<br /><br />Anyway, its getting late, I better shut up now... I'll write more later in the week..<br /><br />have fun<br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1127661768824953302005-09-25T17:09:00.000+02:002005-09-27T20:14:06.076+02:00InnebandyHey y'all<br /><br />another update for you all blog freaks :) I'm in Stockholm now,... not much to report but I didn't want to keep my audience waiting for a new post... :p<br /><br />Last Friday I tried playing <a href="http://www.innebandy.se/">innebandy</a> for the first time ever... yeah... innebandy, I didn't misspell it heh... It's a big sport in Sweden... the rules are similar to ball hockey but at the same time it's nothing like hockey and not to offend anybody, I think it's a gay version of hockey for the wimps who can't stand the physical punishment of a good hockeygame.<br /><br />Yeah, I might as well explain what innebandy is... they play with this "mini-stick"... the biggest one you can find on market is 101cm long.. and the blade is just composed of plastic frames, not solid plastic... the ball they play with is... *gulp*... whiffle ball :) yup, the exactly same ball we used to play t-ball with when we all were 4 years old or something heh...<br /><ul><li>Helmets and hockey gloves are not used</li><li>Physical part of the game are kept to the minimum, anything more than a nudge will send you to the penalty box for 2 minutes</li><li>You cannot lay/slide down on the floor to prevent other teams' passes or shots or you'll be sent to the penalty box for 2 minutes</li><li>Cannot touch the whiffle ball with your head, your arms, hands.</li><li>Goalies wear very thin padding, and are the only player on the team that uses a helmet</li><li>Goalies usually stay on their knees while protecting the net (the net is smaller than hockey regulation net but bigger than lacrosse net)</li><li>There is a like 1.5 foot tall wall around the gym, if the ball gets over the wall there is no face off but the opposing team gets to pass in the ball just like soccer when the ball gets out of the bounds</li><li>You cannot interfere with other player's stick, you cannot put your stick under other player's legs...</li></ul><p>Yeah, for our Canadian standards, the game might seem very backwards when compared to our traditional hockey ideals... but at least there is one good thing I can say about this game, with shorter sticks, we are required t<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/17-06.jpg"></a>o bend our knees more often and it's a fast game... everybody is always running all the time so it's a good exercise.</p><p>In innebandy, players are usually thin and quick contrasting with ball hockey where there is usually a fair balance of smaller and quicker player with bigger and physical players. I personally like ball hockey better because it's more easier to control the ball, the playing area is bigger, and its more physical! :)</p><p>There is usually deaf people playing Innebandy every fridays in Stockholm, I might try asking them to see if they want to try playing ball hockey one night and you never know, I might trigger some kind of new sports revolution in Sweden :p</p><p>For you Canadians, I've posted some pictures of Innebandy so you can get some idea of what it looks like...</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/17-061.jpg" border="0" /></p><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/innebandy_sak1.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/innebandy-web1.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>For you Swedes, this is what ball hockey looks like (the better indoor hockey sport :p)</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/foto5_big.jpg" border="0" /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/bh4.jpg" border="0" /></p><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/wc_cze_can_big1.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/400/hokejbalista.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>I got most of those images from the <a href="http://www.isbhf.com/isbhf.php?lg=en&sel=1">International Ball hockey Site</a> I thought it was funny that they emphasized that the stick they use in Ball Hockey is "normal stick", I wonder what that makes an innebandy stick? :p</p><p>Anyway, I guess I'll continue playing innebandy when given the opporuntiy for the sole purpose to give my body some exercise... :p</p><p>Have fun,</p><p>bg0ur3</p>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1127245015149565582005-09-20T20:42:00.000+02:002005-09-20T21:49:43.486+02:00Göteborg<a href="http://www.goteborg.se/prod/sk/goteborg.nsf/1/english?OpenDocument"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Göteborg </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">was fun, on friday I took the </span><a href="http://www.swebusexpress.se"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Swebus Express</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> (a coach bus) to </span><a href="http://www.goteborg.se/prod/sk/goteborg.nsf/1/english?OpenDocument"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Göteborg</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">, I left about 12:30pm and arrived just before 3pm... Charlotte Gustavsson (one of Elisabet's friends) met me at the bus station and gave me a brief tour of "downtown" </span><a href="http://www.goteborg.se/prod/sk/goteborg.nsf/1/english?OpenDocument"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Göteborg</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">. About an hour later, I met Elisabet (she