Yesterday was a peculiar day...
Somehow, throughout the day, I was able to build a blinding headache, so by the time I was supposed to go and pick up my daughter from preschool, to then drive her to ballet school, I wasn't really feeling like it at all. No possibility to rely on Stefan either, as he was too far away to make it on time.
Always the same dilemma when these things happen and a billion other things cross my mind... "I have to take her there, she cannot miss class, the exam is approaching and, on top of it all, you decided to make a 'little' 2 weeks long trip to Sweden just in the middle of her preparation to the exam!" :-S My life can actually really be that full of guilt (some would say I'm a bit of an expert at feeling guilty over one too many things...)!
So, mastering the very little strength I could come up with, I put on a Spring coat (though I always wondered what Spring had to do with coats, yesterday's rain made me the favour of clarifying that one!), grabbed the keys and the bag, and headed out the door. It wasn't so easy, but I did it! Yay me! Waiting for us by the ballet school was our weekly "expected" surprise: mom. Though I do love my mother, more that I manage to show, I have to say that her presence often manages to bring out the worse in me. Upon being asked how I was feeling - which, at the moment, wasn't so good - she so typically shrugs it off in an instant to proceed to tell me how much worse her health condition is at the moment, was for the past 100 years and will surely be both in the near and distant future. Since she works very much like that with everything, no matter the topic she quizzes me about, my particular approach to her questions is always plain - an "all is fine" kind of answer. But, sometimes, the wicked little person inside of me just decides to play a "trick" on her and just blurts out how horridly problematic my life is at the moment and then the entire game is composed on how long it will take her to turn the conversation to her own life. :-) Quite amusing at times, but often it's just rather sad.
After getting home, and being particularly annoyed at not finding a good parking space, because the place I had vacated some half an hour before and the empty space beside it were both now occupied by a single VW Polo (hmm... either they thought they had an extremely large car or they were just under the conviction that its occupants were indeed extremely fat...), I decided to sit in the car, packing up my anger and disappointment. Soon enough my parking place was vacant, so I parked the car and headed upstairs...
I did say yesterday that my Swedish study time wasn't going to be so much... Still, I picked up Chapter nr. 2 of my text book and worked through its first dialog and its corresponding true/false set of questions. Chapter nr. 2 is called Tack för matten! and the author of the book gladly states that with this unit I'll be able to master things like discussing where I live, count from 0 to 12 and also happily use phrases appropriated for meal times and other things of the kind. Somehow, it hardly sounds thrilling to an anxious kind of person like me, but that, of course, is something I'm up to turning around as well... :-)
Well, I haven't yet told my approach to dealing with the textbook's dialogs... But before that I must explain that 8 years later (or more...) Swedish isn't completely new to me. Still, as I have never learnt it on a consistent basis, with appropriate grammar and vocabulary use, in a particularly controlled context as it's provided by a language's textbook, I often trip on things that I know, things that I am still to learn and, also, on things that I thought I knew only to realize I kind of didn't. On the other hand, the thought of actually deciding to study it on a constant basis actually crossed my mind a few times and so I have done, on and off, a bit of research to get to know the best methods by those who actually stick to learning a language on a constant basis. And that's how I came across Luca... :-) Luca is an Italian young man who much thrilled me when I got to learn that, not only he speaks several languages, he speaks Portugal's Portuguese! :-) So, for those of you who are in the middle of learning or considering starting to learn a new language, here you can find Luca's advice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6SH2U_rO6c&feature=related If you get to read about this, Luca, thanks and keep up the good work! Your advices have been really helpful! :-)
Another thing I'd like to tell you is about my culinary experience this past Sunday... :-) Oh yes, someone managed to get me into the kitchen! :-)
The fact is that I've started an exchange of recipes with a Swedish friend - Maria - and, though I've been thinking about putting it into practice for the last 3 months (I guess the bewildered look on Stefan's face when I presented him the recipe she had sent didn't help...), finally I got to cook and eat the slightly dreaded Vitkålssoppa med Frikadeller. And, you know what?, either I'm this excellent cook coming out of her shell or - 1000% (!) more likely - it just tastes good. :-)
One thing that is of utmost importance in our kitchen is Stefan's cookbook, which shockingly enough he packed and brought to Portugal when he first came for a visit. I suspect that he thought I'd be starving him or something. :-S But ever since, I've grown a particular affection toward that cookbook (spelled exactly like that, Mr. B.!!), that has provided so many new (for me) and tasty recipes.
Yesterday's dinner was raggmunk med lingonsylt och bacon. Tasty! And the best part? I didn't have to cook it! ;-)
But the night revealed even more surprises...
After putting me to bed in this particularly interesting attire... (Yay! for 2004's Euro and for having double reasons to sit in front of the TV, with a particularly large belly... The kind of fun that isn't going to be repeated this summer, but that, on the up side, has the advantage of leading to less pillow fighting...)
... Mr. B. delved into the scary realms of online SVT, where he found Kommissarie Winter's series. So, Sanna, unknowingly, Stefan had the same thought, just not so much comedy in it... :-S
The series is based on the books of Åke Edwardson, that I confess had not heard of and much less read anything by. Still, curiosity is one of my traits and so here are the links to Wikipedia's page on this author and also his own page:
(So, Mr. B., it's supposed to take place in Göteborg and not in Stockholm, which kind of explains the quick trip the the "so called" beach.)
He wrote (supposedly) 16 crime novels featuring the same main character - kommissarie Winter - the same character that gave name to the TV series, composed of (supposedly) 6 episodes...
... and I should add that none are translated to Portuguese, though some of them are translated to English, German and French.
Well, now I must go and grab some lunch, because a very long afternoon awaits. I'm considering conjuring another headache (kidding!) so I won't have to go to that all-so-dreaded doctor's appointment that was so annoyingly re-booked. Did I ever mention my doctor-phobia? I'm sure there's a name for it too... And then I'm more than due to finish a stupid work, in case I might actually have to present it tomorrow. Long long long story, that I'll leave for some other time!...
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1 comment:
Well when you do manage to get into the kitchen it is worth waiting for. :) And yes I do remember that big belly and the soccer games. The kid was more anxious than you about the result, at least she tried to help kicking around in there.
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