Alex's Alliterative Adventures

90 applications, 4 phone interviews to date. More posting when I’m employed or dead.

In the mean time, you may amuse yourself with the Team Ryuko videos.  I think they’re toronto based, which makes them more awesome

I have a splitting headache.  I get headaches extremely infrequently, and I’ve never had one that I would identify as anything more than mild discomfort. If it didn’t feel like a tiny gnome was trying to excavate my upper left sinus, it would be really cool.

Some statistics: I’ve applied for internships with at least 48 companies so far.  I’ve been rejected by three, and I have a potential phone interview with one. A vast majority of the rest have probably rejected me already, and I’ll never know.  I’ve narrowed the 955 applicable job postings on waterloo’s employment site down to 49, most of which I’ll apply for, all of which I’ll have to apply for by my own means in the next 8 hours. I’ve been given two personal industry email addresses, and the inside scoop on several companies in at least 2 countries. I also have one part-time job lined up for about a month from now.

Trying to become gainfully employed builds character.

If you answered Swedish Berries, then you were wrong.  I have no idea of what they actually are, but it’s sure not Swedish Berries, that’s for sure.

I’m sorry, Adrian.

woo.

Swedish is officially one of the world’s stupidest languages. If you want to say I drink beer, you can use the phrase “Jag dricker öl”, or I drink beer.  You can also say “Öl dricker jag”, which also means I drink beer. If a giant mutant evil beer has shoved you into an oversized novelty straw and is slowly drinking you to death, shouting out “Beer drinks me!” in Swedish will just get you some funny looks, and perhaps a “congratulations” from a few young males. Normally this isn’t a big issue, but if you want to say with clarity that the red dog bit the black dog, you just can’t.  Susie misses Jack?  Nope.

And worst of all, the Soviet Russia joke is not just ruined, it can’t exist.  Worst country ever.

Swedes are a very reserved people. They follow rules, and they’re very aware of what is and what isn’t socially acceptable. This is when I was very confused when the casually whistling Swedish guy grabbed my butt. He then looked at me, smiled, and said something in Swedish. When I responded in confused, broken english, he told me that I looked so bored. He was quite glad that he succeeded in making me look much less bored.

I’ve been groped before, but only at crowded parties where my new close acquaintance disappeared before I could spot them. Now I have irrefutable proof that I am in fact a nice piece of ass.

I can’t keep it from the world any longer. I’m just so completely smitten.  We go everywhere together, we’re practically joined at the hip.  I think this could be the start of a very beautiful relationship.

You may hear reports from bystanders that a strange man was running home, hugging a package that may or may not have contained a palm treo 650.  Those reports may not be based entirely in falsehood.

My palm apparently thinks I have jaundice.  Well, I think she’s fat. No, wait baby, I didn’t mean it, I was just trying to look cool in front of the guys.

6 bonus points to anyone who gets the band reference

The photos are a bit small, but they’re of me suspended above the ground, so they do the trick. And holy crap, climbing shoes are small.

I had to pay the second installment of my rent today.  I realized that my rent is around $200 cheaper for the entire term than my friend’s rent.  My friend lives 3-5 times closer to campus than I do, and his internet connection is 200 times faster than mine. And just to add fuel to the fire of jealousy, he’s trying to move here.  I mean, he’s a good guy, but I wouldn’t trust his decision making skills.

So I wandered down to Ye Olde Banke to pay my big ol’ bill, and lucky for me, I had just enough money between my chequing account and my wallet to cover the bill, with just under $2 CAD remaining. I gave the bank teller the invoice and started counting out an uncomfortably large number of bills, but I was interrupted by her quoting me an amount that was 50kr ($8 CAD) more than what the bill had said.  I blinked as she explained that there was a 50kr charge for paying a bill.  Sweden gets a lot of things right, but whoever thought up the fee-payment-fee needs a good ol’ fashioned face stabbing.

First of all, I just wanted to say that I have a new goal in life: Become pacman.

