Such a busy week!

Really! It's been busy!

This week I have gone to no less than three interviews, and all of them are related to my "professional" experience... Or at least to my studies... ;) To start from the beginning... I am desperately looking for a job in my new geographic surrounding and I'm quite a picky guy! I don't really want to take a job just for the sake of having a job, I'd rather have a job that means something to me and that is related to my area of expertise. So two weeks ago I was offered an interview for a global distribution company at the Danish airport Kastrup (the one were SAS had a major strike this week). Last Thursday I was first contacted by another company right here in Lund (a smaller company, but still a global leader in surveillance cameras) and they asked me to come to see them on Tuesday... Finally last Friday, I received a call from one of the largest mobile phone companies in the world (also situated here in Lund) and today (Friday) I went on an interview with them. So, when it rains it pours...

Anyway, even though it's nice to feel wanted, it also puts me in quite a predicament. Now I have to choose... Assuming I get offered all three positions... Each job has its own advantages and of course also its own disadvantages... For instance, if I get the job at Kastrup I will have a forty minute train ride plus a twentyfive minute walk to my office... Both the jobs here in Lund are roughly twenty to twenty-five minutes from my apartment by foot. The jobs here in Lund will not however give me as good a salary as the one at Kastrup, but they do not interfere as much with my leisure time...

All three jobs are rather interesting, but I think that I have managed to prioritise them a bit regarding the work tasks degree of interest:
1. Kastrup - Find and improve bottle necks in the operations
2. Large mobile phone company - Forecasting of components
3. Leading surveillance camera company - Distribution planning

So now I only hope that they find me interesting in the same order as I find their jobs... ;) I know that I should feel privileged that three companies are interested in me, and I do! Don't get me wrong! But it would be so much easier to choose if there were only two offers... I know, I'm taking it all out in advance (none of the companies has actually offered me a position yet) but I think it's only natural to start thinking about it before I have to make a decision... Woe is me! ;)

In other news. My mother in law is visiting us this weekend along with my girlfriend’s brothers... Booyah! There will be wine to drink, and things to do! It's a nice break from the everyday happenings that make up my week... Writing my report (yeah right!), daydreaming, going on interviews and re-watching all the Scrubs episodes on www.sharpiesscrubs.tk. So that's good!

Well, that's what's been up... C ya!

Two weeks in one post...

What up G-money?

So I'm sitting here in my new apartment (which by the way rocks) trying to write my thesis but there is just too much other things on my mind... Like the fact that I haven't written my blog in a while and that kind of makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy who hasn't turned in his book report on time... So now I'm giving it a go... This of course sends me in to a shame spiral since I haven’t really worked on my thesis for one and a half week either and I really should finish it soon... Again; naughty school boy = me!

But I've kept busy. You just can't believe the amount of crap that you gather in an apartment over just a couple of years. I tossed a lot of stuff when I moved, but still we had problems fitting everything in to the new apartment. A problem is of course that we don't have a storage room worth mentioning in our building... But thanks to my massive knowledge in logistics and packing, we have managed pretty well to get most of stuff tucked away in the apartment. (Yep! Boasting a bit, but hey! It's nice to pretend... ;D) Also, the weather has been great here so I haven't really felt like sitting inside writing, when I could sit outside on the balcony drinking cappuccino... Tough choice? Nah, not really! ;D

So what else has been up? I've applied for a bunch of jobs, gotten an interview in Copenhagen next Monday, and of course I've been appalled by the shootings at V Tec the other day... My mind is just baffled over how a young guy can take such a wrong turn in life and drag so many people with him... It pisses me off... In the words of Eddie Izzard (one of the greatest stand ups ever) "Guns don't kill people, people kill people... And monkeys do too! [If they have a gun]..." ;)

Anyway... I'm not going to moralise over the weapons legislation in the U.S. and I'm definitely not going to speak my mind of the same legislation... That would be moralising. I believe that there is a time and place for everything and right now the time has come to pay my respect to innocent victims and there families. I feel for you, I really do. It's all such a shame...

I know this won't help, but people, please! Think twice before you screw anyone else’s life up...

My two cents...

Mixed emotions

Hello again!

My big move to Lund is coming closer and me and my lovely girlfriend is trying hard to pimp our apartment. It's a lot of fun, but unfortunately it's not free... But you have to make sacrifices to stay on top! ;D This weekend we went to the almighty, all knowing shrine of "cheap" interior decorating, IKEA! It wasn't all that bad... We left IKEA with a new book shelf, a coffee table, a new rug, another shelf, some lighting and some "good to have" stuff and we weren't set back too much...

Our new furniture of course means that we have a lot of old furniture that we don't want or need for that matter. So how to solve this dilemma? Well there are a couple of options... We could try to sell it, we could just toss it or we could give it to charity.

Selling it would have been preferable; 'cause that would have meant that we could spend the money from the sale on new stuff... In the words of Borat, "it niiiiice!” Well, the thing is... I'm too lazy to get around to posting for sale notes and I can't really be bothered to stay at home to show of the stuff... So no sale!