drove from Stockholm with her mother)... we hadn't seen eachother for almost two weeks, the longest we have been apart since I've been in Sweden (or maybe since july of 2004? heh) Anyway, we had dinner with Maria and Mattias at some Thailand Restaurant. Then later that night, Elisabet and I went to a pub in Fölkshuset (if I spelled it correctly?) and there was sooooo many deaf people there. Getting a beer wasn't easy, I felt like one of those 12 new puppies trying to drink milk from their mother dog's nipples but there is only 8 nipples :) Marcia and Laura (my interpreters) went to Göteborg for the Dövas Dag too, I saw them that night, I'm sure it was an interesting experience for them to meet some new deaf people that didnt sign ASL heh... anyway the pub closed at midnight, go figure... Elisabet and I stayed at Britta (Charlotte's friend)'s apartment for the weekend, she was so nice, gave us her own bed and provided light breakfast and didn't really expect anything in return. Yeah, Charlotte's got a nice friend! :)<br /><br />Saturday morning, Elisabet wanted to walk from Britta's apartment to the Centrum (downtown) Göteborg, ugh... but I decided to make her happy :p, yup it took almost 2 hours but we saw some interesting sights including the </span><a href="http://www.liseberg.se/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Liseberg </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">along the way (supposedly, the biggest amusement park of all Scandinavia)... passed by the scandinavium, a Göteborg's hockey team plays there part of the Swedish Elite League. (Jönköping has a team by the way, they are called HV71) Arriving the downtown, we had lunch with Charlotte at some cafe then we met some people hanging outside the Fölkshuset where the Dövas Dag (Deaf Day) event were being held. We only checked out the booths area for like 45 minutes... it wasn't anything too spectacular but it was defintely much more clean and hi-tech than the Mayfest. There was information sessions about Interpreters in Pocket -- really it was about having access to interpreters via video conference on the mobile phones, you can just call an interpreter and have some hearing person speak into the mobile phone and you can watch the interpreter sign... that and along with several more stuff that would require sometime to explain, unfortunately I'm not in the mood :p<br />Then later on the night, there was a formal-attire party with limited tickets -only 900 tickets were sold- and the event was sold out! (luckily Elisabet got tickets for both of us few days before) but I saw some deaf people who couldnt get a ticket... oh well... Before the party, Mattias and I had dinner at some fancy Swedish restaurant along with Mattias' friend... the food was awesome, cabbage rolls and potaotes along with swedish lingonberries. There was this 2 for 1 deal that night because that restaurant was celebrating its 2nd birthday or something so mattias and I didnt really pay much for the fancy dinner. Then we all walked to the Fölkshuset again for the evening party, sure enough, the place was jammed with deaf people, some from Finland, Germany, England and other countries... Yeah, I was sooo tired by that time... signing nothing but teckenspråk (swedish sign language) takes alot of energy out of me... but yeah, I still had fun that night. It was interesting to see so many people around but the dance floor was almost empty most of the time heh... There were even two interpreters on the stage interpreting the music :)... I thought it was cool even though I think they didnt do a good job... oh well.<br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0125.jpg" border="0" /> <img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0126.jpg" border="0" /> <img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0130.jpg" border="0" /> <img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0131.jpg" border="0" /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0132.jpg" border="0" /><br />Sunday, didn't do much... just woke up at 11am or something and left at noon for Jönköping, I joined Elisabet's car this time and drove to Jönköping, the drive was only lil over 1 hour long.<br /><br />This week didn't do much, just relaxed, Elisabet is staying with me until tomorrow, then on thursday I will go to Stockholm for the weekend.<br /><br />Wanted to mention this... I just realized that Jönköping has some strange names... such as the mall Elisabet and I went to today is called "A6 Center"... and the Jönköping hockey team is called "HV71"... hmm?... I wonder why...<br /><br />Anyway, I guess that's it for now. Sorry I didn't take any more interesting pictures... most of the weekend I either forgot that Elisabet had a camera with her or I forgot that I had a camera in my pocket :)... oh well... don't worry, you all have a whole year to see more pictures from me :)<br /><br />have fun,<br />bg0ur3</span>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1126823120484591322005-09-16T00:02:00.000+02:002005-09-16T11:09:01.360+02:00that's sweden!<span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Hello again,</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Yesterday morning, I woke up, I had a sudden craving for some orange juice... I checked the fridge... ahh.. i was all out. So, just few minutes after waking up, I decided to walk to the "plaza" where there is food stores and some various stores to buy some orange juice. Mind you, I just woke up, still had pillow crease on my face and my hair was standing up in an awkward manner, I was still wearing my "pajamas" (basketball shorts and t-shirt) with sandals.