Why Sussie Why??!!

I have a cat. Or rather a big kitten since she turns 1 in September.

Her name is Sussie. She is black with ears too big for her tiny pixie face.


My Sussie is cute, not too cuddly (yet), loves the attention we shower her and has recently grown a liking to climbing onto me when I'm lying in bed and settling down either on my tummy, chest or between my legs. She hasn't gotten round to climbing onto hubby yet but then again, one must conquer the hill before attempting the mountain, right?

Like most kittens, she's rambunctious, curious, playful and bloody clumsy. We've realised that she's also got a bad sense of balance for a cat, has a strange habit of eating string, drools like crazy and sulks if she doesn't get what she wants (like the teenager she is). And according to husband, she's like most women he knows...everything she eats goes straight to the butt. Yeah, our cat has an ass to rival JLo.

During the nights, Sussie goes crazy. She likes the fact that the entire apartment is connected by doors and there are no dead ends. So she spends a large part of the night running like crazy from the kitchen up onto our bed, down under it, out to the livingroom, into the foyer and back into the kitchen. We have no idea what is chasing her or what she is chasing. And I think she's got no clue either. So we started calling The Little Crazy One. She does that all the way until our bedtime when husband closes the door connecting our bedroom to the kitchen so suddenly there is a dead end in the apartment. That is when she goes crazy in the livingroom. Our livingroom is a true blue jungle gym paradise for this little cat.

So many places to climb, so few hours in the night to do it!

And of cos she still has access to our bedroom through the other door that leads to the livingroom. So she enters once in a while when she feels lonely and jumps up onto the bed and occasionally tries to nibble on our toes (mostly the husband's toes. Maybe cos they're bigger and therefore more luscious. I dunno!). Many a time, I have been woken up by the husband suddenly grunting loudly and smacking the foot of the bed like crazy before falling heavily back into bed and into sleep. I am truly amazed by that man sometimes. He can withstand the cat biting his toes a few times in a night and still for some reason does not close the door. Why? I still wonder.

On the nights when we do close both doors, cutting off access into the bedroom, Sussie meows oh so sadly and paws the door. Those have been guilt ridden nights for me but for the sake of a full night's sleep, I close my eyes and try to drown out her cries cos I know she'll just come in and disturb us if we opened the door.

Sussie has a pretty bad sense of balance...for a cat. Many a time she has tried and failed to jump onto a table or ledge and stay on. There was once when I was sitting at the computer table and she came up to me and attempted to jump up onto the table. But she got as far as getting her chin and both paws onto the table while the rest of her dangled down and of cos she fell off and landed in a heap under the table. Such shame she must have felt but such courage for soon after, she moved on towards husband and tried to jump up onto the ledge next to him instead. But we knew that was an even bigger challenge than climbing up onto the computer table so husband told her, 'Seriously Sussie, if you couldn't even get up on that table, do you really think you can make it up that ledge?'

Such harsh words! And as if she understood, Sussie changed her mind and slumped off under the sofa to lick her wounds of shame and contemplate another climb on a different, more successful day.

Sussie likes to sit on the bed when I get ready to go out and watch. And when I am ready, she comes forward to be petted one last time. She's so cute. She loves to be petted although that took a while before she realised just how much she liked it. She's still a very very shy cat and runs and hides when we have company over. But at least with us, she's got no shame and wants to be petted A LOT!

For such a small cat, I often find myself wondering how on earth she manages to shit and pee so much in one day. She doesn't eat that much and certainly doesn't drink that much but the lumps of pee that I scoop out everyday are usually the size of my fist! And the smell of it...well, enough said that it gives off a full and heavy bouquet with a sizeable dose of sour and disgusting.

So yesterday, husband and I had made plans to go out when he came home from work. So as usual, Sussie sat on the bed as I got ready. But this time, she was not alone. She had with 2 of her favourite toys with her, a rat with a long string tied to it so we can play catch with her and a strawberry cushion that she likes to bite and kick. As I was getting ready, Sussie was displaying her bad habit of eating the string attached to the rat. So I pulled it out of her everytime she started biting on it. But then I went to the toilet and when I came back a minute later, there was Sussie on the bed, chowing down on the string like it was her last meal. By the timeI pulled Rat away from her, she had biten off and eaten about 1.5m of string!

THere was no way for me too get it out of her so all I could do was pet her and tell her, 'You know, you're gonna get sick. I can't help you anymore. You're gonna be sick tonight.'

