Be jealous.

It's 6:54am here in Östersund and we're off to Vemdalen for a full day of....SNOWBOARDING!!!! 

I'm snowboarding in Sweden today...what are you up to? :)

kt

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE BACK HOME!!!

Love you so much!

That's all. :)

kt

I kick butt at yoga.

Well today broke a little ground for Coe Conditioning. I started out with a shorter run than usual in anticipation for the yoga I'd be doing later in the night. I took a new 4-mile trail that led me to a neighborhood where realtors in the Rockies would foam at the mouths to see; with the snow and the pine trees these little homes gave off the image of a perfect mountain village. (Now all we'd need is that mountain and the place would be sold! :)) 

It wasn't until I arrived back at the camping that I noticed the remains of what had transpired there the night before. Mere hours beforehand, two battles had unfolded right there on that very ground; today, there were countless snowballs embedded in the trees and in the walls of the cabins to remind us. As if we could forget. Everywhere I turned, what had once been pristine, unscathed snowy ground now bore a harassed, leftover look from the dozens of feet that had trampled it in the heat of battle. Angels' wings were indistinguishable. Three-chambered snowmen were decapitated. The aftermath was haunting.

So that was my fun way of saying that after my run I was pleasantly reminded of the two awesome snowball fights we had last night. :) Then I hung out with Sandra for a little while before we decided to brave the snow-packed sidewalks on our bikes and volunteer for a bit at the Red Cross. (Which, by the way, I'm fairly certain I'm only doing because then I get first dibs on the clothes that come in...example: Glow-in-the-dark dinosaur PJs. Score. :)) We very well may be doing all of our Christmas shopping there. It's the greatest. 

Then I was off to a Swedish-run yoga class. Have you ever tried to learn a new way to work out in another language? Well, it's tough. It's tough to relax, aka one of the main objectives in yoga, when you're constantly straining your neck to watch the other girls who know what the heck the instructor is saying. Regardless, I didn't fair too badly. I was a twisting, bending, stretching Swedish yoga machine. It was great...I can't believe I'd never done it before! In fact, I like yoga in Swedish so much I'll be going to two classes next week. 

So that was the day. I just reread this post and it's sad how proud I am of being productive. Haha for those of you whose attention I kept, congratulate yourselves. :)

kt

Score.

Grandma Bev sent me the motherload of what grandma's do best, and it came today!!!! Get this: long underwear, caramel puff corn, chocolate-covered peanut butter cracker sandwiches, Halloween candy (which I sorely missed), and yes, the first batch of Grandma Bev's Famous Homemade Caramels!!!! I can't get the smile off my face. Now, if only she could muster up a way to send over one of her classic bear hugs, I'll be golden. :) 

Love you Grandma Bev. :)

kt

Baby one more time

Well it turns out you're never too old to jump around for hours with your friends singing 90s songs. :) Until literally 4am last night, French, Dutch, Canadian, and American alike all had a dance party singing every word to all our favorites from N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, Britney Spears, the works. It was a blast to say the least. 

And then today at brunch I put some plans together for yet another adventure I'll be having in the last month of being here...we're going snow horseback riding next week!! I'm so excited. And then after that I have the farewell weekend at a hotel up north with the exchange students, followed by weekend of snowboarding in Åre, the biggest ski resort in Sweden, and then the big holiday party/gift exchange! Time is just going to shift to hyperdrive now, I know it.

I also clarified the due date for my paper today, and it's later than expected. This means I have two options: I could finish it this week and never have to put a single thought into school in Sweden again, or I could take it easy for another week and churn it out when I feel like it. Jury's still out. I think tonight I'll just read for fun and see how I'm feeling tomorrow. :)

Despite boasting how little school I've had recently, I am in for a big week. THREE DAYS this week I have class. THREE DAYS! What is THAT?! Balderdash, I tell you. Just balderdash. I can see the Coe Conditioning taking some big strides this week. Productivity, let's be friends again.

Regardless of how well I spend my week, however, some news I got today will be a cloud stuck overhead until I get home. After months of hearing she's been in and out of the hospital, I found out today my grandmother has lung cancer. It's crap to feel stuck. All my warmest thoughts and prayers are shooting westward, and hopefully ending up somewhere in the vicinity of the U of M hospital. Love you Nana.

kt

quickie

Alright I'm going to make this quick so I don't distract myself too long from research.

