Parting kiss

A qoutation from today´s curriculum of ”Problem solving – learning to be an expert" occured to me while the parting hour of this year is approaching, Sting is bussy planning A brand new day and there is an ongoing sms-thread philosophizing if starting afresh is possible.
I guess so.... what ever..... I´ll do it anyway, begining with the last swim in Øresund - that indeed is refreshing!

"Finally, intuitively, we also learn from our mistakes. The theory stresses the subjective nature of errors characterising them as conflicts between what the learner believes ought to be true and what is percieved to be the case. The learning that occurs results in a specialisation of the knowledge structures being used, so that they can come to be applied under more appropriate conditions in the future.”

According to this theory, I will approach next year as an expert...
But one thing is theory – in practice the remaining part still is to come to terms with the new representations of reality. And as I am in the profound mood I can´t help but wonder if I really would wish to have missed the wonderful, miserable detours, that my mistaken beliefs led me too this year..
What is certain is we´re starting up a brand new day and we´ll do it tomorrow really early since I am of to work 5.50.

How to start afresh

Enough

My neighbour and I are waking up with a new insight this morning: My threshold is lower at 3.31 in the night! Zip - the tolerance was gone as i woke up in an inferno of bassrythms and playstation sounds.
Finally the dragon was aroused.

Love & hate

God how I love my B&W loudspeakers in this very moment - they have an awesome sound when allowed to volume up. And the permisssion is given right now as I am desperately hating my neighbour and his loudspeakers´ permission to burst into a bass making my bookcases shiver, my brain colapse while exceeding my tolerance threshold.
For the first time looking forward to the 1. st. of February and the exile in CPH.

Glimpse of life

I woke up to great news this morning. My friend gave birth to a babyboy as I was asleep. A sense of wonder and gratitude stroke through the freezing fog covering Øresund and me this morning, and it got me out of the laird, which I wish I could stay in till spring and life returns.
Welcome into this life little messenger of hope, I guess when you struggled through the dark tunnel to get here, I will manage it too. - Cognition Psychology study - here I come and you better make it an easy delivery for me today!

Pert hankies

A friend reached the "weiter im Text"-step today - for her and everybody else here´s backup from a box/Wulffmorgenthaler:

Reasons to wake

Today is not one of those days. 5.30 am. is not a time for wondering if I am looking forward to anything, the answer would probably be no in case.
It just begins. Out of the duvets and on the bike under a starry sky with quiet Hayden in the ears of to another day messing about in the kitchen.
It showed up that the day had a lot of things to look forward to...
Good collegues bright smiling welcoming me to be their guest cook of the day, buns turning out very well and then - as I came home - a book with beautiful drawings was delivered with love and hope from Australia. It is about a red haired girl who wakes up to one of those days beginning with nothing to look forward to...
One day, when I´ll have one of those or when I´ll get my Mac coorporating with my scanner, I´ll bring some of the wonderful and spot-on drawings here.
For now, the red here enjoys the rest of the day she didn´t knew, she was looking forward to.

Afghanian Viagra

What seems to be a strange and questionable US war strategy at the same time seems to be good news for Aghanian women. Viagra is given to Afghanian warriors in return for important informations - no holds are barred in the war against terror - nor in the struggle of satisfying many wifes.

Smoked challenge

Hm... these two and their whole smoked eel bodies were laughing at me in the kitchen at the Children´s home as I came in the dark of the not even yet started morning today.
As x-fishdealer my fillet skill has been trained trough lots of crates with flatfish, but the costly smooked eels were never given to my sharp knife for one or another reason.....
But today neither the French fish expert or the Agent 007-look alike chef was around, so this was my chance! I took a deep breath, called my sleeping mum just in case, and volá - no eels are longer laughing, but stayed to rest on scrambled eggs together with all kind of thoughts telling me eels to be invincible.
Ha!

Bach gear

I am back home with lots of love materialized in jam pots, biscuits and leftovers from mum´s generous kitchen. Though almost an old maid I guess I will forever remain the little girl, and when it comes to goodies for the dark examination period I don´t mind. At all.
Christmas is over - which I also don´t mind.
Speaking of mind - I have enjoyed a kind of peace here.
Breathing is a very recommendable feature of my christmas survival capacity.
So are kids, a moment of solitude as everybody is off to church, a run in the woods and J.S Bach.

