There's no pleasing CSN

There are a lot of people complaining about CSN and how they seem to be able to fuck things up just for the sake of doing so. I have never really been one of those people. My dealings with CSN have for the most part gone quite smoothly. The few bumps in the road have been fairly swiftly taken care of by understanding and lovely people at their helpdesk.

Until this last semester...

I can understand that things can get messed up because you misunderstand what box to check or what forms to fill out and you don’t take the time to ask and make sure. But this mess started with very specific instructions on how to fill out the forms so we would get the grants for the summer weeks. And believe me, they were VERY specific orders from our CSN liaison in Lund. Everyone in our class filled them out exactly the same way... it ended up with half of us being granted the money, a quarter denied them all together and a quarter of us denied it until we sent in another form and basically redid the whole application...

Right there you might get that: “Waaaaait a minute”-feeling…

Well, we who got denied got the explanation that the way we had applied for the summer weeks was WRONG, so completely and utterly wrong that the instructions could not possibly have come from them...

So we sighed and complied with these new terms and applied again.

Now when doing so I applied for this semester as well and around Christmas I got the form which the school has to sign to confirm I'm there and doing what I'm supposed to. I immediately realised I would loose it before school started but I tried to be good and put it in one of those "I'll know I put it here"-places. Naturally it was gone when school started.

So I called CSN and asked if I could have another one and got the answer "No, you stupidhead... now you have to apply for that semester all over again... duh!" Well... that was the consensus of the conversation anyway. So I sighed and waited for the new forms which I filled out, got it signed by the school and sent back... Now almost a month later I get a note saying I'm denied the grant because I have already sought for this semester and got a verdict for that... which is to say I'm supposed to get the grant as soon as I've sent them the form confirming I'm at school and doing well... which I have to get another one, but can't until I've reapplied... which I can't do because they have already given the thumbs up.... Gah!!!

Do these people talk to eachother? Do they even follow the same rules?
There's just no pleasing them...

We've got too much crap

We started packing this weekend... We will not be moving until mid-April but we thought we might as well get started so we don't have to do it ALL in one day later on.

We managed to cram most of our drawing- and tattoo supplies into a couple of boxes. Tias had one or two filled up with computerparts and I stuffed a few with the larp-gear and general knicknacks like vases and dragons... holy crap on a cracker do we have a lot of dragons. I blame Tias...

Anyhoo, at the end of the day I found my darling slumped over by his desk. His eyes were filled with such resignation I just had to ask what the matter was... With a little sigh he glanced about the room before turning to me. "We've been packing all day, and it doesn't even show... we've got too much crap... "

And there's more to come... We have a kitchen table with chairs, a bed, two sofas, a couple of lamps and an unknown number of boxes waiting for us to come get them in Kalmar... Lucky for us the house is big, because we're going to need every square inch of it.

Apart from packing we went into Malmö to look at tiles and other things for the bathroom we have to re-do. I think we found everything we wanted so now we just have to find someone to do it and see how much it will cost us. Hopefully we'll have the whole process started by September, but we'll see… until then we'll be keeping to the downstairs bathroom just in case.

Alas the queen of procrastination can ramble no more for she will have to take her leave and go back to the dark and gloomy world that is schoolwork. Pity me...?

Trees are awesome... people? Not so much...

I felt kind of guilty about the last entry and in particular the picture. I have asked Zofia for permission to use it... I just didn't really wait for her to say it was ok... which makes it not ok I guess... But I hope she can forgive me, and if she does not she has my word that I will take it down immediately.

Anyhoo... I wanted to show you I have some pictures of my own of more or less abused trees and how they deal with it.

The first pictures were taken outside the hospital in Lund. The protections around the tree has most likely got hit by a car and thereby got this deformed. It did it's job and protected the tree, but the people responsible for the trees did not do theirs. Instead of replacing them the tree guards have been left pressed against the tree for a good two or more years, forcing the tree to try to grow around the metal.

Now the tree would most likely have survived, but I was still glad to see the guards removed and replaced when I visited last fall... A couple of years too late, but they got it done. ;P

There were trees planted in the same manner as these along street after street in a newly built area. You can't see it too well in this picture but the trees are literally planted less than a meter from the house with their branches growing into the spouts and roofs. We got sent there to prune these poor bastards and we did what we could, but it felt like time wasted. The trees were planted inches from lightposts, electrical cabinets and as I said before... the houses... They had no proper growing ground and will never become fully grown before they die or has to be taken down so they won't do any damage to the houses.