But she seemed fine and the string was gone so shaking our heads in dismay, we left our little Sussie home alone.

We came home a few hours later and the smell that greeted us at the door was HORRENDOUS! There was Sussie looking at us with guilt ridden eyes as she met us at the front door and then running off in shame under the sofa, her safe haven. At first we thought that she had shat really REALLY bad and maybe she didn't make it to her litterbox. I checked the kitchen where the smell seemed to be really strong but there was no sign of an accident. We went out to the the livingroom and it smelled like she had shat everywhere, it was so bad. We searched everywhere for signs of a pool of pee or a stack of shit but NOTHING.

But suddenly, the husband looked under the bed and there it was...no urine, no shit...but A LONG PIECE OF STRING. It was brownish and wet and the smell under the bed would make anyone sick. Little Sussie had gotten sick like I predicted. She threw up the string WHOLE under our bed and it smelled like biological warfare.

And as usual, husband had to do that clean up. But after picking up the pile of SICK, he got so sick of the smell I had to finish off the clean up. I mopped up the entire bedroom and the rest of the apartment while the husband got out the fresh spray and attacked the apartment like he was out to kill flies. All while moaning to Sussie, 'Why Sussie why??! Why do you have to eat that string? Why?! You little crazy one..'


And that is the story of my silly little cat and her many adventures in the apartment.

Good luck my dear klasskamrater!

Since it was the end of the school term, the teachers organised a small party for all the students in the program from group A to D. We were gonna have coffee and cake and maybe sing even. Plus the students who were graduating (all 5 of us) would receive their certificates from Berit, including moi!

Everyone was so dressed up, especially the male teachers. Of cos Klas, my B teacher, didn't comb his hair as usual but he wore a suit with tie albeit a tad short!

Here I am after receiving my certificate and Klas comes running in with his old ass camera (which I think is only a step up from the manual wind up camera).
A precious picture of my dear friend Vlasta who is sooo camera shy. She graduated too! We've been through a lot in school together and she's the one I bombard all my Swedish on since she does the same to me too!
Klas, my teacher from B group and Anita, my strict ass teacher from C group. They are such opposites of each other but I guess good in their ow way. Funnily enough, they are also the 2 teachers I have the most connection with.

And here are my first and final teachers, Leif from A group and Berit from D group. They are the 2 calmest people I have ever met and they never seem to lose their tempers. Ever. Especially Leif who has such a deep, soothing voice and talks ooh so slowly. So slowly that Klas teases him. ha ha!One of the many singing sessions that the Burmese students put together. They love singing! And that guy in the front who is dancing like crazy? I have NEVER seen that man express any emotion or even talk until that day when he was jumping, dancing for joy and singing like crazy. But the moment the singing stops, he goes back to zombie mode and sits in a corner, expressionless.A final fare thee well to my 2 Iraqi boys who have been such a source of fun and amusement my last 2 months at school. And of cos our beloved teacher..ahem...Anita.

And this picture of me and the infamous Muthana is not to be missed. How to ever forget a man so amusingly lost in his own litte world? But he's actually a pretty nice guy and friendly too. He never forgets to say hi and includes my name (for some reason he remembered it more towards the end) when we pass each other.

Bittersweet goodbye hugs and well wishes. I'm gonna miss my klaskamrater (classmates) and all the fun we had in class. It was a happy and sad day all in one.

Farewell my lovely friends. We may or may not see each other again but it was fun while it lasted.

School's Out!...for real this time...

I am officially done with school. This basic Swedish language program anyway though I'm quite proud to say that I was a straight A student. Makes my certificate look gooooood.....
I can continue with school and do higher level Swedish (among other subjects I will have to take) but I'm still pondering. I can always study later on and if I work first and study after I get my PR in 2 years, I get paid to study as well which is great! I'd much rather work first but it's intimidating to have to work and just speak Swedish all the time. Tiring too.

Many of my friends will tell me, hey you did it in Thailand so why not in Sweden?. Well, looking back, even though I did manage to get by life in Thailand, at work I could speak a lot of English. It's not so intimidating when I have to deal with check in and out and complaining guests in English, the language I'm most comfortable with. But if I had had to do it in Thai, I would have probably sweated blood. Anyway, I was lucky in the sense that when I started out in Thailand I could speak English most of the time and my job scope revolved around my ability to speak good English.

