The Misadventures of José Faxner

At 00:07, 2007/12/24, it’s now officially christmas. So enjoy!

God Jul!

Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

Fröhliche Weihnacthen!

メリークリスマス！

More holiday updates to follow.

Still unemployed, still not having much luck with the job hunting. Recently I’ve been dealing with unemployment and welfare offices, so with any luck I will start getting my welfare check next week, and will at least have some kind of money. Hell, at this rate I’m happy if I’ll be able to get a bank account balance above zero. So anyway, yesterday I got this thing from the social welfare whatever office - or, well, I think it was for me anyway…

It’s nice to know you’re in good hands.

In just under an hour I’m off to the train station, to go home to my parents. I’ll be staying there for a few days helping them with their move and preparations for their big housewarming party, and return here by Saturday night in time for our own festivities. I haven’t really had any kind of party since the end of the Kantou festival in early August, so I’m really looking forward to it. Just wish all the cool people from AIU could be there.

So, um, yep. 22 years old today. Sadly the day hasn’t been very fun nor exciting as I’ve spent most of it cleaning out our old apartment. The fun stuff, no less - wiping the insides of kitchen cupboards, dusting electrical outlets, cleaning the oven, mopping floors, and the like. We’re finally getting somewhere with it though, and with any luck we’ll be completely done with it before too long.

The day isn’t quite over yet though - and before it is we’ll be making a (hopefully) awesome pasta dinner, eat a (presumably) delicious chocolate cake and cinnamon buns, and chill in front of some (most definitely) fun video games. And on another positive note, I was promised some money from my grandparents, so hopefully my bank account balance should go at least a little above zero within the next couple of days.

Hooooly crap I’m exhausted right now. After about 3 hours of sleep, I was woken up at around 8 am this morning, and since then I’ve been packing, hoisting, moving, carrying and unpacking stuff for the better part of 14 hours. I’m extremely tired but at the same time it’s been alot of fun. I’m in my new room in my new apartment right now, and even though what furniture we’ve got here is in complete chaos, and we have fewer lights than we have rooms, it’s a really great feeling, and I’m already really stoked about living here. I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say this is the nicest apartment I’ve seen, let alone lived in.

We’ve been taking a few photos of the moving process as well as the new apartment, but right now I don’t even know where the camera is (and I sure as hell don’t have the energy to do any formatting and uploading at the moment)… I feel like this is the tenth time I’m saying this with no results, but HOPEFULLY there’ll be some pictures up before long. I’ll actually make an effort this time.

The only downside to this whole story is that everyone involved - not just me - are utterly and completely broke. We have little more than a few packages of instant noodles and a bag of wheat flour to last us… er, well, until someone manages to conjure some cash somehow. But who cares, right? Downtown Gothenburg is mere minutes away, and should I not feel like leaving the house (quite likely), I have a recently replaced (hopefully working) Xbox 360, a Wii, a slew of DVD movies and a kick-ass internet connection to keep me occupied.

Life is good.

Apart from that whole being broke and unemployed thing.

Well I guess I actually even got a REASON to write today - well not much of a reason perhaps, but a quick glance over previous posts tells me that this blog is a year old today! So, um, yay, I guess.

My own birthday is coming up as well, and next Saturday I’ll be a staggering 22 years old. Kinda looking forward to that. Well, not being 22, but my birthday. Hopefully everyone I know will give me some money so I won’t be (as) broke. It’ll be cool though, with any luck there should be a decent party - apart from my birthday the weekend is also ideal for a housewarming party, and I never had a “welcome back” party when I got here either. So I guess there’s no excuse for not having a party (except being lazy I guess, but that isn’t as much a excuse as it is a cop-out).

I could write something about the new awesome apartment we’re moving to, but frankly it’s kinda boring (even though it’s awesome). It’s big, new, and generally swanky. I’ll get some photos once we’re settled in.

Have a load of this:

This week it was time for the annual AIU Festival. Pretty much all of the international students had been wondering exactly what the festival would entail, and how things would work… the information (the English information, anyway) had been rather limited as usual, but you definitely got the feeling that the festival was somewhat of a big deal. Apparently there was supposed to be a bunch of things going on; stage performances, contests, exhibits, selling of food… in short a whole lotta stuff.

