The Book That Changed My Life

January 22nd, 2010 1 Comment

“It is possible that time does not exist, although things still move. Life is in motion. We are born and we die. I grow older. What good does it do that time is not the same on the sun?”
–Erland Loe, Naïve. Super

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Naïve. Super by Erlend Loe

Chatting with my lovely friend Naomi today, we came upon the topic of influential literature. Not necessarily literature that influences masses of people, but pieces that have been individually influential. Although there are numerous works, both fictional and non-fictional, that have influenced me quite greatly, I would have to settle on one particular book that has stood out as The Book That Changed My Life.

This particular book is Naïve. Super by Erlend Loe, originally published in Norwegian and translated into English by Tor Ketil Solberg. Chances are you probably have never heard of this novel, but it was a bestseller in Norway when it was published in 1999. I was introduced to the book several years ago in a Nordic studies class and it captured my heart almost immediately.

The simplistic and direct style of Naïve. Super sets the perfect pace for the 25-year-old unnamed narrator to describe his sudden loss of purpose to life. At the time I first read this, I couldn’t relate; I knew what I wanted in life, I had an idea of where I was going, and everything seemed very well-planned to me. I could not relate to the sudden need to flee from a situation or a desire to spend so much time alone, which is a large part of what the narrator does in order to help him get to the bottom of his deep and philosophical questions about life, time, and purpose.

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Expectations, etc.

December 16th, 2009 5 Comments

It took me a while to gather the courage to write this one.

I’ve been in San Diego for just over five weeks now, and life is radically different than I thought it would be. I guess I had certain kinds of expectations.

If anything, I expected to be a lot happier and excited to be here. I love new places, always have, and I’ve uprooted myself once before to live in an entirely different place; moving to Sweden was a huge thing, but that was under very different circumstances, and I kind of knew what I was getting myself into there.

The thing is, I had no idea what I was getting myself into here. It’s a lot of change to move a third of the way across the country, have only a handful of friends, and not have any sort of reliable job. It was a lot of adjustment for me — for anyone, really — and I wasn’t well-equipped to handle any kind of emotional stress.

It would only be my luck that emotional stress had a way to find me.

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Unemployment

November 1st, 2009 No Comments

Unemployment does something funny to me.

I have worked since I was 15. I helped clean up a local roller hockey rink to play in a league before I was 16, and after that, I’ve worked at numerous fast food, retail, customer service, and office jobs. I’ve very rarely not had at least one job. Even now, while being unemployed, I have a little bit of part-time work before I head out to San Diego.

That’s part of why unemployment bothers me. I haven’t really known what it’s like to be unemployed.

Sometimes I blame employment for any time I had difficulties in school. Now that I look back on it, some of it was indeed detrimental to my performance in school, but I also realize that I wasn’t very good at keeping in touch with my advisers, some of whom were not very good advisers in the first place. My workload next to employment was pretty tough. I should’ve paced myself a bit better, and while I wish I’d been able to only study in college, I don’t necessarily regret working. It was fulfilling, I learned quite a lot, and I made a lot of good friends.

When I have nowhere to be in the mornings or don’t have goals that are outside of solely personal interests, it’s a little bit tougher to get out of bed. Actually, it’s a lot tougher to get out of bed. It’s harder to get motivated to get things done, because I am no longer planning things according to a set of priorities that are more or less out of my control. When I’m employed, it helps my sleep, my diet, and my discipline in general — besides the fact that income is a necessary thing.

I’ll be looking for any kind of employment I can get when I first get to San Diego. My parents always taught me that I’m not above service jobs; while I have a college degree and would prefer not to have to work in the service industry for the rest of my life, I know that I’ll need it to get by. I try very hard to pay a lot of respect to service industry workers because I know that they’re just trying to get by, too, and I knew I’d be back in that position again one day. Fingers crossed, it will only be temporary.

I really, really hope that I’ll be blogging about employment within a month’s time.

(And tweeting less. Apparently I tweet the most when I’m unemployed — see June and October.)

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Is this goodbye, Boulder?

October 23rd, 2009 7 Comments

As a lot of my friends know, I was laid off almost a month ago after an all-too-brief stint at a local startup. I haven’t found a job to fill that void, and because it’s been hard staying in one place for work, it looks like it’s time for me to get out of Boulder.

As of right now, the plan is to pack my things, put most of it into storage, and head west to San Diego.

I didn’t want to be writing this. I was hoping that I’d find something at the last minute. But when I look at my finances and all of my options, it doesn’t make any sense for me to stay.