It's a whole new ballgame now in Sweden. Look in any guidebook, it will be written that Sweden is the best Scandic country to visit for an English speaking tourist. It's true that most people here understand and can speak Swedish and if you were a tourist struggling to be understood, they will certainly help you and in English too. But to live and work here is a totally different thing. For some reason, the Swedes are more unwilling to speak English and more often than not, I encounter a Swede who apparently can't understand or speak English.

So anyway, many people suggest that I apply at the local hotel but it's so intimidating!!!! Ok ok, I'm being a whiny baby about this but I'm entitled (right?). Most of the guests they have are Swedes and what's more, since it's a small hotel, the front desk receptionists also act as serving staff in the hotel restaurant at night. I'm not so sure about the day tho. Ugh...so scary! But everytime I start to cower, I think about all those immigrants who can't speak a word of Swedish and they manage to live here for years and years...aah, I should just stop whining and get my ass down to the unemployment office so they can do the searching for me. Maybe I can get a job at a nursery or kindergarten instead. That may be simpler...maybe....

Oh and happy midsummer! It's the longest day of the year and widely celebrated here in Sweden. So I'm heading to a party at the in laws with smoked fish and lots of gravy and potatoes. Yum! (who would have thought I would say yum to smoked fish?)

School Excursion

The school organised a little excursion for all the students right after our exams. We were gonna visit a castle, take a boat, visit a few museums and even a plant nursery. Berit had informed us of the trip some weeks ago including that we were to bring our own lunchbox which to me meant PICNIC!

So I planned with a couple of girls in class to bring food so we could all picnic together. I decided to cook up some rice and a couple of Chinese inspired dishes. Managed to prepare garlic prawns, cashew nut chicken (without the cashew nuts cos I only like them as snacks) and black pepper fish. The food turned out EXCELLENT!

The day did not start exactly as I had wanted to with it raining in the morning and being gray and windy. I felt quite upset with the weather but what is one to do. At least the rain had stopped by the time I was ready to leave the house. I didn’t have to go Hallsberg but just had to walk down to the harbour in Askersund as we gonna take a boat to the castle!

As usual I was late and everyone had arrived with the school bus by the time I got there. I had just bought a BEAUTIFUL new tote bag that also acted as a chillbag cos it has aluminium insulation to keep things warm or cool. One such a day, I of cos took the opportunity to use it for the first time. My lovely bag got to go on a boat trip on its VIRGIN use.

We took the WETTERWIK across from Askersund to Sterjnsund castle, a beautiful summer castle visible from our small little town. The castle has the most beautiful view of the lake.



Hopping off the boat and right onto castle ground. But silly me forgot to just turn around and take a picture of the darn boat docked on the teeny tiny jetty nestled among tall weeds in the water. Oh well..

Me, my beautiful new chillbag, Som one of my first friends in school and my 2 lovely male teachers, Klas and Leif.
These are most of the girls in my class. You'll notice that most of us are from Asia. The only European in the picture is Irina from Russia. Would you believe that the lady with the yellow sweater is a mother of 4, the one in white jacket is in her mid 50s and I am the youngest in the group?
More ladies of my class and this time we have contestants from Bosnia (in pink), Iraq (to my right) and my eternally calm teacher, Berit.


And right after my nice little class picture, the silly boys from Group C started screaming 'Wait! Wait! I want in too!' So one by one everyone started joining the picture till we got to this big group which was all that the little piece of land we were standing on could take before we all fell into the ice cold lake.Finally a picture of our Wetterwik chugging away into the horizon. This is a view of the lake from the front of the castle grounds. How gorgeous is the view right?

Even on a cloudy and windy day, the sky is absolutely breathtaking. I just love how the clouds lined up here, both white and gray.

Here is Khaldoun, one of the 2 funny and cheeky Iraqi guys from my C class. They're fun loving guys that I can make fun of and who will laugh with me. Not too many of those around me right now so they are a nice comic relief. Khaldoun is 35 and single and interested in a Burmese girl in the C class tho he denies vehemently everytime we tease him. But we know the truth cos he can't stop grinning everytime we say her name.

THe castle front steps. It may not be a big castle but it is gorgeous both inside and out.

And here is Khassan, the other funny fella. He is my age and is cheekier than Khaldoun. We're standing right in front of the castle steps on the driveway that is raked every Friday.

