MAFUKA

That's my neighbour from next door in the student corridor, Malin ... Unbelievable! And I thought she was shy!!!

I forgot to tell you something yesterday: Francois took Vincent and me to Ugglan. It was great!!! Well, you have to imagine Ugglan (which means "the owl" in Swedish) as a very big cellar where an ex-hippy guy (who would be the perfect guy for the mafuka mum by the way - inge, aren't you interested???) is bartender and DJ. On the walls are mini-busses, flowers and owls painted. Or they decorated with old French newspaper, old Marlene Dietrich movie posters or record covers. It just doesn't look at all like a place in Stockholm. Maybe like a short outbreak to Berlin. From Thursday to Saturday they have concerts there but during the week it's almost empty and people go there only to play boule and ping pong or drink a coke (like me for example).


Francois, Vincent and some owls at Ugglan.


In the background you can see some Swedish people play boule.


Well, this makes me feel really at home at Ugglan.
No, I'm not talking about the wine bottles - I mean the record cover of the Hounds. I have exactly the same picture hanging as a poster in my tiny studend room :)

Inge, you should really consider to get in contact with that nice bar tender ;)

Just that you know how it looks right now in front of my window!
.........
.....
...
OK, not exactly right now! Now it's night and I took that pictures yesterday morning.

ok, i didn't get any cool clothes today ...
BUT hanna just booked a little journey for the 2 of us toooooo ...


AMSTERDAM!!!!


wooooooohoooo!!
that will be soooo great. i know it. it must be.
so i will have the greatest pfingsten ever. jawoll :)

My latest f.f. (French friend) Vincent and I managed to get up early (10 a.m. - hehe!) and take the subway towards slussen in order to get a tasty piece of the big REA-cake at Weekdays. It's the famous Cheap Monday supersale, giving you a 75% price reduction on Sweden's designer jeans trademark #1.



I bought new tight jeans (in "used black"), black knee-lengthed pants, 3 t-shirts (red, white and black) and a oh-soooo-soft-and-warm coat. Oh la la! But guess how much I paid! 550 SEK (about 55 Euro) ... instead of 2200 SEK!!! WAHOOOOOOOOO!

Vincent just paid 220 SEK I think (one t-shirt and a pair of jeans).

AND:
By the way, as we're talking about fashion and good looks and fancy people, today has been also the day of interested looks and compliments ;) At the T-station Slussen this really handsome, well-styled guy (black hair with a perfect cut and a very well-suiting black coat) was passing by and couldn't turn his eyes from me. first i thought that it's maybe one musician acquaintance from some time ago and I just don't remember (not very likely as I tend to remember pretty faces - but still possible here in Stockholm) but as several people at the Weekdays shop addressed me with questions because they thought that I was working there (and ALL Weekdays shop assistants are goddamn hotties!!!) and even my otherwise very functionally talking Chinese colleagues were saying: "Oh, Janis! You look really beautiful today!", I think there must be something about me today :)

tonight i go to the concert of nouvelle vague at the arena. not that i like nouvelle vague so much but my beloved friend andi (not the guy with the number!) convinced me to come. soooooo, i have a "date" ...

yes yes, i know. i have been a really bad brother.
but my job (which is to have an eye on everything happening in austria) got quite exhausting ...
i was tired. yes, i was very very tired. but last night i finally had a good sleep that lasted for 11 hours. my beloved icebear (the one carina gave me for my birthday) started to think i suffered from the sleeping beauty-syndrome. but no! i got up and began a new life ...
nearly.

so, what has happened around here? i can't even remember when i wrote about my life here for the last time.
facts are:

(1) i seem to have a problem with people ... or at least with nerds. what the fuck do they want from me?? i just don't get it. they seem to be really lonely and bored. but is that really my problem?? (janis, my dear, this has nothing to do with you, ok? i know you're different. you're not a typical nerd, ok?)

(2) i feel so comfortable with gay people that i seem to forget that there are nice hetersexual men walking around. but if i get to know one, of course i have to lose his number. maybe i will never see him again ... where are you andi? come and find me!!!!

(3) i am really glad to tell you that i can work at the filmarchiv austria as a trainee in july. i am so darn happy about that!

(4) krems is still goddarn boring. i was working with inge, the mafuka mum, on friday during the day and in the evening i met with some friends in town. we went to ulrich (THE place to meet up - but fucking boring) and later to avalon exil. oh my god! i felt quite old around those 16-year-olds but at the same time i felt a bit sorry for them. every generation of "alternative" youngsters in krems seem to have the same taste (why do they always have to wear those stupid nofx-shirts???) ... but let's not talk more about that ... it's useless.

(5) i had a good time watching the oscars at gartenbaukino together with a bunch of people albert brought together (mischa & a lady, flo & a lady, agnes, nina, puneh, dennis ...). albert and me were the only ones from our clique who survived the whole ceremony. i came home around 7 a.m.

(6) the next day, which was monday (= yesterday), i went to sell my blood plasma. there was a little problem and they needed an extra check of my blood. so now i am really a perfect heroine slut. my arm doesn't look as bad as in "requiem for a dream" - but nearly!

