Show Me the Money

So the financial repercussions of living in an amazing apartment in the middle of London for 155 pounds a week only recently hit me.

Last night I calculated how much money was left over for the first term once I substracted the cost of the absolute necessities (i.e. rent, bills, food, and tuition) from my student loan. I ended up staring incredulously at the figure on the calculator.

2700 Kronor. 240 pounds.

The fuck? How am I supposed to take the tube? Go to the gym? Pay my phone bill? (Including the 100 pounds I owe from this summer?!) Go out?! Buy a regular stash of tampons?!

I can't, that's how.

So here are a few things I am going to have to do in order to deal with this unfortunate situation.

1. Hare Krishna
   This is just too obvious. Free food! Every day at SOAS, Hare Krishna gives out free curry for lunch (to those willing to stand in line for eternity). I do not entirely understand the motive to this, and can only assume that they pity the poor souls of skint students such as myself.
   
2. Stop partying
   Hah, no. As if. I can however, chose to take part in more of the Ladies Night extravaganzas (free for ladies, 50 pound entry for men!), go to clubs early to skip the entry fee (hmmm), frequent house parties, and especially: continue to favour Moonies, UCL's favourite club! I'll save money via the mere 1 pound entry fee, and in the long term will lower my electricity bills! There is after all no point in charging my ipod for the five days following a night at Moonies seeing that the place always makes me deaf.
3. Skip the cloak room fee
   On the clubbing note: Why keep spending 2 pounds per jacket upon entry to a club? Just be wise and either a) strategically hide your coat under sofas, signs, large people, tables etc b) get a man to hold it for you, or c) go out without one, even if the line is an hour long, even if the temperature is 5 degrees Celsius. True story.
4. Not drink
   That's not a joke. I very very rarely drink on nights out, and intend to keep it that way. Even spending 15 pounds on drinks twice a week for a whole term adds up to about 450 pounds. And some people blow 50 pounds a night. Yeah as if I am going to drink my money away in such a manner. Only to barf it up again by 3am.
5. Buy in Bulk
   Cereal, shampoo, rice, washing detergent... This is a boring one to mention but important! Living as a five actually makes this one feasible! Otherwise...
6. The 99p Store
   This hardly needs a description. The 99p shop has everything from banana chips (my one true love from the dried fruit department) to six year old shampoo (Hey it's 99p for a reason).
7. Shower less at home
   No this doesn't mean I'm going to stink up the flat. Just that I'll spend less time forking out money for my water bill and more time showering at the gym where water is part of the package. I'm Swedish: I don't mind constantly showering with other women!
8. Walk
   I am a big fan of natural forms of transport. This incidentally can also be interpreted as someone else doing the walking for me, i.e. forcing a friend to carry me home, as often happens on the way back from nights out when my feet have become unconscious.
9. Be a gold digger
   No explanation needed.
10. Go anorexic
    Because chowing down 4 servings of Dal bhat for lunch, as I regretfully did today, really does not do good things for the wallet. Or thighs.
11. Get a job
    Oh right. That.

Ok so numbers 9 and 10 might be verging on dramaqueen, but they certainly have elements of truth to them. I used to refuse being paid for by men, whether it concerned a drink or an expensive taxi fare - I liked my independence! Yet I have a new found appreciation of chivalry, and now figure that allowing a man to occasionally pick up the cheque can be quite the reinforcement in terms of skirting a situation involving groveling on the floor to my father, begging for money. Which would be a slightly worse set back to the whole independence thing.

There will of course be the general scouting for free events, from carnivals to cheese tasting (oh please God let that exist), which will be part of my 'Do Something New Every Week' challenge. Although I am still in Stockholm, I managed to get a head start. This week I went to a talk by Hans Rosling on Global Health, and was absolutely blown away by his intelligence, passion, and the actual content of his presentation. I will possibly write more about him and my aspirations another time, but I will at least reiterate one thing he mentioned:

Poverty: living on less than a dollar a day.
Study-loan standard of living: 30 dollars a day. 

Put more visually, I find myself on the tip of the second hump on this graph of his. Even set to a logarithmic scale, it is staggeringly obvious how fortunate I am relative to the large majority of this world's population. Which evokes a pang of guilt for all the times I've moaned about being poor. I truly am thankful for my life and all its possibilities. I'm a lucky lucky girl!


But I am, mind you, still keeping an eye out for a sugar daddy.

Forgetfulness

Every now and then, in my enthusiasm to be a little bit sophisticated, I forget that I really despise the taste of wine. Such Enthusiasm-Inspired-Forgetfullness aka selective memory is also seen in: the excitement to go on a long distance bike ride (forgotten: how much I want to die after 40km), or thinking I should wear my fabulous 5 inch heels for a night out (forgotten: they make my feet acquire muscular dystrophy after one hour).

This transpired again last night at a cocktail bar: I ordered an expensive (by my cheap standards) glass of wine, and ended up drinking the complimentary glass of water. Good job! Nevertheless, I had a wonderful night out with a good friend who happens to be one of the few people in the world that can understand jokes and references to both Swedish and Filipino culture. Who else can I talk to about fjortisar (shudder) and eating Balut?*

Then at 4 in the morning I got a call from O, whom I hadn't talked to since last year. He amusingly demonstrated a fine example of Alcohol-Inspired-Forgetfulness (forgotten: we're not dating anymore).