Favourite color & Vanish

I guess my niece is bussy in santa´s workshop from where I just got a sms Auntie D.... what is your favourite color? E.
It´s time for favourite colors, favorite kids and soon my favourite thing about christmas - giving these favourites presents. Can´t wait to see E try her new white slim fit Lee jeans, though I have no problem waiting for the reaction from her mother.... That´s why the present for her is 1 Liter Vanish Oxi Action, to prevent E having reprimands when the jeans is no longer snow-white.

Expectations & Aeropress

I know the analalogy to other existential themes is obvious, but I am actually only refering to my coffeeexperience today, when pointing out the fact, that what you have been longing for, sometimes appears not to be, what you expected, when you finally get it. Today it was the case - it was different - though good.
As the reader might have noticed, I don´t hesitate to proclaim the Gatundu coffee from Tim Wendelbo, Oslo, as my favourite. And now I am the lucky one to recieve a new roast of the last batch. Today is the day, where I have finished all other beanleftovers, and I made the precious Gatundu perfectly following the Aeropress recipe.
And it sure is a good cup of coffee.... but.. was this, what I have been talking so much about, longing for to have in my cup again...?
The first zip was not what I thought should be an explosion of blackcurrant, strawberries and a hint of HubbaBubbagum on my tongue...
Hmm....
But then. As I am blogging and zipping it appears - the very clean and acidic taste - that I like. It is more wood-like to me this time, and that´s why coffee is not just coffee, as some might sneer, when I decline Merrild and rather enjoys a cup of tea.
Coffee is a wonder with a fascinating variety, and so are my taste buds. Tomorrow I might find the same coffee very different.
Speaking of wonders, the Aeropress is a coffeewonder, I like what it does to the coffee, and i LOVE the fact, that it is so easy to clean, which sometimes actually can stop me from making me a french press.
Explore the Aeropress through the title - or somebody show me how to add Htmls in the text, please?

Ruby pearls & glazed duck

I promised to post a recipe for the glazed duck served at a christmasparty. Here it is, and I can´t help also bringing the very suitable company for the duck - a salsa of borecole, chicorie-pomgranate salad and christmassy risotto. It is good and it works fine serving it for 25 pers.
A good bottle of Rhône wine is perfect for the fat duck and the bitter chicorie.

Go have fun!

Duck
Melt cane sugar and add whole cinnamon, cardamom, anis and cloves after working off all aggressions on the mortar.
Glaze the duck the last 15 minutes with this syrup, and keep it warm till served.

Borecole
Cut up fresh borecole
dice carrots and apples in the smallest possible way
chop an onion
mix it hours before serving
with apple cider vinegar, olive oil
pepper and salt

Chicory-pomgranate salad
Cut chicory salad as you like
chop lot of fresh coriander, the more the better
cut oranges free from anything but the juicy meat and add it in pieces
free the ryby pearls from the pomgranates
mix it with sherry vinegar and olive oil
add tiny sliced red onion on top together with more coriander

Risotto
Brown eco basmati rice
boil it with cardemom, cinnamon and cloves
Mix it afterwards with butter, sun dried abricots, sultanas, roasted pines and pistachios
Make it in advance and heat it in the oven as the duck is sliced.

Exhausting strategy

Hm.... my coping strategy for the post-exam-syndrom is questioned ..... And there is a point - the strategy following a week of hard work and pressure is oddly enough another series of to-do.....

M

I don´t wanna be the only one not following the latest blogging trend - so here´s tonight´s showpiece - with the special inside-out-feature, so my sister, if she is not in the wear-Chanel-fabric-mood, can turn it into a leather colored mobilepurse...
So I had another creative night accompanied by Carrie, following
an afternoon in Tivoli, litterally with hearts hanging in the trees
and with couples all over, who - according to M´s loudly advice - should get a room. What we got was laughs as my until now hidden skills for playing xylophone was revealed at the wooden instrument playground. After the concert we got ourselves nothing less but a Gourmet Hotdog at the Nimb´s Grillbar, and ended up on the couch when we were suppposed to excercise - Tivoli at Christmas is after all quite an effort, which requires exactly the humour and sarcasm caracteristic of walking arm-in-arm with M.

