Junyi utterly hates himself for falling asleep in the afternoon, and has to make up for it now, 4.25am in the morning. Heck, it already is semi-bright outside!

Junyi can't wait to finish up his work, so he can go upload his photos :D

Let's see, I still need to do the following: 1. Upload photos 2. Do Tallinn video 3. Fix up assignment 4. Prepare for Riga trip 5. Revise for Swedish listening

2 months left now.

I really really hope that I can find time to just sit, perhaps under the 3am dawn-lit skies, and let myself absorb, appreciate and remember the moment.

Deadline is looming in a day, but strangely, instead of full steam ahead, I find myself desperately finding all kinds of mini-distractions to distract me from the task. This is so dumb, do work, JUNYI.

I hate it that my mind acts like a panel of individuals, rather than just me alone. Planning feels like a democratic congress (and feels surprisingly fruitful); fighting habits and sleepiness feels like an all out internal strife at times, and I end up doing stupid things like sleep late so i can't wake late, or wear a rubber band to thwack myself when the hands start to itch to scratch. So strange, so STRANGE gah. Willpower how man.

Besides having left my entire Nike sling bag stuck in the train station control while I left happily for the holiday, and the fact that my computer in Flogsta refuses me access over the internet, the whole trip's going great! (: Missed the comfort of such painless travelling.

Had this insanely huge double cheeseburger for lunch that left me full and bloated; we then went to the Ice Hotel to peer at the carvings and take and pose for loads of photos. This was followed by dogsledding and the snowmobiling, but we missed out the auroras due to the insane cloud cover, pity!

Haven't blogged about so many other things heh, but I'm actually not supposed to be so online here in Milan, but my external phone battery is working overtime and beyond expectations, so I thought I could blog a bit and get this off my chest. Currently in Mcs, and have been sitting here for like 2+ hrs heh.

...

I'm very affected by people around me, and I'm so so traumatised by this trip. Stifled, squashed, hurt and restricted - from within and without; my prickly defensiveness then hurts in return often, and it so doesn't help can.

The trip was enjoyable, but this thing weighed me down throughout and occupied my thoughts, even when alone, and more especially so: is it just my poor response and situation handling skills, or was it just "deliberate" antagonism on your part?

...

K battery dying, going back to hostel now! (:

And so it was, when the movie party ended on the 28th (we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons, which was rather interesting), I had not intended to sleep, but finish up some work, pack up my stuff, and head to the train station and sleep on my way there.
Unfortunately, as things would have it, I was suddenly struck by the idea that a bit of napping would be good, as the computer is finishing up whatever it is doing, and woke up to a start with the sound of MSN telling me I've a new message.

It's a spam message, which might surprisingly be the only good that came out of MSN spams thus far, and it was just 1 hr away from the train leaving! It's still not too late, so sans the work I managed to get everything in order and head down to the bicycle stands to rush to the station.

As luck would have it, the snow and cold really got the chain pretty adamant about refusing to unlock itself, and by the time I pried it open, I tried the bike and realised it is broke O_o

Totally screwed now, I still rushed to the train station via bus, and reached there 10 minutes late. Had hoped to catch the next connecting train to Stockholm to chase the Oslo bound train, but realised it's not possible and headed back to rebooked an airline ticket to Oslo. The train ticket was just 91 SEK, the planes cost 10x that! ><

The first day was utterly the tragicomedic kind: we tried to catch the auroras at 2am, but it didn't turn up for the date; We went to the Arctic Botanic gardens, but it was totally covered in snow. Went to the university to see the graduates in their traditional regional garb, but they were nowhere in sight. Tried to visit the Arctic Cathedral, which had a unique architecture as well as one of the largest stained glass display in Northern Europe, but it was closed for renovations.

Signed up for a tour-thingy which you get away from the city, and sit down gazing at the skies hoping to catch the auroras. It comes with a traditional Sami tent with a huge fire within that would be the occasional refuge for warming up and recovery, as well as sausages over the fire grin, but that's not the main point. Waited the entire night, and saw nothing but stars, and even they were a bit cloud covered.

It would have been a totally wasted trip, until we decided that those clouds looked strangely uncloudy, and took a long-exposure shot of it. It turned out to be the faint beginnings of the auroras! Rather beautiful in photo, but really, totally invisible to the naked eye unless you knew what it kind of looks like. It's not that brilliant green, it doesn't really move around much, and if you weren't observant one could easily pass it off as a cloud.

But then, words can't really describe them, and the photos describe them better than what they look, so photos will be coming up soon, along with the other Tromsoic sights (:

Uppsala, Week II


Ice skating on the Norrviken Lakes! Due to the extremely short daylight, by the time we've arrived it's already sunset, so we didn't get to skate much, but oh the glorious half hour of ice skating freedom on the huge skating surface! :D

You know, I just realised there's like not much to write about here lol, too much routine.

Uppsala, Week 1

Uppsala isn't really as pretty as Stockholm, in an unexplainable sense, actually. And the first few weeks mainly revolved around food, food, and food; hence the excess of food shots grin.


A tall cathedral on the left, very useful for navigation, and the University Hall on the right.


And got a bike as well! Travelling to town takes about 15 minutes, to school's a rather exhausting half hour ride though.

Scattered photos are online at Facebook, with a bit of comments threading through a common overarching narrative (oh gosh how I love this phrase XD). Shall try to fill in the bits and pieces! Photos are taken from FB, so if you don't see photos, you probably have to login first! I mean, assuming you're my friend, and not someone plotting my death, of which I'd then say, SHOO BEGONE!

Stockholm 13 - 14th January

The first thing that struck me was, despite the cold and luggage, AHH SO PRETTY!



Joined Liheng and bunch from Stockholm University for a walkaround of Gamla Stan, or Old Town.





Stockholm Central Library: Really really like the layout! :D



And you can't really miss Singaporeans around. A totally distinctive bunch, we are :D



Met them at City Backpacker's Hostel, which incidentally is an excellent hostel :) They're a bunch of NTU students heading up to Lulea, which is well known for probably polar bears and death by hypothermia: it hit minus 25 degrees at some point when they were there! Perhaps it's just the "away from home" bonding, but I really already miss them!

And really really love the night scenery:





More photos laters (:

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It reminds me much of Chatterbox, hmm; in the way, we have all our meals together, in our own little encapsulated habitat. In the way, that it's so freezing cold. Miss the Study 1 gang!

It also reminds me of hall, in that we have own rooms, own corridors, and hop around the different blocks and eat together :D Gosh, but I'm so glad for my private bathroom and loo!

I miss you muchly too, with your NIE/SMRT daily trudge, and every time it's cold I am reminded of you and your freezing travails and exciting stories and adventures haha. How strange now that everything has totally reversed! XD

And my family, without my sister to annoy and parents to disturb haha. Rents are very perturbed by my lack of home calling and kept wanting to find out if I'm alive.

But I'm really really happy and content here, just sticking to this group of fellow hometowners. Really have not much motivation to go out and mingle; am only interested in knowing my corridor mates, Singaporeans, and fellow computing students :D (My buddy's a rather pro systems and web developer!) So unsociable and pragmatic, lol.