</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >As I walked to the food store for some </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >apelsin</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" > (orange juice, dont let the name fool you thinking its apple juice, that happened to me heh) anyway... I felt something was out of the bounds around on way to the store... I couldn't exactly place it so I shrugged it off and went into the store. Yup, I got my orange juice along with some other stuff... then walked back to my apartment... I had this eerie feeling again...</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >WHAM!! it hit me, I realized it,... "what in the hell??"... there were like dozens of people walking around me... and they </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >ALL</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" > were wearing a winter coat, even some had winter hat and mittens... Jeez, I thought -- is there something wrong with me? -- I was wearing nothing but a thin t-shirt, underwear and shorts and sandals, there weren't even any socks accompanying my sandals. </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >It must have been only uh 14 celisus or something at the time,... yeah yeah... I know some of you might be eager to point out that after Laing, I would be the last person to wear a winter coat or pants in the winter even in Canada but... it was only 14 celisus!!... </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Maybe the swedes are just excited to show off their stylish winter wardrobe even though they might be few months too early. Yeah, it wasn't just this one time, ever since then I've noticed more and more people wearing winter coats now :S Making me feel like a black sheep :p</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Then I thought, I might as well write some humorous facts about the Swedes from a story I read.</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >-The Government has spent years trying to convince Swedes that their money is not actually their own money :) (for some of you who might not understand this,... Sweden is a very Socialist country, so a fairly large amount of your income goes to the government)<br /><br />- In other countries, if people see a dude driving a flashy sports car, they will say "cool guy!"... but in Sweden, they'll say "what a tax dodger"<br /><br />- In sweden business world (and academic world as I am my own witness) everybody wants to be called by their first name, saying Mr. Andersson will just make you look strange.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >-Sweden's summer is the hottest day of the year :)</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >- Swedes love to write everything into their dayplanner calendars, even things that they have already did few days ago and had forgotten to write it down before and everything from now and 6 months later is ridculously and meticulously written down...</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">- Swedish doesnt have a word for 'please'... they substinate that by saying thanks more than usual "tack tack" or "tusen tack"</span><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Here's one from someone at JIBS who said... If today was monday, and you invite 20 americans to a party this saturday... 20 will show up... If you invited 20 Swedes, only 5 or 6 might show up (a week's notice is not enough time)... and If you invited 20 Italians, come saturday, 150 will show up :)</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Here is another saying about how the world doesnt need to be too perfect... </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >If the world was perfect, all policemen will be from Great Britain, all organizers will be from Switzerland, all automechanics will be from Germany, all chefs will be from France and all Lovers will be from Italy... that would sound nice... but Imagine if we lived in a world where all policemen are from Germany, all chefs are from Great Britain, all lovers from Switzerland, all automechanics from France and all organizers from Italy (CHAOS!!)...</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Its a nice point, the world could be much worse off but the world we live in ain't so bad :)</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >anyway.-.. I'm just blabbing now... my clothes are in the dryer now I'm just writing to kill sometime... yeah.. I think I have had more success with my laundry this time around :)</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >I'll write some more interesting </span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">anecdotes on Swedish people sometime later. :)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">have fun, (heading to Göteborg tomorrow if you guys have forgot)</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">bg0ur3</span></span><br /></span></span>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1126653700718532042005-09-14T00:58:00.000+02:002005-09-14T01:21:40.723+02:00sorry bambi...It's been a quiet few days for me in Jönköping... last weekend was the first weekend that I stayed in town. There hasn't been much to say except for the fact that I'm glad to report that I havent gotten any more bad luck lately :)<br /><br />Yesterday and today I met with Dale Carl, he works with the international exchange program at Ryerson University. He's a very interesting man who knows like 8 or 9 languages and has lived