I just want to know one thing: Who let this landscape architect graduate?

This isn't really man-made... But for some reason the stem started dying, perhaps it got injured and fungus got into the wound or the tree simply became too old... In any case the trunk started withering away from the inside, but remained standing from the living parts in the outer parts of the trunk. (Please excuse my explanations. My English isn't really that great when it comes to gardening and technical terms). Anyhoo, what then happened was that the crown of the tree sent down shoots and created a new sort of trunk. Surviving no matter what, it seems...

Lastly, this is man-made and awestriking. At Östra Kyrkogården ( I think, if my memory serves me right ) they have created this colonnade of limetrees all grafted together. I can't even begin to describe how that meticulous work has been achieved but it is beautiful... more than a dozen trees in each row all fused into one. Our teacher wasn't sure, but it is quite likely that if one of the trees got a serious injury to its trunk or roots the other trees, being connected to it, would help support it and give it nourishments as it is still part of the one huge man made tree... now that is pretty awesome don't you think?

Yea, I'm such a green-nerd...

The chainsaw is my friend

We had our second day of chainsaw training yesterday. We had the first lesson the day before yesterday were we got to take the chainsaw apart and learn how to clean it thoroughly, replace the string you pull to start it and other such fun things. I love that stuff! I'm hardly a mech-head in any way, but to get to tend the inner workings and make sure it is all whole and feeling peachy makes me all warm and fussy inside... Can you have maternal instincts for a machine?


Anyway, so today we got to go out into the woods. I made sure I got the same saw I tended to yesterday and after some briefing in the snow we filled the tanks up and got started. My little darling was a bit grumpy and didn't want to start at first, but when he got going... Well... he wasn't shy I can tell ya...


It was kind of scary to work with it though. Not that I held it at arms length between my thumb and index finger, but I don't like it when I know stuff perfectly in theory and then not have it work at all when I try actually doing it. But we have awesome teachers with looooaaaads of patience and with a little help I got it right and then passed the practical part for "chainsaw driver's licence A" with flying colours. =D


Today... well, my arms are falling off... besides that it was a pretty slow going day at school and when I got home we watched Avatar... at the movies... just let's say we went to the movies... It was ok, I guess... The animations were off the chart, so incredibly beautiful! And the story was as well, but I won't watch it again. My dearest had to hold me from throwing stuff at the tv and it's probably not healthy getting completely pissed off at fictional people when there are enough real ones you can waste your energy on.


Today's green notes:

Tending to buildings and tending to green areas require completely different skills... For some reason people who hire janitors don't get that... So they get someone who might be awesome at fixing the plumbing to tend to the green areas around the house as well. Because that's a really brilliant idea. You would never do it the other way around. Who hires an arborist to fix their toilet?

Did you know that on most (Swedish) cemeteries, especially the smaller ones, they calculate what areas are covered with grass, gravel and so on and then estimate what time will have to be used to tend to these areas? These calculations do not include trees, bushes and perennial plants... because they magically tend to themselves apparently. So you might want to be weary of the trees when you go visit your dearly departed... It's quite likely they will be tended by either people who have no idea what they're doing, or people who're not given the time to do what needs to be done.

Lastly... just because you own a chainsaw does NOT give you the credentials to properly prune and cut back trees.

The picture is taken by Zofia ( http://inspirea.blog.se/ ) and the full rights go to her and her wonderful inspirational blog about a gardening. This is a perfect example of people who should not be allowed near trees with anything sharp. That tree -might- spurt a bunch of panic sprouts that'll make the ends look like brooms and then it will most likely be infested with mold and fungus, rot and die and then finally fall down and smash something. Trees that have been treated like that makes me cry.

Handy tips when going to a fast food restaurant

Hi!
Decided to take this in English instead.... although right now this will most likely only be read by Söta, my brother and possibly my mom you never know.

IF anyone else happens to trod by I decided to give you a few handy tips when eating at a place like McDonalds, Burger King or somesuch. They are really simple little steps that won't make things more difficult for you, but I can promise you it will save the poor person behind the register a whole lot of time, effort and patience.

1. If you have bought a drink, be it small, medium or large, you only need ONE straw/drink. If you are planning to share it with your friend you might possibly need two. You will never need five or twenty, I promise. Even if the restaurant would suddenly be flooded it will still not be enough to build you a raft so just pick, and I repeat, ONE straw and walk away from the condiment table.