Street art

Coping VI

"Copingstrategies are the conscious strategies..." one uses to cope with what ever. Speaking of coping, I just realized, I did it again - two things actually:
I finished the Clinical Psychology paper today - deadline is tomorrow at 13.pm. Ahh. I did it oh so many times, coped with this week-pressure-thing, with an obligatory breakdown the second day, my fruit-overeating-phenomena shows up, and it all ends up with a struggle cutting 4 pages off, since I am blessed with the bla.bla.bla skill mixed with a neverending curiosity that leads me to explore far to much for the restricted paper.
With the last dot the next need for coping appears - on one side beeing high and I-did-it-again-happy and on det other side fully aware of the risk of imediate crash into where I dont wanna go.
Not sure if it was all conscious, but suddenly I found my self in the traditional post-exam-coping; cleaning, washing bedclothes, sewing a christmas pressent, watching 4 episodes Sex & the City, drinking the Chardonnay, that has been laughing at me all week trying to lead me into temptations. But I resisted - now celebrating my combat of the never failing post-exam-syndrom.

Nothing unusual

The radio just made me realize, it was not my for once extraordinary vigorous intercoursing neighbour that woke me up in my shooking bed at 6.20, but an earthquake.

Let there be light

The latest news from overseas reports Easter-like weather.
In my latitudes there is not even light enough for a Good Friday and even though I am luckily free for seasonal affective symptoms I did register that if I was only relying on solar energy a total colapse would have happened long ago.
Fortunately my fuel repertoire is wide-ranging and to be sure not to run dry in the darkness of chapter 9´s Autism and pervasive developmental disorders I have had a daily intake besides regular meals of
5 clementines
1 orange
2 apples
1 banana
3 carrots
2 handful of sultanas
1 cappucino
1 americano ( TCC´s Kenya-in spe)
50 g dark chocholate
Please, let there be light.
Otherwise I will gain weight despite of my fabulous metabolism, bike distance and gym.
Please stop this heavy overconsumption of food and So-Bronze Poudre soleil – I want my freckles back!
Please, just a tiny sunbeam?

It´s alive

yes - eating, sleeping and exercising = alive.









P.S: Half of the paper is written

Tiger touchdown

It´s enough. It´s 19.35 Friday night and I am officially exhausted. In this moment I feel all the previous examination periods during my university studies since 2001 at Theology and now Psychology, and it feels like I can´t write just one more of these fucking papers.
My concentration is lost. Or spent. My sharp pen and mind is lost.
My enthusiasm about this fabulous study of our mind is still blooming (appearent in the previous post from this morning), but the remaining parts needed for this study is withered..and for to night my sight is narrowed and I can´t cope with the horizont of two and a half more years with this declining brain and DAMP-like abillity to concentrate.

From my week on the clinic

For a week I am a Clinical Psychologist supposed to figure out how to asses and treat this Iranian refugee woman, who has no interest in her child and feel nothing but numbness and often sees suicide as the best solution. I am told to figure a better alternative, while I am also concerned about Johnny - a child with heavy conduct problems, having a criminal father and a stay at a foster care home in his short history..
There is enough to do here in my lair, which for this week of examination has turned into a clinic, where there is fresh warm buns and a new delivery of my favourite Gatundu coffee (thanks to Tim!).
I could get used to this job - but if that is to happen, I better get startet, so my clients neither take their lifes or smashes up a school as I am bussy blogging or baking.

Falling in love

Arriving after 4 hours by train the best is to be turned completely over when arriving at the station because of two kids and their wild welcome. I litterally fell in love as the kids tumbled into my open but not fully prepared arms. I fell to the wet ground with the two on top in a mess of bags, kisses and laughter. We got the attention from all the train passengers and I gave a damn if it was because of the overwhelming joy or the fact that their attention caught what my nephew suddenly realized too: ”Ooops auntie - your dress is short....”
What ever - love covers most and is never-ending when it comes to aunites favourites.

Rumours disproved

Contrary to expectations it was the elderly members, who made up a row at Friday night´s christmas psycho-party. As the youngsters one by one faded out here and there proportional to the snaps intake, the ageing dancing queens disproved all rumours of senile decay..

Blessed be the blinkers

Love is shit - one of the wise men in my life said today.
Deep shit - my never failing hard-nosed realism added.
Whatever.
We know.
And keep on living as we don´t.

The new black

Everybody should taste the new Ethiopian Idido coffee at The Coffee Collective!
Reminds me of mum´s strawberry juice and is the first serious competitor to my favourite coffee the Kenyan Gatundu from Tim Wendelbo, Oslo. It´s amazing as americano.
It might be the new black.
Mmmmm...