all over the world. He was swinging by Jönköping on way to a convention in Krakow, Poland. <br /><br />Tonight, my interpreters Marcia and Laura and I had dinner with Dale at some restaurant called Master Gudmunds Kallare... they served some Swedish delicacy... most of us had the Reindeer meat as a main course... and I think it was the best red meat I've ever ate... better than any piece of steak I've ever had!... WAIT.. before you all start running with flaming sticks and pitchforks trying to kill me for eating Bambi... I probably should tell you that I ate Dolphin meat when I was down in Miami and Keywest (yeah twice heh..) few years ago... :p Anywa, yeah I had a great time tonight... although I dont think I will ever eat at that place again, too expensive for my wallet :(<br /><br />mmm, yeah it'll be a quiet week for me, only 2 days worth of classes this week for me... I'll be going to Göteborg this weekend so I should have some pictures posted up on the next blog :)<br /><br />anyway, sorry nothing more interesting to report on the blog, I'm just posting this so you all in North America knows I'm still alive and kicking in Sweden :)<br /><br />later,<br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1126277895084100652005-09-09T16:19:00.000+02:002005-09-09T17:03:53.513+02:0048 Hours of rotten luck...You know how some people say that everything happens in bunches of 3... once something happens, u can be sure something will happen 2 more times... like third time's a charm or whatever... I'm beginning to see the truth in that notion.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">First Rotten Luck</span> -- sometime on tuesday afternoon, my computer had contracted a virus... I didn't really care at first but then my ISP (for those not tech-savvy, ISP = internet service provider), contacted me via email threatening to disconnect my internet if I didn't fix the problem ASAP. So, yeah I spent next 6 hours trying to eliminate that stupid virus... after like 4 anti virus programs, 3 spyware programs nothing worked until I tried Zone Alarm Pro 6.0 (thanks Mike), it gave me a temporary solution but I still had to make a clean reinstallation of WindowsXP on my computer which I did last night then I immediately installed Zone Alarm Pro 6.0 and McAfee VirusScan (thanks Egerton). It wasn't really a huge bad luck but, a huge hassle... then...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Second Rotten Luck </span>-- if you are considering washing your clothes in some foreign country's washing machine with the machine instructions in a language that's not english, I strongly urge you to either take a course in that foreign language or just handwash the clothes yourself. Here's what happened to me, there is a free laundry room in each aparments here and the washing machines was sooo small I had to do 4 separate loads. There were buttons for A, B, C, D, E, F and G... I tried my best reading the instructions in Swedish and I thought I had it right.. A meant cotton, B meant something else or whatever, since all of my clothes were mostly cotton based so I just washed them all with the "A" setting... but what I couldn't understand was... the first washing machine filled itself with water but wouldnt spin... the second machine said it would take 95 minutes, the third machine said it would take 45 minutes and the fourth machine said 30 minutes. I was scratching my head wondering how did this happen. To make a long story short, 3 hours later, 1 o'clock in the morning, I ended up with 3 blue shirts that used to be white and 1 load that presumely was washed but smelled worse than it did before... argh... and then on the next day...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Grand Finale</span> -- I had finance class at 12.30pm and I left my room like 12.00 to bike to the school... I had just showered and jazzed up my hair and everything... then as I got out of the aparment building on the bike, not even 5 strokes on the bike pedals later, the front wheel just did a 90 degree turn on me even though the handlebars didn't move at all, it send me crashing onto the hard pavement landing on my mouth first and my forehead second...my body were tangled along with the bicycle frame on the asphalt as soon as I regained the conscious of what had just happened, I just stood up and threw the bike on the ground again hoping that somehow it would get more damaged than I had, then I immediately checked if I had all of my teeth... whew, yeah I had them all solidly in place although my face was drenched in blood coming from inside of my lips and my forehead... I didn't realize the extent of my inflicted injuries until I went back to my apartment and saw in the bathroom mirror and my right arm is all banged up and scratched along with a huge bruise on the face of my right hand... my left hand has a big chunk of skin ripped off along with some more scraps.... ah, instead of explaining more, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking... <br><center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20003.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/200/Bild%20003.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20005.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/200/Bild%20005.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/200/Bild%20001.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20004.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/200/Bild%20004.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/Bild%20006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/200/Bild%20006.