Our second option was to throw it all away... Now, that would have been a shame really... I'm basically too much of a cheapskate to just throw furniture away... So again, no go.

I think you know where this is going... Yep! We gave it away to charity! (Hence the good feeling today.) This morning (well not really, I received the call at 8 am) I was brutally awoken by the Salvation Army who was to come and collect our furniture. They were to arrive in ten minutes time and there I was, fast asleep... Well, I jumped up from the bed and made myself a nutritious breakfast (I made coffee) and dressed rather quickly. Unfortunately the guys from the Salvation Army, who by the way were both native Norrköping residents, were lost... They tried very hard to find my street (one of the largest in this area) but they just kept on going to the wrong street...

Well, finally they found the right way, and they came up to my apartment and had a look at the furniture. At first they thought that they wouldn't be able to take the sofa and my desk, but at least I convinced them that the desk would be possible to sell. Unfortunately I'm still stuck with my sofa... So now we have three sofas in total, and this poor guy that I'm sitting in at the moment, is doomed for the rubbish pile... And it's been a really good sofa, my parents had it for a long time before me, and it has withstood the wear and tear of three children growing up with it (me and my siblings). But now it is finally going to meet its maker... So long dear sofa, it's been a wild ride... ;(

In loving memory of Sofa 1970 - 2007

A slow day at the office...

Monday... What a wonderful day!

Too bad I haven't been able to get much work done today... So I've been at my office at the paper mill where I do my thesis work. As I mentioned in my first post, my office is in the basement (yeah, it's mentioned in the first post as an excuse why I haven't finished my thesis yet). It's not as bad as it sounds; I have a window... ;)

But anyway, it's been a slow day and it's not over yet! So far I have mostly just edited the layout of my thesis report and added a couple of paragraphs to clarify stuff in later chapters... It might sound as though I've made progress, and in a way I guess I have... This stuff has to be done as well. It's just that I really want it done. Now!

I actually don't have a clue as to why everything is this slow right now, it might be that it's spring, it might be that I'm moving soon (a re-occurring daydream of mine) or it might be that I haven't gained access to the ERP-system that my thesis partly involves. Oh yeah! I haven't written what my thesis is all about... The company that I'm writing my thesis for is currently re-organising their IT systems, and my "job" is to see what current working practices can be used in the new system, and what working practices are needed in the next revision of the new system... All this in order to lower the differences in calculated and actual transport costs.

So what have I been doing except for the layout changes and writing small paragraphs? The usual... What everyone does at work but is not willing to talk too much about... Surfing the World Wide Web! And checking personal e-mails... I have done some useful things as well; I have gotten insurance for the new apartment and cancelled the insurance of the old one... It had to be done! And now I've spent a couple of minutes writing this post... ;D

Well, it's time to get my act together so it's back to work for me.

Enjoy spring!

First time around... (Or the great escape)

So... Hello!

This is my first time ever blogging or keeping any form of journal for that matter... It might be interesting... ;)

So why did I start this blog and why now? And what's with the name? To tell you truth, I'm escaping. I am trying to push what I know I must finally do far off into the future... The problem is that the future is coming nearer all the time. It has a filthy habit of doing that... So that's actually the answer to the two why questions: I felt the need to escape! And the name of my blog? Well, I'm a bit confused at the moment, aren't you?

One might wonder why I feel the need of escaping like this and with all right! I am after all telling anyone who wants to read it what I am doing. Right now I'm trying to escape my thesis and the packing up of my apartment. I'm moving in two and a half weeks! ;D Don't get me wrong, I am really looking forward to moving away from this town and to go live with my girlfriend again, it's just the packing that I dread... It's dead boring, and the fact that my girlfriend moved three months before me means one thing: I need to do most of the packing! I'm not blaming her in any way, I blame my self... I am always doing things at the last possible time and that isn't the greatest quality I guess... It is actually the one thing I mention as my bad quality to potential employers when I am on interviews. Now kids, you shouldn't lie, but there is nothing wrong in tweaking the truth a little bit... Right?

I also mentioned that I wanted to escape my thesis and I do! I really, really do... I've been working on it for... Well a lot of weeks, I started it in November -06 and now we're in late March -07... *Counting on my fingers* 21 weeks! I should have been done by now! It's only supposed to take 20 weeks, and I have just recently started to feel that I am nearing the end... To my defence (I can't believe I'm defending myself against myself) I was working part time in the beginning and I had a break over X-mas and I have been sick and my office is located in the basement and... Feel free to use any of these excuses; they are kind of universal... ;D

Well... Unfortunately escaping might not be the answer to all hard times in life... (Hard!? Yeah right! I'm privileged to be able to whine online and to be allowed to study… Not all people get this opportunity!) So I guess it's time to act my age (nearing 30) and just get on with it... After all, life is to short for sitting around moping... So my advice to you is to set a goal, then ignore it and go out in the sun/rain/snow/weather and enjoy your day... After all, today it's all about escaping... ;)

Cheers!

P.S. I managed to escape for 52 minutes, setting up this blog and writing my first post... D.S.