Am I angry? It varies, but for the most part, yes. While I usually take the stance that I am always lucky to have anything at all, I felt truly jipped this time. I fully intended to stay in Boulder for a while. I love this town, I love this neighborhood, and I love the people around me. I needed several months of a steady job to start paying off bills and for some reason it just wasn’t meant to be.

However, I’m comfortable in Boulder. I think I’m too young to be comfortable here. What happens when a person is too comfortable where they’re at is what happens when people settle for things and become complacent. I’d like to spend the rest of my life in Boulder, but not just yet; I want to explore what else is out there and come back some day. It’ll always be here.

So why San Diego? For one, there are more opportunities for my type of work out there. Also, a lovely friend is helping me out by renting her place out to me, and I’m incredibly grateful. I’ve now got friends there — not a whole lot, but I’m good at making new friends — and there are particular people out there with whom I’d like to spend a whole lot more time.

The last time I left Boulder, I knew I was coming back for school. Now I don’t have any other reason to come back besides the fact that I love this town. I appreciated it a lot more when I left it for a while, and it’ll be that way again.

I might have a night out before I leave. Actually, I’ll definitely have a night out before I leave. I’ll at least be out on the town for Halloween and there will be at least one more trip to the Downer. But I hope I get the chance to say goodbye to everyone, and I’ll try my best to see people before I get out of here.

Is this goodbye, Boulder? Not entirely. Just for a bit.

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Ignite Boulder 6: Sätter eld på Boulder

September 25th, 2009 2 Comments

igniteboulder

Ignite Boulder. Oh, how it has grown.

From less than two hundred people in a smart room on the CU campus to a nearly sold-out show at the Boulder Theater (only 12 tickets were left when the sales ended), Ignite Boulder has become one hell of an event.

After Ignite Boulder 5 and its exceptional performances, I knew I had to try to submit another topic. I had gotten lots of suggestions from friends and plenty of reassurance that I couldn’t go wrong with another submission. This time, it was Ben’s suggestion to try some Swedish in my presentation that really got me going. Thus it was born: “Bork Bork Bork: Swedish 101 for Foreigners.”

I was beyond excited but nervous. Last time I spoke in front of no more than 500 people, and this time it could’ve topped 800. Thankfully, it went as well (if not better) than I had hoped for — people laughed where I wanted them to (and at some times, in places I didn’t expect), the crowd learned a little bit of Swedish, even my father came to watch, and I didn’t screw up!

I have to say that this was probably my favorite Ignite, and it was not because I felt like I succeeded — that’s just the icing on the cake. There were some fantastic presentations that exceeded my expectations and absolutely blew my mind. I laughed, learned, and overall, I really enjoyed myself.

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Pyrex explosion!

September 22nd, 2009 4 Comments

This is no less than 1/8 of the blue Pyrex dish that exploded when I tried to add water to it while it was still very hot from continuous, direct heat.

See, I should’ve learned my lesson a few years ago when I witnessed how a mere touch of cool air made the glass door of my parents’ oven explode all over the kitchen. My dad taught me this, and I learned it in physics class: tempered glass shatters entirely and abruptly when breaking, unlike regular glass, which will break in shards and more gradually.

Extreme temperatures or stress can shatter and entire object made of tempered glass. At least, that’s what I learned. Contrary to what I did tonight, you’re not supposed to use it on the stovetop or in the broiler. The funny thing is that I knew this — but I completely forgot while using a makeshift system to steam my puto (no, not like the Spanish profanity, but the Filipino cake). See, I knew better — I knew I was doing something wrong — but it didn’t strike me that I was supposed to use a tin, not a Pyrex dish, on the stove top when improvising a steamer. Instead, I watched the dishes carefully, up until the water ran out of the Pyrex dish and I tried to add more water — as soon as I tipped the Pyrex measuring cup and began to pour water, I knew I’d made a mistake. Before I could do anything about it, the Pyrex dish burst.

I was really, really lucky I didn’t get hurt. I was really lucky that my face was not injured. I was really lucky that although I found glass shards in my shirt and cardigan, none of it had hurt me.

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Why Twitter tires me out

September 6th, 2009 4 Comments

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while now, but it took me a while to get to it, even though many different Twitter-related happenings have occurred that would normally give me a lot of motivation to write a post about it.

twitter-logoYou see, Twitter has been getting on my nerves for many months now. I first started getting tired of Twitter when CNN started to pick up on it, asking people to voice their opinions and basing entire shows off of the concept of giving viewers a voice. The problem with that, if you ask me, is that a lot of the hot topics on the news are far more serious than 140 characters, and require much more space, time, and context than a mere tweet. Of course, that’s been a problem in journalism for a while now; 140 characters is extreme when examining the way that half-hour news programs have severely limited the quality of content while becoming a prime source of news for most Americans.

