Tuesday 16 June 2015

Busy-bee

I've been a busy-bee since Tuesday last week. But it's been an interesting week.

Tuesday 9th: I got up early to go to Stockholm and my first ever shift at the tourist agency. To my surprise the first customer we got was a Japanese elderly couple, but since I knew nothing yet and was supposed to mostly just watch for a bit while the shift leader showed me the works, I said nothing. I feel a little sad about that, kind of feels like I lost my chance. But on the upside I've seen and heard several Japanese people about town this week so hopefully I'll get more chances! I've been practising my Japanese tourist vocabulary. Anyway, this first shift went really well and afterwards I decided to have lunch at McDonald's before heading back home where I finished reading my book (Eldritch Tales) and watch some more Supernatural S01. I hope it picks up, because I'm not overly impressed with Supernatural yet. Eldritch Tales however was really interesting. It wasn't as good as Necronomicon, obviously, but it had its perks. There was a lot more poetry in Eldritch Tales, and although I'm not very keen on poetry one of my favourite stories in that anthology became a poem called The Poe-et's Nightmare. I also liked The White Ship, Hypnos, Two Black Bottles, and The Electric Executioner. Most stories in the book were too short to really leave an impression, but I still love his style.

Wednesday 10th: I started work at the day centre at noon and had a really nice day. When work was done I didn't go home but went by bus to the train station (halfway there I met up Toni on the bus) and then we went to Stockholm. We were hoping to catch Marilyn Manson playing live at Gröna Lund amusement park that evening. Both of us were skeptic if we were going to make it, since they would close the gates if the amount of people would reach the limit (which isn't all that unusual with big concerts), but we made it. It was terribly crowded and we had to wait in line for about 30 minutes before we could order food and eat, then we had to wait another 20 minutes to use the toilet before heading off to the stage where we met up another friend. The concert was alright. It had its moments and unlike the last time I saw Manson this time he wasn't high as fuck. But his singing has deteriorated a bit. The songs were still great, though, and the audience was very welcoming. Especially when Manson dared us to throw our bras up the stage. I think he got about 15 bras! xD I was too far back to throw mine, though I seriously considered it :P After the concert I basically fell into bed at 12.30 am.

Thursday 11th: Got up early for a full 8 hours work day at the day centre. Another nice day, especially since I was allowed to leave earlier, which really surprised me. So I decided to use my extra free time to make use of Steam's summer sale. I bought five new games for €7 :P Three point-and-click (Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink, Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness, and Vlad the Impaler), one FPS (Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi), and one RPG-ish (Eldritch). I also started up The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II again, which I hadn't played since January-ish when it crashed on me. In the evening Toni and I had our weekly cosy-up-day with sushi, crisps and dip, and a TV show. We caught up on the two Game of Thrones episodes we had missed during prep-for-SRF and Sweden Rock :) And then I fell into bed again at 11.30 pm.

Friday 12th: Got up early for another full 8 hours of work at the day centre. This day was tough. It was just me and another substitute and one of them just wouldn't listen to any of us. At some points during the day I just wanted to crawl up in a corner and cry, but of course I couldn't and didn't. I felt so proud when the day was over and we had made it without any incidents despite the no-listening thing. When I got home I picked a new book to read, another anthology called Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories. It was released for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary back in 2013. I only read the First Doctor story and although I appreciated the references to Peter Pan, I really didn't feel like the story captured the essence of First. So I played some more Van Helsing II and watched some more Supernatural S01, until Toni got home and we watched an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. together before going to bed.

Saturday 13th: WEEKEND! I woke up at 11 am after having slept for 12 hours (working is tough!) and then spent most of the day reading Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories. I really liked the stories for Second, Third and Fourth, then it went downhill again. I did some shopping and laundry and cooking and then continued playing Van Helsing II. When Toni got home we watched two episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and then we went to bed.

Sunday 14th: Got up early and then read the last three stories in Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories. I really liked the stories for Eighth, Ninth and Tenth. The Eleventh story was written by Neil Gaiman, but I had already read it in his compilation Trigger Warning so I skipped that one. Wasn't too fond of it anyway. Then I watched some more Supernatural before going to bed at 8.30pm.

Monday 15th: Got up at 1 am (yes, not kidding, I do this every week), put on my work clothes, had a sandwich, watched an episode of Supernatural S01, and then went to catch the bus at 2.30 am. I arrived at work at 3.20 am and immediately noticed that the coffee machine was broken, as well as the soda dispenser, and the soda streamer was leaking. No coffee, no sodas, and water on the floor, great. Then I started reading Stjärnklart by Lars Wilderäng. A Swedish post-apocalyptic novel, which starts out with every electronic device getting broken and unfixable. The books selling-phrase on the cover was "Electronics have no immune systems." So there I was reading about society as I know it falling apart due to no electricity and no electronics, while being in a room with broken appliances... The book was suddenly a lot scarier! Work started at 5 am and it went great, and already at 10.15 am we were done and free to go home. As soon as I got home I continued reading. I just couldn't put it down and the next time I looked at the clock on my phone it was 5pm, and I reluctantly put the book down to grab some food and watch an episode of Supernatural. As soon as that was over I went back to my book. Around 8pm I had finished it. Despite figuring out the end punchline in the very beginning, and despite getting sick of the occasional military and wepons drivel that I understand nothing of, and despite the fact that I hated how he killed off characters towards the end, I really liked the book and I can't wait until the sequel is released next month. I watched some more Supernatural until Toni got home. As soon as he was home I fell into bed at 10.30 pm.

Today: Got up early to go to Stockholm and my second ever shift at the tourist agency. Started off great with the new guy not understanding what I said when I introduced myself. Maybe I should just start getting used to being called Ellen, because apparantly that's what it sounds like to stockholmers when I say Elin -.-' Other than that the day actually went impeccably great. We had lots to do and sold lots of tickets and sightseeing cards, by the end of the day the shift leader told us we had the best cash results yet of this season. Felt amazing! Both of us also got complimented on our work so I felt really happy when I headed back to the metro. Instead of going home I took the tube to the university. I had a resit at 4pm and wanted to spend those four hours to last-minute-study like crazy. They're not gonna do that course anymore so this was the last chance ever to resit. I'm hoping I passed, but if I don't it's not the end of the world. It was just a part time thing and I never went to the seminars anyway, because the teacher was not very good at getting her message across. What I failed last time was the seminar part, the part based on the literature went well and I was only 1 point away from passing the damn thing. Hopefully I got that damn point this time. I got home at 7.30 pm and have been clicking around the internet since then, checking out E3 announcements. Still a little annoyed that Bethesda apparantly manages to make Doom, Dishonored 2 and Fallout 4 at the same time, but they can't find time to make Elder Scrolls VI. Guess it won't be around for another 2-3 years then :( At least they announced the Dark Brotherhood for ESO :) And I can always be excited about Dishonored 2 :)

And now I'm going to sleep. Work at noon at the day centre again tomorrow!

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