Sandra, Anna, Julia, and Eva are all gone this weekend. They left yesterday. It's Saturday, and I already want them back. I can feel that something's missing, and this is just coming from four of the awesome people I've met here being gone! If this is anything like how it will be when it comes time to say good bye to everyone, I'm in trouble. 

Okay back to homework. ;)

SNOW STORM!!!

I'm sitting in my cabin, expecting the whipping snow to blow through my windows at any moment. It's one of those nights where you can actually feel the cold, snowy wind seeping through your walls. Good thing I still have some hot chocolate from a month ago. :)

Well today marked day one of Coe Conditioning. While I was making lunch today, I was so incredibly tickled by the realization of how little work I actually do here, that the concept manifested itself into a full-out one-person laugh fest. I actually laughed out loud for quite some time. (I think I'm alone in my cabin too much...haha.) And although don't misconstrue, I am LOVING this freedom to take another mile on my run if I feel like it, to hit the snooze twice or six times if I feel like it, to watch the next four episodes of Scrubs if I feel like it, to go out for an hour and a half just to take pictures if I feel like it, to ACTUALLY READ FOR LEISURE if I feel like it, to research new cameras online if I feel like it, etc. etc. etc. It's amazing. It's string-free. But I'd be a fool so say it's anything similar to the amount of free time I have at Coe. (I think there are some big implications to be seen here, too, regarding the Swedish culture vs. the American culture, but I'm not in the mood to dive into that at the  moment.) I know it won't be this way when I get back. I am saddling up for my most challenging academic semester at Coe yet, finishing up my Psych degree. This schedule of classes from hell happens to fall on the same semester during which I intend to party my face off with all my friends for my last semester of college with them. And I'll be broke, so season the mixture with a little bit of work, and you have yourselves there a recipe for a much busier Katie than you have now. 

So, I started training today. Kind of. The plan was to run, shower, volunteer, study at University, pick up groceries, come home for dinner, go to yoga, home. Instead I wimped out on a run in fear of the snow (replaced it with a mediocre circuit workout), sent some emails, stretched for twice as long as usual and ate breakfast while watching three episodes of The Office, showered, and packed a lunch. This all took me...yep three hours. Then I made plans with Sandra and Anna, read (FOR LEISURE!) for a half hour, joined those two on the way to University, studied a bit, volunteered at the Red Cross, picked up some groceries, biked through a snow storm to yoga only to find it was cancelled, came home. So it wasn't exactly the largely productive day I need to start getting in the habit of having, but I guess it was a start. :)

Funny side story, too: The streets at the moment are covered with a layer of ice, on top of which is a tightly packed layer of snow. When you throw in the fierce winds that we have had today, it makes biking on the roads quite the thrill ride. Well I was biking along, grumbling at how annoying it was to get all the way to yoga only to find out I could have been in my warm cabin the entire time, when all of a sudden this violent, snowy wall of wind literally tipped Gumpy and me over. It was one of those slow-motion spills, where you can see your fate well before it comes but there's nothing you can do about it, and I sure enough ended up flat sideways in the middle of the icy black street. It was so disappointing that no one was around to enjoy it.

Today was also a big day because another Patty Mraz package came!! I love these. This time we have:

-"The Audacity of Hope," which I specifically requested be purchased from Half-Priced Books, a feat that only Patty Mraz could pull off considering its popularity at the moment

-CANDY CORN!! to show Sandra and Anna, who had never seen it before (and I didn't just show them, we devoured it all in one sitting)

-A burned N*SYNC Christmas Album, personally created by Mark Mraz per my request

-Three silly comics ripped from a day-by-day calendar

-Two newspaper articles, one about the awkward meeting Obama and Bush would have to have, and the other about religiousness vs. spirituality in Minnesota youth

-A pen.

So yes, Patty pulls through again. :)

Well I'm going to wrap this up. Stay tuned for posts in the not-so-distant future that are no doubt going to be cursing the Coe Conditioning and the daunting concept of leaving this place in a month.... 

*muah*

kt