I could go on and on about user-generated content, the importance of editorial discretion, why journalism is dying, etc., and it’s all relevant — but it’s only distantly related to my unhappiness with Twitter.

Twitter is beginning to tire me out because of the way it is being used by a large amount of its user base. When I first joined Twitter, I thought it was a neat concept; I could broadcast something I wanted to say to a lot of people, and they could get it on their phones if they wanted to. I could keep updated on what my friends are doing without having to ask each person separately what their plans are for the weekend or if they felt like seeing a movie. I, like many others, never anticipated Twitter becoming quite as huge as it is now, nor did anyone actually anticipate the rush it has become to gain followers, build a brand, start discussions, etc. In all honesty, I’m quite disappointed that it has become such a big deal.

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Go Cubs!

August 8th, 2009 3 Comments

soriano_shirt.jpgYep. I’m a Cubs fan.

It comes from my family all living in Chicago. I’m not terribly close to my father’s side, but I associate pretty closely with my mom’s family. My mom moved to Near North Side sometime in the 1970s, before she found a job in Dallas, TX, and met my father. She and a few of her siblings crammed into a little apartment right off Lake Shore and enjoyed the city life for a while. Now most of my family lives in the suburbs, except for the cousins who are going to school or have a job in the city.

Before rooting for the Cubs, I really didn’t root for anybody. I was happy with the Red Sox winning their first World Series in decades because I knew the Cubs weren’t very close to it themselves. Several years later, after choosing my allegiance, I admit that I enjoyed seeing the Rockies make it to the World Series — even though it meant that my Cubs weren’t there. After all, as the song goes, “The last time we won the National League Pennant / was the year they dropped the bomb in Japan.” You can credit a Rockies fan for giving that song to me, though I had heard it one spring in the car on the way to the suburbs from the airport. How unfortunate for the songwriter, Steve Goodman, who in his lifetime never saw the Cubbies win a World Series much less a pennant — not that anyone today can say that they saw the Cubs win a World Series.

I really should be at the game right now. The  Cubs are losing to the Rockies 4-3 in the top of the 6th right as I type, and the Cubs lost last night with probably a more horrendous score (I like to forget about this kind of thing). Tomorrow I’ll be watching at Coors Field, wearing my Soriano shirt and swearing like a sailor, but I won’t stand down. Yes, I will go to Coors Field and be one of those jerks rooting against the home team. I’m totally fine with that.

And hey! The Cubs just tied the game at 4!

But will I get my hopes up? Probably not. Like my father told me, “The Cubs were created by God to make us suffer here on Earth.” I don’t know — to believe in God is to believe  that the Cubs might just win a World Series someday. Would God make the northern half of the city of Chicago absolutely, incredibly, pitifully miserable?

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VW Tiguan press launch

July 13th, 2009 1 Comment

Yeah, I forgot about this one — it was filmed at least a year ago. That’s when I didn’t wear glasses (and was rounder?). It’s kind of weird to hear myself talk on video…

Anyhow, this was filmed for the purpose of showing incoming students or potential students the kinds of opportunities available at CU. I’m not so sure why they followed lil’ ol’ me around, but it was a fun experience, and I hope they like their video.

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Missing Sweden

July 1st, 2009 5 Comments

Last week marked two years since I moved back to the U.S. from Uppsala, Sweden. I climbed on a plane on 20 June 2007 to go to Dublin for two days before flying into Chicago for a week with the family, ultimately landing back in Denver, CO on 29 June 2007.

I think about life in Sweden almost daily. If I had the opportunity — that is, the visa for a job and a job that can pay my bills — then I’d probably be back there in an instant. After all, part of the reason I pretty much abandoned my desire to go to law school was because I could see myself living in Sweden again, and law school (and paying for law school) takes the kind of time and effort that would keep me from being able to return anytime soon.

Once in a while, I dream about life in Uppsala. I have one particular recurring dream that I happen to enjoy: I’m in Storatorget in Uppsala, walking through the Åhléns, telling myself that I can will myself to step out of my dream and onto the streets in an instant, just for a quick visit. I wind my way through the shops and the streets and find myself unable to will myself there, knowing that my time is limited and I’ve only got hours or even minutes before I wake up in my bed back in Colorado.

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