The beginning of the year was pretty on the downside. I came home from Washington DC the Christmas of 2000, and I was pretty much beaten down in my shoes. For one, my au pair/nanny experience had not been very good - I was not allowed to do much by the family, and then I was homesick something fierce - and they complained about me, too. I was not a very happy person at the beginning of the year - I was applying to go university and read medicine, and in the meantime, I had to have some sort of work.
And well, being an au pair was pretty much the only option - only, this time I was not going abroad. I was looking for work within Sweden, and I found a family in Stockholm who needed an au pair. This family was a doctor family (both mom and dad were doctors) and they had three sons. I was to live with them, and do the things an au pair does. If anyone is unclear on what this means - it means that you are taking care of the kids, making sure that they are getting to school, cleaning the house, picking up kids after school, driving them to all sorts of activities, handle all the household chores needed, cook....yeah. It was hard work, but it was better than the position I had in Washington DC - now I could at least go out, and do whatever I wanted in the weekends.
And I had an Internet connection. Yeah, my Internet addiction was for sure there, already, and I had started to roleplay a little online. Not much, and I was pretty careful, still. And I don't think my English was any good, either. -L-
I stayed in Stockholm from February to June, and then I went back home to Falkenberg. And helped out in the summer shop that Dad was renting that year. I can't remember if this was the first or the second year he did that - I think it was the second year, and in that case, it was pretty much a sucky and cold summer. We didn't do very well at all, but we did learn a lot of things. For one, my family has a pretty high level of general knowledge. You see, each Saturday in the summer, we had ...and now I am at loss for an English word, I don't even know if they exist outside of Sweden. Walking quizzes? You go for a walk, and answer questions. Granted, the people who did these quiz walks were pretty much seniors - but I thought they would be much better on general knowledge. They weren't.
And then, in the autumn, I went to university. But no, I didn't get into medicine, which was a dream of mine for a long time. I went to Gothenburg, and took a course in English. I was commuting at this time, which meant that I was on the train for two hours a day. That was a bitch. Also, afternoon lectures is not my thing. I can fall asleep right in front of the lecturer, and that is SO not good. But I do think I did rather well with English - well enough to apply for another course the next year - to be taken abroad, in Brighton.
This was also the autumn when I got more involved in the online roleplaying. More being the keyword, and I stayed up just a little later than I should have. This was when I met my first online love, too. And the man who is currently in my life now, even though I did not exactly...know him very well at this point. Yeah, it is dangerous to roleplay and fall in love with another character, and the player behind that character, but that's what I did. Eventually. Internet sure did get more and more interesting, and I do believe, this was the year when I seriously got into creating avatars.
In hindsight, this year, I realized quite a lot of things.
- Creating graphics and design is something that I got hooked to, and addicted to. It was something I wanted to expand on, learn more, and perhaps do even more.
- Life doesn't always go like you want it to. I thought I was going to be a doctor, but as it turned out, I got into language...and I continued down along that road and got into design and web design eventually.
- I am never going to be an au pair or nanny, ever again. Nor will I ever hire one for my own children - if you are going to have kids, you are supposed to bring them up yourself, and not leave it to strangers.
- My family is unique, and I love them to bits. Even if they drive me mad now and then, they are always there when I need them, and give me all the support I could ever need.
- Love can appear in the most strange places. And you never just never know.
- Friends can appear in the most strange places as well, and you just never know about this either.
There. It turned out to be a lot of things going on this year, and I actually realized more than I actually thought I had. An awesome idea, this post, all the credit to you, kelly, for coming up with this, and making me think! Thank you!