Here we are in Motala, a larger town south of Askersund, where we finally had our little picnic. Don't be fooled, sunny as it looked behind us, every single one of us were freezing. Took us a while to get this picture what with the bloody cold wind blowing hair every way into our faces to getting the hungry ladies to finally put down their spoons for 2 seconds to smile to the camera.

This is what happens when I try to get camera shy Vlasta from Slovenia to pose for the camera with me. I get swept up in one of her infamously huge bear hugs.

Right after Motala, we headed for Göta Canal which is a canal that runs from Göthenburg to Stockholm, crossing the 3 largest lakes in Sweden. We went to one of the points where the boats pass through what is called slussar in Swedish. I'm not exactly sure what it is called in English but it is like dams built one after another to form steplike passageways for the boats to go downhill. I'm standing on one of the doors of these dams and what happens when a boat passes through is that the water will be let out of the passageway that the boat is in until it reaches the waterlevel of the next step. When the water level is low enough, the door will open and the boat sails through to the next 'step' where the same thing happens. Of cos only one door is open at any one time. But it is something I have never seen before and it is quite interesting.

School's Out!...well almost....

Finally did my final paper and oral for my Swedish classes today and such a relief! I must say that the 3 written tests and especially the oral test was so difficult! But the last written test I had to do today and the oral were the killers. They really were killers! Even Berit, my D class teacher, commented that the papers this semester are tougher than for other semesters. They seemed to have changed the format a little and upped the level a notch. They got that right. I'll know my final results next week which is the last week of the semester as well. So nervous for that!

Imagine having to learn a whole new language and within 5 months (in my case anyway), my written test requires me to write a letter to a newspaper commenting on someone's opinion that had been published on the opinion page of the newspaper. I don't even do that in English and I'm expected to do it in Swedish?! What the f**k? Had to give my opinions on some guy who wrote that ALL Handphones should be banned cos him encountering people talking on the phone all the time was getting on his nerves. And we had to put in our opinions and talk about the pros and cons of that and whether we agree with the writer.

UGH! Took me almost an hour to make it sound semi decent.

And the ORAL! Oh my goodness!

There I was sitting in the room with Berit, who was informing me of my results for my first 2 written tests (tell you about it later) and how the oral is gonna play out later that day. There are 2 parts to the oral test, one is where the teacher gives me a topic and I have to talk about it. The other part, which is more terrifying to me, is that another student who is also taking the oral test at the same time and I are given a topic and we have to debate about it and hopefully come to a consensus or mutual alternative about the topic.

What??! Debate? Like..what??! Debate??!

I honestly don't do well in debates unless I feel very very strongly for something. You can't just throw me a random topic and expect me to debate about it...in SWEDISH!! And then just as a secondary slap to the wartorn face, I get paired up with some guy who had just come to do the tests and damn was he good. That really threw me off balance and confidence levels plummeted to new lows. Suddenly the mind went blank, words come out in the wrong order, I spoke so slowly it was like a turtle with a broken leg and I basically left the exam room feeling like a moron on Xanax.

So that of cos brought down the whole morale and whatever high spirits I had felt barely an hour before were left broken. But some time later (as they say time heals all wounds) I realise that it was just the Singaporean in me that is making me feel so down and thinking constantly about my idiotic performance on the oral test and refusing to be uplifted by my grand results of the 1st two written tests. I mean how can I let such sick, pathetic expressions of me in Swedish ruin the fact that I had scored an excellent 100% for both my written tests?!

100% procent! My eyes almost popped when Berit showed me the test results. And I still deigned to ask if I could look through my paper just to see. Ha ha! Another idiot moment in action. But what to do when the kancong Singaporean in me bursts out in full colour come exam time. Like I always say, you can take the Singaporean out of Singapore but you can't take the Singapore out of the Singaporean. So of cos I will celebrate that with Mathias this weekend with a nice Chinese buffet and possibly a shopping spree or movie (guess who wants movie and who wants shopping?).

Scoring such results does not make me safe though. Oh no, far from it. In order to graduate, one must pass all 4 sections of the exam. It doesn't matter how high you score for the 1st two written, you HAVE to pass the other 2 in order to graduate. Hai...but I think I will do well enough to pass. But the Singaporean in me (coming round the mountain to bite me in the heiny) wants to get good results for all 4. But I also know that it doesn't really matter. What is important is that I graduate. Uh huh...