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></center></div><br />After cleaning up in the bathroom, I immediately took the next bus to school, I was 30 minutes late but the teacher understood after he heard my story and saw my face obviously... But, here comes the funny part...Yesterday was the last day that I could get my Student ID card for free... so just like 3 hours after my ill-fated accident, I walked into the ID office and had my picture taken with my fat lip and the blood on my forehead still fresh :) At least, I had something to commemorate the moment :)<br /><br />So far, when I go into a store or walk around in public places, mothers hide their children behind their backs and people look at me as if I'm some kind of bad boy with my scraps all over my face and arms as if I was walking home from a fight... *sigh* hopefully they will disappear sometime soon :)<br /><br />So, yeah that's my three bad lucks in 48 hours... its been more than 24 hours since the bike accident and nothing bad has happened... maybe these stuff does happen in 3's :)<br /><br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1126121913389755112005-09-07T21:20:00.000+02:002005-09-07T21:38:33.396+02:00Burger King in United KingdomHey y'all<br /><br />I'm washing my clothes now, the machines said I got 30 minutes to kill so I thought I might as well fulfill my promise of writing something about my Burger King experience that I mentioned few weeks ago.<br /><br />You know how these days the fast-food industry are trying to become more health-conscious and are always trying to find ways to make people feel good about eating their greasy food through marketing or adveristments. I thought the Burger King in Heathrow Airport were taking this a bit too far.<br /><br />When I ordered a Medium Sprite, Large Fries (Tara, notice that I don't eat meat at Burger King either... only Wendy's is good enough for me :) ) Anyway, yeah I ordered those stuff they were placed in a BK paper bag, as I sat down and ate those stuff I noticed something very interesting. There was this short "blasphemy" carefully written, intended to make people feel good about eating their food on each paper products I had, the paper bag, the small paper bag for my fries and the paper cup for my soda.<br /><br />I'll let you read those blasphemy now...<br /><br />On the paper cup of a Medium Sprite;<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153); font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">This cup makes a staement about you. It says "Hey, look at me, I'm an ambitious and decisive person." You could have gone larger, but you didn't. You could have gone smaller, but you decided against it. Yes, you know excatly what you want in life, and that you should always have it your way.</span></blockquote>On the paper bag of the Large Fries;<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 51, 153); font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Some fries are mavericks. Free spirits that slip over the paper wall and make it straight for the bottom of the bag, where they can plan their next move. We wcall these spud separatists "Bagglers", and they're especially delicious. Maybe it's because they're a little ouyt of bounds. Life is weird like that.</span></blockquote>On the paper bag that holds all of the food;<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 51, 153); font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The great thing about a take-away bag is finishing your meal. Firstly, because you're left with that gloating look of satisifcation and secondly you usually find a couple of loose renegade fries. It's like when you put on a pair of trousers and find a fiver in the pocket. It's the simple things...</span></blockquote>Wooo!... who agrees with me that the Burger King are taking this marketing campaign a little too seriously? :) I can imagine people feeling good after reading these stuff but if they realize why the burger king are writing this stuff, they should feel stupid and fat :)<br /><br />I practically laughed while reading those stuff, who ever has thought of fries being mavericks and finding a fries in the bottom of a take-away bag does NOT give me the same satisifaction of finding a 5 dollar bill in my pockets :)<br /><br />oh well...<br />bg0ur3Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14496053.post-1125789429404020872005-09-03T23:37:00.000+02:002005-09-04T10:54:52.193+02:00Third week...<span style="font-size:85%;">Hey y'all...<br /><br />This is my third week in Sweden, yeah like I said in my previous blog, I'm beginning to get settled in here. I'm getting used to all of the walking, biking and using the public transportation (it's not as horrible as it might sound heh). I know everybody who's been reading my blog is getting somewhat bored with all of my blasphemy and no visual aids... :) not to worry, for the first ever time, there is pictures today!! :)<br /><br />Before getting to the pictures, let me reflect back on my last few days since my last post. hmm, yeah last wednesday, I had my first macroeconomics class... it looks boring so far, then after the class I biked to the city to the "bookstore"... the school campus doesn't have one so the students usually get their books from the local bookstore. The grand total for my textbooks for just 2 courses was 1,410 Kronors!!.. ehh. yeah about 225 CDN dollars... ugh, I never will look forward to buying new textbooks. Oh well, all part of being a student (especially in Sweden where everything else is expensive!). After getting the books, of course I made another 8km trek back to my apartment on my ol' bike. Elisabet and I went back to stockholm later that night.