Midsummers eve - good excuse?

Well of course there's no way to get away from a lot of good food and drinks on midsummers eve in Sweden, that's just reality ;-)

The positive
We took a lot of walks, both up the hill to the Örenäs castle and down along the road until it turns.. We also took a long walk around the lawn (midsummer pole gathering) outside the castle, where around 500 people had put up blankets and taken out wine, beer, strawberry cake, champagne, cookies, snaps, and so on. Everyone enjoyed the sun gazing, in a 30-35 degree weather - without wind for once - everyone was cooked, but still in a very joyous mood. Around 150 people, from 3 (younger ones being held and not counted) to at least 75 years old, formed 3 gigantic rings around the midsummers pole. The rings were covering half the lawn, almost forcing people to move their blankets back - but since it meant moving into the shadows everyone took it with laughter and joy :-)

In the food department, a while after getting home (and talking to my hanni(k)), we had most of the ingredients for a swedish holiday meal: only two kinds of sill/herring though, but accompanied by new-potatoes, lax/salmon, meatballs for my stepdad, great brownbread, dill (don't know in eng/ger) etc, there was enough to fill the table up on the platform on the hill of the house lawn :-)

The Negative
Well every great side must have some small negative side to it I guess... as long as we don't let it be too important in the overall context of things, we will remain positive as should be :-)

The negative of this day was of course for the workout bet: I managed to eat cream, sugar and butter (of course not by itself, but with the meals, snacks, deserts etc) while drinking beer, snaps and some irish coffee... at least I had bottled water with some of it, and I think for each beer I had tonight, there was one walk sooner or later. Counting the number of beer and number of walks would give an equal number in other words :-) so the negative still had something positive to think of ;-p

The strange
Don't know if I need to say more than: The neighbour ;-p
When we walked up the hill to the Örenäs castle lawn, she sang along with the folk songs, almost dancing. When looking at the ring dances, she seemed to whish she had grand children to dance with, and when leaving she sang along in the classic melody about small frogs with no tails and small ears :-)

The happy
It seems as though there was a wedding in the village today, at least there was a very loud party lasting until late at night :-)

The cute
My hanni of course (L)

Wednesday = Wellnesday :)

Hey

I didnt really eat much today ... and I hope it stays like that :)

For Breakfast I had a zip of coffee on my way out.
and in school half a bun with "Frischkäse" (u know what that is in english?/swedish?)
later I had a "real" cup of coffee.
and some bitter lemon at the café.


when I came home around 2 I had a sandwich.
and before my appointment I had some extra time so I bought some strange mini bun with baked in spinache.


For dinner I had fish (Scholle) with some veggies and rice.


-------------------------------------------------------------
So my body is well obviously, well maybe I should drink some more though.

Eeeek!! I lost it again!

Well the kg from yesterday is lost again - seems like one of those who disappear in the morning but come back again later.... This night it only came back as a ½kg though, and that was right after eating...

My second Pilates session in front of the tv was today - using another video, which I noticed was a bit more advanced (I didn't have to wait in an uncomfortable position while there was a 2-4 minute explanation of every finger movement..), but also made me much sweatier. Too bad I can't start right away with the workout bet, since I'm in cph most days from sunday to friday... and I'll have a visitor as well ;-) better starting after that so I can work out whenever I want without waking anyone.

Todays breakfast
1 sandwich
1 bowl of gröt

1 apple after 1-2 hours

Todays lunch
Tunasalad, similar to the one yesterday

Dinner
Chicken with very little rice and some salad (salad+cucumber+paprika)

I found the lost weight - *phew* !!!

Well the lost kg was back again :-D

The day started with breakfast consisting of an egg, a bowl of Gröt, a sandwich and some filmjölk in a cup.

Tomorrows breakfast is planned to be only a sandwich and a bowl of Gröt (I ran out of filmjölk and eggs in the morning, and decided not to refill)

--------

The lunch for today was a tuna salad, consisting of:

Olives
Tuna (in water, not in oil)
Fresh Salad
One tomato
Some cucumber
... and of course a dressing consisting of Balsamico, Olive Oil and garlic/basil/oregano spices yummy imho :-)

---------

The exercises were not what they should be, but in the heat... I went to Helsingör, then carrying back 24 cans of beer the 15 minute walk home - at least better than no exercise ;-) well my part of the workout bet didnt start yet so...

Weight loss so far: 1 kg (lol)

Todays breakfast:
1 tallrik gröt
1 ägg
1 macka med äpplemos
:-)

Lunch:
A mix with onion, frozen vegetables, some meat and of course spices - As sauce I used filmjölk with spices :-) yum yum!!
[as you know I also had an apple, but that was before lunch]

1 kg lost, 10000 to go... but I'm guessing the 1 kg will be back soon enough ;-p

Morning has broken :)

Didnt get access to the online compy last night..
but I will try to reconstruct what I ate yesterday.

