Summer Sun

I'm not really in the mood to write so much, but I just wanted to say how amazing the last week and a half has been. Yes I've missed out the Stockholm marathon, me finishing my Masters degree, Midsummer madness etc, but I really felt like I should say something about the goings on now.

Basically summer has arrived, it's been late twenties for a while, not a cloud in the sky, all in all pretty perfect. We are blessed in Uppsala, not only being so close to Stockholm, but also the third biggest lake in Sweden, Mälaren, is only 10mins or so away. It's almost a semi hidden paradise, despite its size- no students really venture there and even in the height of summer its pretty quiet.

Well not any crazy stories etc to tell but we camped out at the lake last Saturday. We had the delights of a late night and early morning swim, to watch the sunset go down with flat calm water, barely a ripple to be seen is just awesome. You feel like you're in a completely different area, totally remote, just fields, trees and the wildlife. It's also bizarre when it's light out all night- Sweden is one of those courageous winter places. I mean summer days are long and bright, winter days are so short and dark. Nonetheless, I still love both. You have to embrace both, none of this moaning crap about 'being too hot'- something which is of note in England at the moment. Well here's a taste of our outings at least. A picture says a thousand words and all that........

All of the above are from the same place...Hammarskog, Lake Mälaren

We also went to Trosa, outside Stockholm....you get the idea about the place:

p.s. the V50 is immense

Volvo. For Life (Or until you change your car).

I'm not going to explain the why's etc, but here is our new V50.

Coming from 3 very small beasts, in order of Nissan Micra, Toyota Yaris and Chevrolet Kalos, we've upgraded. Not only have we got a nicely kitted out machine, we're saving the world at the same time: Sweden unlike most of Europe is quite energy efficient. Our car is a 1.8F or flexifuel. It means we can fill up with petrol or ethanol, the later is a more sustainable, albeit less efficient fuel. Apparently we can do roughly 20% less on a tank of ethanol (you can mix the two in whatever quantities also), where ethanol itself costs over 30% less than regular petrol. You do the maths.

p.s. Volvo call it saville grey, i.e. not black not grey, lets call it a light shade of black : )

p.p.s. We can have conversations in the car without shouting too (not because we get mad in small cars) because the in car noise is a lot quieter!

PhD

Shouldn't be long until I'm on board. Never thought my life would be going in this direction! However, I love using my brain! I love Sweden, I love life. I posted a while back some 'clever' acronyms and have found some extra additions:

Patiently hoping for a degree (well that would be three in total.....greedy right?!)
Please hire. Desperate.
Probably heavily in debt
Probably heading for divorce (not going to happen I'm afraid!!)
Pizza hut driver (probably couldn't get a job there!!) or professional hair dresser?!

Anyways, for those who dont understand, PhD is Doctor of Philosophy (comes from Latin!). It's a doctorate, basically meaning it's the highest degree you can get. It leads to two outcomes (really): heading towards becoming a professor or sounding worse, a researcher. Either way, life is tough, long hours, crap pay and limited recognition of the hours you put in. So why? Well, because you believe in something, because as a kid you always loved doing experiments (and we are all just big kids), because life is too easy otherwise (?!), because you want to prove some people wrong, because you can.

My reasons are my own, I want to prove to myself that I can do it. Its an incredibly tough road. So, long hours, crap pay, constant failure (with experiments) , why bother? Well, when life is on a plate, it's too easy, too simple. To fight for what you want, the challenge, albeit a huge one makes life worth living. Pride is something no-one can take away from you, except yourself. I think I have the biggest chance to complete a Phd over here, working with the best in the World. To be around these people is an experience by itself, to understand the sheer brilliance of these Professors etc is something else. I will never be that dedicated, smart etc, but at least I can try.......

I've been busy

No time for updating this thing I'm afraid. I've handed it my thesis, so that is good of course. I have to make a presentation and defend my thesis next Thursday.

Of course this is made all the harder as I'm still busting my balls in the lab. I'm not convinced I'll get any rest after, either : ) Lazy students my arse.

On the plus, me and J have something 'for life'. Figure it out.

Films

There's a few films coming out (or out now) which look pretty good. The list includes, Star Trek, Terminator 4, Transformers 2, Ice Age 3....We watched X-men the other week, which I thought was pretty good actually. If you like those type of films you like them all....pretty much. Here's one which I can't miss:

Is football the biggest joke in the World?

Well it shouldn't surprise you with the aftermath of this Chelsea, well Drogba saga. Oh football, where do I start?!

In case you've had your head up you arse today, you might have noticed the outpour of boo whos surrounding the appauling refereeing in yesterdays Champions League game. Besides Michael Ballack dry humping the referee because he didn't give a penalty (for a blatent handball), a certain Didier Drogba decides to try hunt down the ref at the end of the match and tell him/the World his opinion of the useless Norwegian ref: 'a f*****g disgrace'.

A f*****g disgrace indeed, football is. Imagine having to run around on a lovely soft field of grass for no more than 90-180 minutes a week, to abuse your co-workers, the people effectively in charge of you then get paid 100,000's pounds a month to do it?

While I agree the refereeing in the Chelsea Barca match was god awful; how does this justify this joke of a response from these 'professional' players. Ironically Drogba, who is renowned for diving, cheating, faking injuries gets a little taste of his own medicine, then hand bags at the ready.