I was invited out to a local pub with a few of my friends on Friday night. Since I was still feeling under the weather, I figured that a quiet night sharing a drink or two with close friends would be healthier than hitting up one of the Friday night parties here in Lund. I was obviously slightly misinformed, though, since the “pub” was actually a “traditional Swedish music and dancing night at the people’s university”.  I actually had a lot of fun.  I got to see a part of Swedish culture that I can only presume is usually hidden from the common tourist eye. Swedish dancing is crazy; they slap their shoes, slap the floor, and kick their feet out like Russians. After we’d seen our fill of Swedish culture, I lead my friends to an actual pub. Much to my surprise, my Austrian friends instantly identified it as an Austrian pub.  I might not have picked up on this the last few times I had patronized the place because they didn’t serve Austrian beer, and they also thought that the Austrian flags hanging in the middle of the pub were German. It was still a decent place, though.  There’s just something warm and comforting about drinking in what could’ve been an underground bombshelter in some alternative existence.

We ended the night reasonably early in order to be fresh for Saturday’s rock climbing expedition.  We headed to Soffabacken, which is an outdoor climbing area about an hour and a half north of Lund.  There was one other girl there who was reasonably new, but I wouldn’t feel ashamed in saying her abilities, like everyone else’s, were beyond mine.  For those of you who haven’t been rock climbing with me before, don’t feel left out.  I’ve actually climbed an actual indoor rock climbing wall about 5 times in my entire life. My outdoor climbing experience includes trees, low walls, ladders, and probably my dog when I was small enough to imagine he was a horsie. I had a ton of fun, and my climbing got a lot better as the day progressed. I didn’t finish a few walls, but I topped them all except for one by the time people were talking about packing up.  I decided to give the wall I had only partially climbed another chance.

I was off to a fresh start.  I used the techniques I learned from the other walls and other climbers to my advantage.  Lift with your legs, not your arms.  The chalk marks are the way to go. Trust your shoes.  Wearing pants reduces bleeding by up to 100%. Even though I was in fine novice form, I got stuck at the same place as before.  I saw two paths, and they both bested me time after time.  After each of my 5 or 6 falls, Emma (my belayer) would yell out her encouragement to me and convince me to give it one more shot.  Even when I asked her nicely to let me down, she urged me to try again. Even when I calmly explained to here that I had eaten batches of jello that were more firm than my arms were, she wouldn’t let me down. When I told her that I was done for the day, I’d accepted my defeat, and I didn’t have to climb every wall on my first day out, she told me she wasn’t letting me down until I tried just one last time.  The feeling of wanting to punch someone so very badly but having no energy left to do so is a very ironic one. I tried to focus myself for one last push. Trust the shoe. Trust the shoe. Picture Jenn at the top of the rope.  Trust the shoe.  Swear at the wall.  Trust the shoe.  Never stop swearing.  Trust the shoe.

Before my body had time to complain, I threw myself back onto the wall.  I pulled, I reached, I strained myself back to the the spot that I thought of as the peak of my accomplishments. And then, I was passed it.  I had kept hold of the next rock!  The next was suddenly in my hand, and the next came just as fast.  My weakening muscles were preemted by two things far more powerful – adrenaline and determination. I wish I had climbed with a camera, because the view from the top of that rope was spectacular. On the way back down, I was shocked  – I thought that I had nothing left.  I was sure of it.

I was looking for a quote from Gattaca that fit what I felt, but I found a much better one instead: It’s funny, you work so hard, you do everything you can to get away from a place, and when you finally get your chance to leave, you find a reason to stay.

As usual, there will be pictures when there are pictures.

A very strong argument could be made for the idea that there are two things which number among the best things in life.  One of those things is being at the absolute end of your ability, being so ready to give up that another attempt seems like it would be harder and more painful than anything else in the world, being so desolated by your failure that you can’t think of anything else… and then getting up, giving one final effort to the shouting and kind words of friends, and accomplishing things that you thought you never could’ve done.

The other of those things is free cheese.

When both of those things happen to me in the same day, I’ll be able to sleep happily tonight.  After the homemade lasagna, that is.

(ETA of rockclimbing pics: unknown.  current status: MIA.  response: draft letter of condolenses for next of kin)

I’ll actually talk about the real world as opposed to self-righteous idealism when I get home tonight.  Keep eating free cheese.

edit: I’m tired, and therefore a liar.  stories tomorrow.