exam

Disclaimer: The picture has nothing to do with the text below. Except the “getting shit faced” part maybe. My regular partners in crime.

It’s funny how moods can do a 180 – one minute to another. And I’m not talking drastic things like getting your house bombed or anything like that. No it’s when I have to study for an exam. The weeks before I’m totally stressed out, I’m mad at people who ask if I want to meet up for a cup of coffee because it takes time away from my studying. My brain is so speeded and as I’m reading, my brain is making plans for what I will do when the test is over. It’s hard to concentrate when your brain is not cooperating. My apartment is never as clean as it is before an exam. This time I even sewed all the buttons in, that had come loose and arranged my bills by month. A friend called and asked if I felt a sudden urge to see how MacGyver reruns ends as well. How did he know?!

I take the test and when I walk out of there I’m on such endorphin-high, I bounce when I walk. All the troubles of the world are gone and the things I have been planning for the last couple of weeks seam so distance. It’s such a strange happy feeling. Like I’m floating.

When the “every day” routine sets in, the high is gone and so is the planning to some extent. I don’t’ wish to be under the study-pressure often. Actually never. But the way the brain is so active and plan fun things ahead is an amazing state. And I’m a planner, so it’s not that I don’t normally plan, but during study-time my creativity seam to be out of control! Ofcourse I wish some of that energy would be focused on the upcoming exam, but you can’t get everything now can you.

When I interviewed for my present job, one of the older and very experienced managers said to me “it’s funny with education: if you don’t have it you think it’s everything. When you have it you realize you don’t know any more than you did before”. It was such a relief for me to hear! I have worked my but off for so many years to compensate for my lack of education, and now when I soon have my executive MBA, I realize that I learned everything by working anyway. But it looks good on paper with an education. Good on paper?! When dates “look good on paper” it usually means they are boooriiiing.

Every now and then I’m asking myself if it is/was worth it to get this paper saying that I have an education. The price I’ve paid is having virtually no time left over after working, studying and sleeping. And getting shit faced. I’m hoping it’s my insurance to never have a boring job!

dance

The dance we do with other people. Sometimes it’s so frustrating! If you are the defender, I’ll almost automatically take upon me the roll as the accuser. Or if you are the one crying, I’ll be the detached and objective one. And just as how you twirl in dancing, changing the balance from the right foot to the left: the roles we have will change to the opposites, sometimes during the same conversation even. Why is this? Where did the “grown-up” and compassionate personality go? Like it is with my close circle of good friends: we “see” each other, give encouragement, praise and advice. When one of us is about to do something that will hurt herself: we do make her aware but try not to judge. None of us is stealing attention from someone else and doesn’t hog the entire conversation or its topics. Why is it so hard to be as loving with family, love interests and sometimes even with people of less importance to me? Or do I get easily provoked and that is why I can’t always be the understanding and forgiving person that I like when I am? And I’m not saying that everything should necessarily be forgiven, and I don’t claim to understand everybody out there (very few actually), but still. So many more issues would be solved if both parties could listen to each others points and both give and get. Don’t se it as being a winner in an argument, because you probably lost something in the process. Or you made another person lose some of his/her self-respect. That is one expensive victory. This is something to consider in these times of war as well. What can we do to compromise with out feeling like one of the parties is a looser? We can’t all get along, but maybe we can leave alone more. Might seam like petty little words from a person living in a small - and thus far – pretty safe country. But it’s on my mind.

It’s funny how some people make us feel. I always tell my friends that the person they are interested in is the “right one” if he/she makes you like whom you are. Now when I think about it: that is true for friends and even for work places as well. I have a job where I feel that everything I know and have done is an asset. And with some friends I like who I am and others just makes me feel ugly and boring. So strange. It’s still just me.