As a form of celebration (I think), the school has organised an excursion for the whole school. So all 4 classes are going by boat (YAY!!) to the nearby castle for a tour. After that, we shall take the boat again (YAY! YAY!) to a beautiful little town further south (a place I LURVE to go with Mathias for the grocery shopping and eating...what else?) called Motala.

In Motala, we shall visit the car and radio museum and have a little picnic if we want. Of cos at the word of PICNIC, I come alive so I have planned with a few other girls in my class to cook a couple of dishes so that we can all picnic together since there is a nice lake in Motala as well. Actually that lake is the same lake as in Askersund, just a different shore.

So it will be fun and exciting and since unlike many people in my class who have not done the oral, I have totally finished with ALL my exams so I AM FREE!!!!

Hot Summer Days

The past weeks have been really nice and warm though a little too warm some days for me. Mathias' family and most white people around me keep commenting on how I must be used to the high temperatures and it's a walk in the park for me. But the big city girl in me is screaming,'Where the hell is the airconditioned shopping centre?! Taka help me!!'. I do all I can to keep cool and just wish that we had a bathtub just so I can soak in cool water but made the husband buy a fan instead. Demanded it really.

But a great thing about the warm summer days are that it's a perfect excuse to go out and have picnics, something all my close friends know I LURVE! And luckily enough, so does husband.



A lovely picnic by a bridge that overlooks the lake. Great scenery, great company, excellent food. What more can a girl ask for?

The view from where we were seating. Gives one such an appetite surrounded by natural beauty like this.
We visited a beautiful small hotel located by another part of the large, large lake. I wanna stay here someday!! It's so peaceful..

Very quaint and traditional looking hotel. So romance novel like.

And there I was with my Prince Charming. Such a lucky girl I am.

National Day Weekend

Last friday was Sweden's National Day and unlike in Singapore, the Swedes don't generally celebrate it with a bang. Mathias believes it's got something to do with the fact that they've been unoccupied for the last few hundreds of years. It's like celebrating birthdays, kids get really excited when it comes to their own but as they get older, the enthusiasm wanes a little. Not me of cos but this isn't really about me, is it?

So every National Day Askersund has a tradition(It's Sweden, what do you expect?) in which they have a march that starts from the town square. Anyone can join in the march so it's size varies from year to year and it's led by a musical quartet and flag bearers and they march through town right past our window so I could watch the march go by from above if I wanted to. The march ends at the top of a hill in Askersund where the one can find the school museum, many small enclosures where they have farm animals (goats, sheep, chickens, ducks and rabbits) and very very old traditional village cottages where a stage has also been erected for the National Day celebrations to continue with the arrival of the march.

But what was also special on this particular National Day is that Mathias' grandma was receiving an award for Cultural Woman of the Year. She's a pretty special woman, warm, welcoming, kind and friendly. Both she and Grandpa Sjöberg are both wonderful people and I really enjoy spending time with them. Among all the family in husband's clan other than husband dearest, I spend most time with them.
It was a pretty moving moment for both of them on that day. Anyone can tell just how proud Grandpa Sjöberg is of his wife. She was trying to hide damp eyes behind sunglasses and he by pretending that his nose is running so he has to constantly wipe his nose and face. So sweet.

I must say that the Sjöberg clan is a pretty reputable family. Most family in this town know or know of Grandpa and Grandma Sjöberg and Mathias' dad, Torbjörn Sjöberg. They are all known to be trustworthy, good people whom one can turn to for help if needed. And now that young master Sjöberg (Mathias lah) works in town for the town electronics store, he continues and strengthens the good family name plus more people now know him or at least what he looks like. So it's quite nice knowing that I married into a good family.

So back to the National Day celebrations. The sound system is not great, the choir is quite out of tune (though it was better this year) and the violins were out of sync, out of pitch and petty amateurish but one shouldn't be so critical of a ten year old, right? And after the prize giving, the violin plying and choir singing, one has to dance!
So out came a group of traditionally dressed dancers who had been part of the march earlier to dance 4 traditional Swedish dances for us. It was quite fun watching them all spiffed up and turning and twirling to the musical quartet. The difference between this National Day celebration compared to the ones I've been used to growing up in Singapore is the amateur, semi disorganised yet cosy feeling one feels watching it. Nobody cares that the singers don't sing in tune, or that the music is too soft or the violins are out of tune. Everyone is there for community's sake and that feels nice.

Big city girl getting a taste of small town living.
The reputable Sjöberg men enjoying a warm summer's day.