Definitely an entertaining night!

*Fjortisar: young swedish teenage girls trying to be cool, Balut: fertilised duck egg. In case you wanted to know :oD

Undercova Nolla!

So C and I snuck into a KTH party tonight.

It was almost as ridiculous as the SOAS saga, but with less fence climbing and tight ripping.

First let me write about KTH. KTH is a university here in Stockholm (read: Royal Technical University), a real nerd fest apparently, but from what I've experienced, definitely full of very cool people. It is currently their freshers week, and all freshers (called 'nollor' aka losers) have to wear hideous neon vests, à la that beautiful example I've posted here. So upon arrival at campus, A snuck out and provided us with some. In addition to false identities which we were instructed to assume. 'YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!' she commanded before letting us in and subsequently deserting us. (No spite here; it was a necessary part of the plan!)

Because I've now become scared of copyright issues, let me say: Buy this beautiful vest here!!

Oh, and the other thing: English was strictly forbidden, at least when within eavesdropping distance of other students, for that would instantly blow our cover. Shit. I downed a tequila shot as soon as we got inside.

The best place was the dance floor, which was where we resided throughout most of the night. Firstly, I adore clubbing, and was thus loving it from the beginning. Secondly, it's safe: it's easy to avoid confrontation there, as I demonstrated with the successful use of 'VA? VA? *hand motion indicating music is too loud*'. You see, I'm quite good at Swedish, but when it comes to chattering away like a confident native speaker or comprehending the nebulous slurs of a drunken swede... forget it. 'VA? VA?' it is. Then there's the smiling and nodding, which I attempted at one point when A was being chatted up by various men and kept referring to previously uncovered information about 'Anna', my identity for the night. 'She's from group 8', she exclaimed happily, motioning towards me. Group 8? Group? Wtf we are categorized too? Smile and nod, smile and nod.

Then there was the dance. Oh the dance! Little did I know that KTH would embrace a eurotrash song so. As soon as it started, the dancer density in the room rose noticeably, (Oh, this is a popular song I guess) and suddenly everyone slumped down towards the floor (wait... what... what the fuck?). C and I followed suit, exchanging incredulous glances, and as the choreography progressed we realised that the only thing we could do was copy them. So we did. I only bashed into a few people with my delayed dancing, but I got it in the end! Well I had to - they played that fucking song 6 times by the end of the night. It was absurd, hilarious, clean fun.

And I laughed about it on the bus all the way home.

:oD

P.S. Thanks to C and A for an awesome night! I hope to party with A again, she's amazing fun and all the boys love her :oD And C, I'll see you in London my love!

Can I just say...

... that I am absofuckinglutely definitely going back to the SATS gym I went to today. If only for their gorgeous mosaic showers and their men. Oh the men.

I got all giggly at the reception when getting a ticket for my spinning class, and later forgot what exercise I was doing during the Core class and almost fell over. All because I kept catching sight of beautiful, beautiful male specimins.

YUP I am going back!

A further notable experience of the day was when a cashier lady expressed admiration towards my earrings. This incited a little Utilitarian revelation: I've decided to compliment more. This does not equate to false flattery of course; if I genuinely admire someone's clothes/jewelry/ass/whatever, there is little harming in letting them know! (...Providing it doesn't make me look creepy). So here I go, spreading the love.

And maybe I can make someone feel as happy as this:

:oD

Swedish butlers...

A Swedish friend who also happens to go to UCL showed me an article today regarding what the Social Democrats in Stockholm have recently suggested:

It's entitled ”När ska vi stockholmare få tid att älska och skratta?”, and it's main line is: Socialdemokraterna vill bygga in kollektiva vardagstjänster i SL:s lokaler... Stockholmarnas värdefulla tid ska stå i fokus.

This basically concerns their proposition to introduce services through the local transport system to allow regular Stockholmers to make the most of their time. Among some potentially feasible suggestions (?), these were my two favourites:

• Drop your laundry off at the metro in the morning and pick it up later on the way home.
• 'Butler-like services' can assist you with mundane necessities such as parking your car.

A bit of Fresh Prince nostalgia for you there! I guess I wouldn't mind this guy as my butler...

My first reaction was a little guffaw and a sense of disbelief: we stockholmers love being independant, why would anyone agree to this? Butlers on the metro?  How is this in any way realistic? Is this how Socialdemokraterna want to win these elections?! How lazy are these people anyway? WTF? But it is a changing world, our unemployment rate of roughly 9% certainly does need a makeover, and really who knows what will happen.

I do know however that I'll definitely be following these elections much closer than last time around. I can finally vote in Sweden afterall!

There's a funny short video too for anyone who understands Swedish and wants to giggle about this.

That is all.

Oh and P.S. Yes I know this has little or nothing to do with Giddy in London City, but a) This is simply in the programme seeing as I have yet to leave Stockholm, and b) I'm allowed to ramble, so there.