(7) today i finished reading that book "breakfast on pluto" (that makes 2 books during my holidays!). AND i explored last.fm which is fucking great! i wonder why it took me so long ...

ok, now you know what's going on. i'm sorry that everything is a little short but maybe you're not even interested at all ;)

Francois just showed me that the door to our corridor is broken. In fact it looks like somebody tried to break in with a jimmy ... Nothing was stolen in the kitchen (at least we haven't noticed anything to miss until now) but if I think about that I usually leave my room's door unlock ... BRRR! Bernd just told us that somebody already broke into one corridor in house 21 and stole everything in the kitchen that hasn't been locked away. Even "worthless" things like oil, salt and so on. Hm, at least the murderer from house 71 is in jail ...

The paper about the Music Waggon project that I was working on together with my three Chinese fellow students Tingran, Lele and Wenhui was ACCEPTED at the SIDeR conference.



So next week I'm going to Ronneby in Blekinge and present our idea :)
Unfortunately alone :(
All my Chinese friends have a test at exactly the time ...
But well it will be fun anyway!

If you are interested in our project feel free to read the paper!

Music-Waggon (pdf, 877 KB)

Everyone in the corridor was a bit busy yesterday but at 2 a.m. we (= Francois, Vincent, Bernd and I) managed to decide on watching Old Boy. Hard to sleep afterwards ... Hard stuff ...

I just uploaded some scanned in black and white photos from Malin's good-bye party before she left for Norway. What a nice night it was ...



See 12 pictures in the Malin-album!

This weekend was just fantastic! In fact I haven't been laughing so much since my beloved corridor neighbour Hatice moved back to Belgium. Thanks to my Austrian visitor Markus I even lost my winter depression for a while :)



So what have we two sweeties been up to since Markus arrived here in Stockholm on Thursday? We had fika marathons at Stockholm's nicest cafés and partied a lot of course. And we laughed and laughed and laughed ...

On Friday Robin and Ellinor had a cooking battle for us and it was hard to find out which one was the better cook that night. The caneloni versus risotto fight was topped by a bottle of wonderful Austrian wine from Dürnstein. Mmmmh!



After that we went to Christophe and had a bit förfest ... just to get prepared for the big party at Debaser Slussen where Tokyo Police and Ratatat were playing. It was a kick-ass night and I actually still can't believe how excited the Swedes were reacting on the concerts. Violent dancing, crowd surfing, ... Oh la la! Was that really in Stockholm???



















Yesterday, on Saturday Markus, Robin and I went to Scenario to attend the EP release party of Darjelin, Ulrica Brunners gorgeous solo project. It was a beautiful and touching concert. Oh, how good to see that the sweet female packaging à la cute girl plays guitar and sings has finally a meaning and good topics. Lovely!!! Simon Ryman played a bit later by the way and that was a good concert as well. Of course the night had to end up with a decent efterfest ;)

Well, I have to admit that it was pretty sad when I brought Markus to the airport express train this afternoon. But I think he liked it a lot here and hopefully he'll be back soon. Everyone here wants that. Me, Robin, Francois, Vincent, Bernd, Elli, ...

Thanks for this weekend, my friend!!!

And see more photos here!

In just a few hours my wonderful Austrian friend Markus will arrive in Stockholm and pay me a 4 days visit. I'm already excited like a little child on Christmas Eve. I don't know really why but somehow is he exactly the Austrian that I want to see now. He is funny, easy to come along and just my very, very favourite nerd at the TU Wien. Besides, he has this gorgeous flamenco-Falco-kinda shirt to wear when he's playing with his band Zeronic.



This afternoon I will pick up "the Rado" (Haha, it's been sooooo long since I heard his nickname out of the mouth of funny Pat!!!) at the airport near Arlanda and then we'll see what happens. Elli and Robin are quite into meeting him today. Maybe we'll go for a late fika or a beer into town. Can't imagine that he wants to do the sightseeing thing when it's dark and snowing like in Tibet (but it's "only" minus 6°C right now) ...

The other plans for the weekend:

• a lecture at university
  (should be interesting for Markus at we study the same program)
• Förfest at Christophe's place and then Ratatat concert at Debaser
• Darjelin release party near Fridhemsplan (maybe some förfest at Adam's place)
• AND OF COURSE: just having a great time!

Yoyoyo! Here's a big 'poppin the cherry' from NYC my brotherz!

As the degrees slowly climb here, finally past 3 Celcius, I seem to have caught my first cold of the season. But don't you fret! This weekend is one of the biggest art weekends in NY, a massive amount of contemporary shows and openings all around the city, but I'll most likely will have to work. FUCK THAT!

Life is life and it's a big lie i tell you! - words from wise Floyd

Boohoo, no more complaining. My first draft is done, 116 pages. I have read it and decided that it is actually quite good but I need to rework the first 30 pages quite a bit and put in some defining touches here and there. After that, it will be off to the open Hollywood market; trying to find a buyer!!!

Besides that, I need to build myself a website!!! If I only knew how...i must learn.

Music: Ratatat is playing a show here on 4.20 (the big weed smoking holiday of the USA) - i plan on going.
Movies: Oscars this weekend, not very exciting. Children of Men (my favorit movie of last year- plz go see it)
Party: 4am Fri-Sun, bars and clubs all over NYC. Can't be stopped...


oh and have i told you that I have been dating this girl here? gotten quite hot and heavy in the last 10 days...;) if you know what i mean.

MISS YOU!

It's goddamn cold now here in Stockholm!
-9°C
BRRRRRR!

Today i got a promo copy of the EMMON debut album "the art & the evil". Sounds good! like the Swedish Madonna with a strong fascination for Paris.



More about Emmon:
Emmon on MySpace (Listen to Robin's favourite, "Wake Up Time"!)
Emmon's blog (in Swedish)