My football hero growing up (being a lefty too) was Ryan Giggs, even now, at the end of his career, still intelligent, un-assuming, never let the spot light go to his head. Do we know anything about his private life? Do we care?! To me still, he is what kids (who are interested in football) should look up to. However, modern day football is getting shrowded by the ignorance of these idiotic players.

If you told your boss at work to f**k off, the chances are you'd probably get fired right? Apparently not in football. A great example these (actually shitty) footballers are setting for the young kids out there. Football is beyond a joke, these people are retarded in-greats, who are living in some fantasy land. Every time I see this disrespect for the fellow man, I cringe inside. What a piss poor excuse for a human being these 'stars' are. I can't see how football has this elevated status, at all. There is nothing these players do that you look for, to look up to.

Salary capping should be inforced, make football a part time job, how do you justify paying someone over 100,000 pounds a week?! Honestly, what is wrong in this World? Football out of nearly all sports is one that requires the least skill, talent, fitness, intelligence and everything else. Yet nothing is done about it.

I'm fighting a losing battle, but my point is more than valid. Football sucks, end of. For those who think I don't know what I'm talking about- I can live in nostalgia when it comes to this, because now my Drogba impression, well his arrogance anyway, that I know I know more about football and have more ability than those football fans, who would no doubt lynch me, would ever know. Been there, done that.

To end on not such an angsty thought, well kind of, why don't they have video replays for god sake?! Probably because, yes that's right, football is about as good as an English Summer day.....bloody awful.

I'm not surprised!

The title of this post is a reflection of the death of Hester Stewart, a medical student, which I will discuss in a bit.

As it's been a while, there no doubt has been a myriad of things that have happened, but time more than anything is a limiting factor. On a more 'boring' front, the reason is mainly I'm writing up my Masters project, that's it. Anways, I digress from the more interesting stuff.

Firstly Johanna is currently in the middle of her practical training for her degree; she's teaching over in a local secondary school, all about health and nutrition type stuff. Ok, to the outside possibly not so interesting right? Well, wrong. She got some amazing news a few days ago- offering her a job (starting after summer I think) at least until Xmas or June next year. To be offered a job for one is something special, especially as she's only supposed to be shadowing (or similar). She's taken lessons and got involved and it's already paid off, so a big congrats to her.

Having recently seen the London marathon results/pics etc, it's obviously weighed a little on our minds. The mental toughness is something which I believe is a big plus for me. 'Failure' is not an option, I will not be beat, that's as simple as it is. I'm trying to rub a little of this 'competitive' nature off on J, we shall see.....The target is anything under 4hrs, 3.45 would be an absolute result for me; I'm not a runner, my knee/ankle could be a problem, but pain is only temporary right? I've got way too much pride to just stop (unless my leg falls off, but then I'll crawl damn it!) and give up. Bring it on.

I'm still in the process of getting accepted on to my PhD. 'Formality' is a word I want to keep hearing, but seriously, it should be smooth sailing......

So back to the original title. It's not so much of a moan, more of a 'shocking' (yet not really) thing surrounding the death of this girl. As all parents/friends of anyone that dies (especially young) it's all complements, how great they are and what not. The same is true of this girl, the 'oh not my girl, she wouldnt do this and that' ' she's sensible' syndrone: so basically the story tells us of this 21 year old who has died apparently using a party drug. To make the story sympathetically worse by adding she was a medical student, so of course she MUST be clever etc and wouldn't use drugs....yeah, that works. Anyway, besides looking like a hippy (and being called Hester, a female by the way), I thought to myself, oh she's died of ecstacy or some sort of amphetamine or something, as the title says 'party drug'.

However, as I read on, turns out they found GBL in her system- what is that I hear you ask? Well it stands for gamma-Butyrolactone. Sounds ominous already. Well it is. So the poor mother of this now deceased child has called to the Government to ban this drug. Ok, so whats the problem? Well unlike cannabis or some 'normal' drug most punk kids get high on, you know the usual ones you hear about in the news. I thought so what is this GBL? Apparently illegal in the States and Canada, the mother, seemingly disgraced that this 'drug' is in society wants a ban, as mentioned before. The funny thing about it all, that GBL is a solvent found in stain removers, superglue removers, cleaning agents, paint strippers, you name it. Why the hell would you take this?! How can the mother ask for a formal inquiry why it's not banned in the UK?! What the f**k is going on in this world that an apparently 'intelligent' person doesn't know why its probably not a good idea to drink things found in paint stripper?! Honestly!!!! How can the mother be so mad it's not banned?! There are millions of chemicals that a monkey knows you shouldn't drink. If you drank enough shampoo you'd die from it: 'The government must ban this terrible hair cleaning product'.......christ alive!!!

It wasn't long ago, in the prime of my youth that we did the occasional stupid thing- have a beer or a few, knowing we weren't 'legally' allowed, you know, these type of things. The so called bar was never that high, I never did drugs, I certainly never wanted to drink chemicals that cleaned toilets, but youth of today have really pushed the boat out. When getting drunk (and possibly high nowadays) is not enough what do you resort to? The latest thing I knew about was people getting high on horse tranquilizers- again, what the hell are you thinking? Hopefully this is a case that she was drugged, the old slip it in to her drink type thing, to even salvage a bit of her pride or even family pride, as this is just bizarre. For her mother to make such a big deal about making the specific chemical illegal is beyond me, nothing about thinking it is normal to drink these things?!

It begs the question to what is next? Snorting hoover dust? Eating superglue? Drinking toilet cleaner? One thing for sure if drinking chemicals in paint thinners etc is 'cool', I'm definitely out of the loop......