<br /><br />Thursday, I just spent the day resting. I talked with Elisabet's father and I was curious when was the last time he changed his car motor oil and he said it was about one year ago!!... I strongly urged him to change the motor oil ASAP and told him that it should be changed every 5,000km or 3 months, he was not aware of that fact... not surprisingly though with everybody using the public transportation, nobody understands how an automobíle works around here, it's like rocket science :) So on friday, I changed the motor oil for Sandor (Elisabet's father).<br /><br />Last night, didn't do much, just visited Mattias and watched a DVD... "Daltons" it's a French movie with swedish subtitles... From what Mattias said, the Daltons is a famous comic book series made into a movie. The movie had some funny moments, but woulda have been better with english subtitles :) Then, today, Elisabet and I went to the city (Elisabet's home is something like Etobicoke part of Toronto) Anyway, went to the city, checked out some stores and then met Elisabet's old American friend that Elisabet knew from when she was at Gallaudet few years ago. Chatted for awhile, then some more walking (of course, what else? :p)...<br /><br />Yup, now, I have some pictures for you :) These was taken from Crayfish party that Lisa Åström hosted, it was on my first weekend in Sweden. I didn't really enjoy ripping those crayfish apart like savages... just felt so unrefined and barbaric... yeah one of my personal quirks is that I don't really enjoying eating food that still has animal bones in it... some of you know that I don't really eat chicken wings :) anyway... pictures now...<br /><br /></span><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">Kräftskiva (Crayfish party)<strong> </strong><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_00021.JPG" border="0" /></span></div><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">Here is Elisabet coercing me to eat the Crayfish<img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_00041.JPG" border="0" /></span></p><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">Me, exhibiting my dismay of eating Crayfishes</span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0009.jpg" border="0" /></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Yeah, enough about the crayfish party, let's see what my apartment in Jönköping looks like eh?...</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">This is the hallway of the apartment, that is what you see when you open the front door of the apartment. The first door on the right is the guy from Australia's room, the second door on the right is the kitchen, third door on the right is the Slovakian guy's room... the door straight ahead is the bathroom, and on the left handed side you can see the closets, thats where coats or some cleaning supplies are stored, my room is on left handed just beyond the closet, and further down left handed is the guy from Ghana's room.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_00581.JPG"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_00581.JPG" border="0" /></span></a></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_00521.JPG"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></a></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/1600/IMG_00532.JPG"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></a></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br><br>Onto my bedroom... (this was taken just shortly after I moved in so excuse the mess :p) This is my bed... There's a curitain that I can use to "separate" the bedroom from rest of the apartment for visitors etc..</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0051.jpg" border="0" /></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">My "desk" for the next year :)</span></div><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0050.jpg" border="0" /></span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">There's a good sized balcony out of the door... I keep my bike in there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0048.jpg" border="0" /><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">This is the view I have outside of my balcony, if you look at the other apartment buildings, it's pretty much identical to my apartment building.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/599/1166/320/IMG_0046.jpg" border="0" /></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Alright, that's it for now... I gotta get some sleep now, tomorrow I'm gonna start cracking my books and finally do some homework... I've been lazy for few days now. Tomorrow night, there will be some deafies getting together to watch a movie at the theatres.. yeah more glorious svenska subtitles for me!! :p... We'll be watching the Amitysville or something.. u know the remake of the old 1970s horror movie. Hopefully it's better than that 70s movie.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">See ya later,</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">bg0ur3</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">P.S. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">I wanted to add some pictures of the kitchen and the bathroom, but i had some problems with the formatting of this blog, so I will add it sometime later when I have time... (its 1.30am now :s)</span></p>Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15199480938931589757noreply@blogger.com3