Since this school is all international and stuff, naturally there’d be stands selling food and stuff from all kinds of countries. Team Sweden was entrusted to take care of one of these stands, and after some discussions it was decided we were going to sell smörgåstårta and chocolate balls. The smörgåstårta was cause for some concern - we did actually manage to get all the ingredients we needed, but after some initial calculations, it seemed very unlikely that we’d be able to make the whole thing profitable. However, after cutting back on some of the more expensive ingredients, and deciding to make the servings smaller, we eventually managed to make the economics work out.

Once the festival started, it started to become clear how things would work out. A stage had been put up, along with a long row of stalls for the various vendors; and with the aid of maps and pamphlets, you could walk around campus for all kinds of activities and exhibits. In one room you could see posters about all the different countries represented in the student body (I really hope I can dig up pictures of ours - they were totally awesome), in another you could watch a movie some students had made, in others some of the school’s clubs were introduced, and so on. Unfortunately us Swedes didn’t have all that much time to enjoy all this as we actually had to work quite a bit at our cake- and ball stand.

The food vending was actually pretty fun. We didn’t have insane amounts of traffic, and the Japanese people seemed incredibly skeptical - some wouldn’t give you more than a look that would make you think the people working were zombies or something (which actually at the end of the day might not have been that far off). Somehow we managed to do pretty decently though, on day one we actually managed to sell out, and after all was said and done we actually did turn a profit (albeit a modest one). I guess I should thank the Japanese people working with us who insisted that we should sell the cake and chocolate balls as a set, as I suspect the chocolate balls were infinitely more popular than the smörgåstårta. Most people who did dare try it seemed to like it though!

After two days of intense food-mongering, the end of the festival was drawing near. The festivities were wrapped up with a small ceremony - a few speeches, the announcement of winners of various contests, and the like. After all was said and done, we were treated to a film shot and edited by a few students before and during(!) the festival, showing some interview and other fun stuff. When they were shooting it I was really skeptical, but seeing the final result I really regretted not showing more interest - the film turned out great, and I would’ve loved to be in it. I really hope I’ll be able to get hold of the film eventually, as it’d really make for a great keepsake to remember the festival (and the school in general) from.

As if that wasn’t enough, once the film ended, we were treated to some really awesome fireworks. Apparently they’d spared no expense - this was undoubtedly the most amazing fireworks I’d ever seen, and this wasn’t even a real holiday or anything! Sadly I didn’t have my camera on me during the fireworks, but if someone managed to get any decent photos I guess it’s possible I could get hold of them and share them.

It was a lot of hard work, and I’m not entirely sure if I’ve fully recovered, 3-4 days later. But all things considered, the festival definitely turned out to be more fun than I’d expected. Not to the extend that I’d want to do something like this every week, maybe, but all in all it really wasn’t bad. And with a little luck, we might even have managed to open up some people’s eyes to Swedish cuisine. Or something.

See my photos from the festival HERE.

Wow. Wooow. I had such a fantastic day! People would come up to me all day, congratulating me - how so many people were able to find out that it was my birthday, I’m not entirely sure (I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it) - but it was great nonetheless.

In the evening, we went to some sort of Flamenco show which was entertaining, if a bit artsy at times. I don’t know if I would call myself a fan of Flamenco, or any kind of dance for that matter, but watching physical performances is always fun, so I guess I had a good time. Once we got back to campus, the ever-partying guys from Taiwan and Hong Kong insisted that we’d do something, so we went out to the outskirts of campus to do some drinking and just have a good time. I hadn’t expected any kind of celebration really; I figured we’d just have fun like any other Friday night, but I as it turned out, I was dead wrong. The guys did all kinds of cool stuff for me, including the following:

• Sang for me in Swedish
• Sang for me in English
• Sang for me in Chinese
• Got me some cellphone accessories
• Got me some Japanese pastry (in lack of a proper cake)

But undoubtedly, the best part was Atsushi giving a speech… in Swedish!! I was not only thoroughly impressed with his Swedish (of course he did it all phonetically, but it was still damn impressive), but I was really moved as well. No friend of mine ever did something like this for me on my birthday, and this guy I’ve barely known for a few weeks! I get all teary-eyed just talking about it.

I’m so happy right now. This was my best birthday in years.