Breakfast:

2 Slices of Dark BRead
+ Kräuterquark ( which I made myself out of low fat quark and some herbs)
1 Tomato (not smashed no :) )
1 Egg

Over the day:

Some fruit (pear,peach. banana)

Dinner

Salat with

Feta-cheese
some champignongs
paprika, onion
and tuna with gravad

2 Slices of ciabatta

+ magarine bzw kräuterquark



Today I only had some coffee
some dark bread with the rest of the quark
and a banana
so far...

But ofcourse there is more to come :)


Eating alot of fruit works good for me to keep the hunger away though.

Hope its going good for u too.
MAybe you could explain what u calculated there yesterday....
I mean in words but thats up to you.

Soft start here

I decided to start a bit soft with the workout bet today, but still waiting until I can weigh myself before having an "official statrt date".

Breakfast today:
Gröt med äpplemos
1 egg
2 buns

In 20 minutes I'll try some of that Pilates stuff, and see if it's interesting for me :-)

Have a nice run in the park (k)


---------------------

Update at 13:00
After Pilates workout

weeee - Pilates is a bit hard, I should sit in front of the computer and relax with some game sthe rest of the day ;-p

I tried 25 minutes of Pilates with instructions from a video - and it was hard in the end, even though it was just basic stuff. I'll try another video tomorrow, so I can compare, and also not to get bored by doing the same every day ;-) It's nice wit a workout where I can just lay on the floor though, then I can just stay there and sleep afterwards...

Final remark: I like it, but it's going to take time before I have energy to more than 25 minutes of the more advanced - good that I'll have some free time in the summer...



---------------------

Update at 15:30
After getting scales

I decided to go down to Åhléns and get scales, so I can weigh myself, I did and thereby I got an inofficial pre-start weight ;-p

Time: 15:23
Weather: Sunny, a bit windy.
Humidity: Medium-High
Weight: h:67 kg (or 2/b:1100111;8/o:147;10/d:103;36/tb:2V)

Since the goal weight is 56, it's going to take a lot of effort to get it down those 11 kg... (of course, getting from 1100111 to 1010110 would still give a 10001 kg difference) unrealistic?

Either way, I'm not officially starting until July 1st, but I dont mind getting down 2-3 (10-11) kg before that... we'll see :-)

Let the games begin

Decided to start today.

So here is what I ate today:

Food:
Breakfast
3 Slices of ciabatta with cheese/carotsalat
--> Next time I ll take dark bread or/and
knäckebrot and skip the cheese
half an apple on the way from the subway to the office
--> Never buy fruit at that kiosk again (tasted like nothing)
At the office I had spread over the day:
orange juice, coffee and lots of water
and
4 baby tomatoes
3 carot pieces
( from a fellow trainee :) )

When I came home I had half a cup of yoghurt with 0,1 % fat .
( very good when u r very hungry and need something before starting dinner)

Dinner
1 yellow paprika
1 Tomato
5 Champingongs
1/2 cup of rice
3/4 of a tuna can ( dolphin friendly fished ofcourse :) )


Since I am hungry again already I ll probably have some fruit.
But before 20:00 ofcourse.

This is fun :)

The art of preparing cold tomatoes in 30 minutes

hey sweetie

had an interesting evening:

The "info" was supposed to start at 19:00.
I went there 45 minutes early, so I could relax a bit in the café across the street.
I was a bit hungry and I also did not want my stomach to make those gurgly sounds later.

The cheapest meal on the menu was mozzarella and tomato for 7 euros though, but since it is for a job I thought it is probably worth it.

So I ordered it and some grape juice…which looked like wine… I was hoping no one in the café was from the company now… nice impression wine before a meeting.

Anyway , at 18:45 my meal was still not there so I asked the waitress if I could pay since it was getting late she said she would bring the bill with the meal.

So in the end I had time to eat 2 tomato slices …yay.

(btw the 7 Euro tomatoes came with cheap toast.)

But hey, my tummy did not gurgle :) I didn’t fall asleep and I probably have a job.

…and I know where not to eat on my lunch breaks. ;)

" Mama Tomato, Papa Tomato
and Baby Tomato are walking over the street,
Baby Tomato starts falling back,
so Papa Tomato walks back to him,
smashes him and says : Catch up !!! "

Time for Usability studies

Nope, not actually checking the usability of anything 'real', just having another exam tomorrow, and studying for it today - at least after lunch.

As mentioned a few posts back, we're using the "Don't make me think" book from Steve Krug. This book is a good source for personal studies in the area of Usability, but I'm a bit sceptic to if it's enough for an academic course. The book gives an outstanding introduction to Usability and the most important parts in web site design. However, some more depth is needed for an academic course in my humble opinion - making me happy that we recieved a great number of articles in the area as well - giving us knowledge also about the facts surrounding Usability, including different methods, cooperative strategy, tactics and operations, budget proposals and even lectures on mobile usability and eye-tracking with tests of Tobii equipment. Considering all that was included in the course, perhaps I should have been happy about the course. However, I find that what we need for the exam is more to be able to make quotes from famous usability experts than to think and argue for our answers. Considering I'm a thinker, not one to always remember who says what, this was not a good course for me. At least I'm happy with the knowledge gained, which after all is the most important.