2. If you have no sense of taste, do not bother with the salt and pepper. If you still have working tastebuds you don't need 20 bags of salt. I know they're free and if you have a salt-deprived family at home, by all means grab a handful and take it with you. But please stop raiding the condiment table of all the salt and pepper you can find only to leave them on your tray/table/seat. If nothing else it's a fucking huge waste of resources because we're not allowed to put them back, so restrain yourselves people!

3. If you are visiting the restaurant with children, please use the time you stand in line to ask them what they want if you do not already know or decide for them. Trust me, they will not tell you once at the register as they will become instantly shy of the person behind the register and develop acute muteness, causing the people behind you to have to wait even longer while you try to coax your offspring into telling you what they want.

4. Be aware of the signs. If there are papers with text put up on doors or menuboards they might have information concerning you and your visit to the restaurant. If you do not wish to be bothered with such things, you have automatically voided your right to give the person behind the register attitude when it turns out you can't buy the icecream you've waited five minutes in line to buy. At least not when there were signs on the door AND on the menuboards you've been staring at for said five minutes.

5. The person behind the register is not responsible for changes in prices, campaigns, routines or general appearance of the restaurant (like the colour of the walls). Feel free to politely speak your mind of such things and ask if the person can relay these thoughts through the appropriate channel or use available feed-back boxes. But, and I can not stress this enough, prices, campaigns and somesuch are decided at headquarter level... NOT by the person behind the register.

6. Unless it is the owner of the restaurant behind the register, they are not allowed to give away free food, dip-sauce or desserts just because you would like something and do not want to pay for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is stealing and it is naughty so stop trying to make the staff do it for you.

7. Yes, it is called fast food. But if it has been slow until you showed up there will most likely not be food ready to serve. If that would be the standard practice all day every day the amount of food wasted would be huge and if you can not wait for four minutes for your food, you wouldn't have had time to eat it anyway.

8. Yes, it is called fast food. But if there are a dozen freshly made cheeseburgers ready to go, and you just can't be bothered to pick the pickle out yourself and the line stretches to the door behind you: You will have to fucking wait. Please excuse my language, but that is the way it is.

9. Because of health and safety regulations animals are not allowed in to the restaurant unless they are in the form of patties or nuggets. That includes the Chihuahua sized dogs, even if “you're just gonna order real quick”. I don't care if it is cute or if you do not want to tie it up outside. Send a friend in or go home because the fine the restaurant will have to pay for having animals inside is far greater than whatever they might have made selling you a value meal.

10. If you get the overwhelming feeling of disgust, anger and/or annoyance every time you enter the restaurant and you think everything in there is always wrong, from the behaviour of the staff to the taste of the food there is really no reason to lash out at the staff or other guests. Just don't go there anymore.

I hope these have been helpful guidelines for anyone reading this and if you have any questions feel free to ask, I'll be here all night escaping from my essays.

Nytt namn, ny färg... kanske för flera dagar framåt?

Nåja, namnet behåller jag nog... tog fasen hela kvällen att komma fram till det, speciellt som höjdare som "Cake or Death" och "Something Wicked This Way Comes" redan var tagna ;) Men tack vare Söta är jag nu rätt nöjd.

Jag har också beslutat att begränsa mig lite. De duktiga bloggarna verkar ju ha något slags tema, i stil med "Inredning", "Barn" och sådär. Jag vill också vara duktig så jag har bestämt att Vilse I Min Egen Trädgård ska begränsas till:

*HUSET
*Min karriär som trädgårdsmästare
*Lajv/Rollspel
*Livet i största allmänhet...

Känns bra? Jag vill påstå det... Känns som jag har fått flyt på det här nu... Ska bara bestämma om jag ska fortsätta på svenska eller övergå till engelska. Stora saker på gång alltså, så se till att hålla ögon och öron öppna för uppdateringar!

I is fail

Hehe, världens snyggaste blogg... icke! Men det finns en header iaf. Och ja, de enda bilder jag har på mig som inte är äldre än typ tio år är på mig i lajvkläder. Lev med det! :)

Som ni märker har jag ingen som helst blogg-kunskap, ingen insikt i rätt etikett eller vetskap om vad gör en till en lyckad bloggare. Men jag tar tacksamt emot alla förslag!

Tills dessa börjar trilla in ska jag besöka min bror ( http://www.tredjegangen.blogspot.com/ ) och det tycker jag ni också ska! (syskonpromoting ftw!) =D