Puzzling phenomena

Today was the day to get back on track.
Not that I´ve been on a side track - Anything but – I ´ve found my place in the world,
but for now there´s a bit crowded.
So I decided it was time for a biscuit, to shelve the Kleenex and wear high heels. When I realized the rings under my eyes were mirrored even in a dirty buss window my decision was confirmed!
So I had a lift across the country with a driver of the favourite kind, who leaves me the keys and leans back as I am testing out the driving properties, which was absolutely ok.
The only minus was my consciousness of the cost of a mixture of forgotten licence, speed and police...
As I later left the speeder and the lift
my grandmum was waiting at the door in the darkness of Jutland
It is funny how I kind of always visit her when I want to get back on track.
Maybe it is due to the very simple fact, that bringing joy is a reciprocal act.
Even though I changed from high heels to rubber boots for the visit, I didn´t miss some rare comments. It´s amazing what comments elderly – 91 year old - ladies can get away with. As I served her my special salad of warm-smoked salmon, almonds, apples, vincotto and spelt grains, she said uhmm.......And then I heard nothing less but
..the grains – you can feed the birds with them!
Yes please!
God she is amazing.
On my way home I was warmed by her knitted socks and her harsh wrapped but not less warm heart, hoping for her to stay alive long enough to celebrate me
becoming a graudate in Psychology - which she also dont misses the chance to tell me
will never happen, since she consider me a perpetual student!


Aint it amazing and a puzzle, how love can endow one with an unbelievable large quota?
Yes it is.
And that´s the hope keeping me more on track than high heels and 211 horsepower do.

Coping III

Finally I´ve got my delivery of the 20 kilograms of Guyave Chocolate which is gonna get me through this winther.

Saved by James B

The good thing to say about Quantum of Solace, Bond and the babes is that even though it is actionpacked too, it never during the 146 minutes reminded me of real life.

Public shit

The most fashionable street
now with public lavatory

Lucky me

Perls from a Tibetan Lama

Little bit let go - little bit happy
So so let go - so so happy
Very much let go - very very happy

Mindful

It´s stormy round here these days.
The sea was rough this morning
and I went out of bed and right into the storm.
That is where I prefer to be, when it´s storming -
right in the centre.
I find it to be the best position for coping with whatever might be.
I´m attending a Mindfulness conference today
which I just realised is a theory and a praxis concerning excactly this.
I´m eager to hear the experts points of view when it comes to coping with stormy life..

Compromise

I started the day hard negotiating with a considerable aversion against waking up.
The compromise solution ended after several evasive actions with the promise of a gentle and warm begining of the day by heating the sauna before going into the autum cold sea.
The other part of the deal is to be carried out now by studying Language Production without bother, and by holding the focus on the topic and nowhere else.
What a bliss that my favourite barista at the roastery gave me a portion of Titira Sidamo Ethiopian coffee the other day.
No holds are bared in the struggle for life.

Best

Best is when black humour and coffee
friends and a so far unseen strenght
show up
That´s the best.

Fox hunt

The yearly fox hunt Hubertusjagten took place today in the woods close to me. The event is named after Saint Hubertus, who after meeting a deer with its horn unwinded with a crucifix, converted to Christianity and went to Rome.


We went a bit north where we joined 40-50.000 other warmly dressed wannabee hunters dressed up in a mixture of Hunter boots, Burberry sqares, hip flasks and fur coats.



We were equiped with croissants, wooden socks and a slightly reminder of Saturdays party.
It was freezing cold to wait for the horses to pass the pond, but we endured thanks to the superior goal of this day,
which was not regarding a transforming experience with a Catholic deer, but as down to earth as hoping for some riders to fall into the muddy water.
What a strange hope...
Nevertheless it was what the camera lenses
and the mob were all eager to witness. Luckily for the riders we were disappointed at that point, but what a beautiful morning, and how ambitious a program for a sunday following a Saturday night!

Call me Jesus but don´t take the candy

This night I dreamt I could walk on water. In fact not just walk, but even jump as high as the crowns of the trees. So I did, and in the top of the trees I saw kids playing dangerously on the tiny branches. I remember the thought in the dream as "thank god I don´t have kids, otherwise I would be scared and worried to death constantly!"
At daytime this Thuesday, I haven´t yet interpreted the kid-part of the dream, neither have I had the opportunity to check out my factual skills concerning waterwalking, but only registered, that to get through this day at the library studying Language comprehension I need to break with my "I don´t eat candy"-assumption.
I might walk on water and jump into the sky on wings of love - but my concentration is not miraculous.

Taking action

The meteorologist labeled this day ”Merciless Sunday” which I refused to accept.






According to my psycho-professor the only question of importance is what works for whom?
This definitely works for me today.