One area in this usability course I will consider studying more, is the area of mobile usability. This mostly looks at mobile phones and PDA's, but this is not an area I'll look into during at least the next six months. During this period I'll probably concentrate on Computer graphics, both using OpenGL and 3Ds Max and probably looking at the game mentioned in a previous post, while at the same time learning about the .net framework, esepcially for web applications. I am however considering a project management course as well, but I wouldn't know which other course to skip then :-) That's the curse of finding too many interesting choices...

Well weell - now back to studying :-)

Almost home :-)

On the ferries is a quite relaxing environment to write - even though there's only 20 minutes to be creative....

It was nice having a 'last beer of the semester' with some of the people from the study group - even though I probably have to make some extra workout after the beer.... well I'm glad the workout bet doesn't officially start until July 1st ;-p

Well, I guess this become too long, so back to what it's about ;-p ... so anyway, todays workout: walking from Kongens nytorv metro station to Nørreport station was my only major workout achievement of the day (of course I also walked to and from my apartment from and to the ferry station...) - oh, and and I walked the stairs in the ITU building a few times and also once in the station here

Anything else is probably a story for another day - since the exam result was already told and the smile is obvious from that ;-)

/E

PS. MIGHT THANX!! DS.

:)

WooHooo!!! :-)

After a really bad exam where we couldn't answer some questions, we still got a 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On the crazy danish 13 grade scale I've been told that's a very good grade :-) Considering it's half the semester ECTS points I'm very happy!!!!

Now to start studying for wednesdays exam - until the afternoon, when we're invited for a beer with the a Project Study Group :-)

Hilfe! Hjälp! Exams are on the way!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! First exam tomorrow!!! Why do those days always creep up to you and suddenly jump up just to say 'BOOHH!'??

I've had the feeling all along that we're well prepared and that we've done a good job except for a few weeks in the middle of the project (which we have exam for tomorrow..), but last few days I've noticed how scared the guy I'm making the project with is. At start I took it as him being nervous just like before any exam - but since I don't really enjoy exams either, I'm starting to let it get to me - which is of course not very good. With my report writing skills, and his talking, we should however be able to pull off a good enough grade - I hope :-)

• Finally time for dinner - why do some kinds of vegetables take so much longer to defrost than others?
• - I think it's because those vegetables are bigger and contain more water to defrost :-)

I'm starting to consider to start my workout already on saturday - depending a bit on how tomorrows exam goes (after all, this exam is for 15 of the semesters 30 ects points, yikes!). Since I have the next exam on wednesday and will probably go down to study on saturday, monday and tuesday, I probably wont have time for workout before that anyway - but it's nice in theory :-)

• The world is not enough, one says
• It's enough for me, the other says back
• A third believes the world is enough if the moon is included
• The fourth one entering the conversation simply says that no matter how much there is, there is never enough for some - just like no matter how much you know, the more you know that there is much more to know :-)

Good evening

long live capitalism :p

in case you need something to wear when you start working out,
if u order this now, it will be there just on time for it :)
Looks nice doesn't it?

Long day sitting - tired walking home

Well, the exam month has started for sure at the university - there were multiple rooms packed with student sweating over papers with their pencils running warm or stumbling over words when trying to explain some IT technique or process... and on friday it's my turn, and on next wednesday comes another, before having an almost two week break before the last exam on the 28th.

Today wasn't much different from many other days on the ITU, except that some people had decided to create a movie studio on two of the floors - I guess there's another commercial being shot, this time about someone talking into a banana as though it was a cell phone. This at least meant we had to take the stairs instead of going by elevator to get where we wanted, unless we felt like walking around the entire building.

On the way home I decided to take an extra walk, getting off at an earlier metro station and walk to the train station, and when I got off my ferry an hour later I also took an extra walk to the store, getting some salad and vegetables :-) Now I just need to have some tuna salad, and that will be me healthy part of the day. Later I can have some chips, peanuts, coke and a pizza - or can I? ;-p

The first Emil-post

My first post in this blog is just a test...

Editing posts are easy I just discovered, after coming home from Germany at around 1 at night... the workout of the day was diminishingly small: I wiggled my toes a few times while on the bus, hurried to get some magazines at the Hamburg station, and lift my bags into and out of a taxi after arriving home to Helsingborg.

The trip itself was worse than most - but stilll better than some :-) As there were only two seats free after all got in, it felt like there was nowhere to put your legs, arms or luggage and still be comfortable... At least I had some joking countrymen behind me, not saying very nice things about the driver, but after a while I noticed it was true that he liked to stop at every gas station and coffee shop he could find - so in the end people mostly laughed about it. Strangely, he stopped longer at those places than he stopped at places where he was supposed to stop, for example comparing 20 seconds in Lübeck to 5 minutes in Tappernøje, or not stopping in Køge at all (which I was thankful for, or I would still not be home..). Happily ever after I am - or at least happy I'm finally home :-)

All luck and good words to Hanni on her test today :-)

Blog creation

As the workout has to start sooner or later ;-)