Words. Music. Fashion. Photography. And other means of capturing beauty. The background of this blog, by the way, is showing off the fairest place in the whole world - Sergels torg!
I went to sleep, hoping to wake up into a snowy Jerusalem which resembles Stockholm in early January. In reality, all we've got was a sunny morning with fragments of ice on some parts of the ground, as an evidence for something that might have happened at night. They, too, melted within few minutes.
Today there's a Melodifestivalen deltävling again, but I won't be watching it at all. I don't know how on earth I happened to forget about it, and managed to get an evening shift at work precisely today. But the songs tonight suck anyway. Molly has an okay song, but it's not in Swedish, which sucks. That Maria (I have no idea who she is) has a song in Swedish, but it's quite boring,over-schlagerish and repetitive. All the other songs are nothing special. So I ain't missing a thing. Probably.
Anyway, as a sort of compensation to myself, I made this...what do they call it? I heard several names, like "meme" and "what I think I do", but a formal name is yet to be discovered. So...I made a Melodifestivalen-themed thing for this...thing which is so popular now, which explains how various kinds of proffessions, people, etc are seen by you Vs. by others.
So Here it is, dedicated to all Melodifestivalen fans, who happened to be born in the wrong (middle-eastern?) country:
As it appeared to be a creative weekend, I also made this one about my work at H&M. But I guess it applies for all the workers of other big fashion brands too:
So that's it for today. Now I'm off to get ready for work. Happy MF for all the lucky people who can stay at home and watch that Swedish delight!
That's the English translation of the name of the movie I was watching last valentine's day. It's a kind of a black humor comedy in Swedish, called Torsk på Tallinn -En liten film om ensamhet in the original version. The movie is a fake documentary about a group of single men, all of whom are loosers, good-for-nothings or just weirdos.
They all go on an organized trip to Estonia, in order to find a bride in the baltics, a foreigner who'd not recognize their unattractiveness immidiately. The most weird and the most hopeless of all is Ronald (played by the divine Robert Gusstavsson which i totally admire), who lacks all social skills, lives alone and listens to dansband music in his free time.
I have ambivalent feelings toward this movie. On the one hand, it's really funny and witty in a sarcastic way and I could understand most of the humor in it even though I'm far from being Swedish. On the other hand, I assume that cultural differences prevented from me from understanding one crucial thing. And that thing is: What was so bad about all of these men?
They didn't seem so repeling and terrible to me. In fact, some of them seemed quite handsome and cute. I wouldn't have minded marrying some of them. Even a little shy and clumsy Ronald doesn't seem so bad to me. But I guess that was the point of the movie. A foreigner would never be able to identify the outcasts of a different culture. In addition, let's just say that in my country, the typical looser who's unattractive for the opposite sex is defined somewhat differently than what they probably define it in Sweden, and respectively, in that movie.
Now let's talk valentine's day in general. In general, I hate valentine's day. I had a chance to celebrate it only once in my life, on 2009, when I was lucky enough to have a boyfriend around February. Celebrating valentine's was nice but kind of meaningless, since that relationship was not so deep and meaningful (or at least now I see that).
In addition, valentine's day always reminds me of all the guys that hurted me in the past. Not that there were so many who did that. But the experience of being rejected is so unpleasant that it's multiplied.
But enough with the negative bulshit. These last days were really great days for me. I feel like I've got endless enegry inside me, and many planes for the upcoming future. If only I had the courage to carry out to the latter all of them, and be ready to face an adventure...I love adventures, and I love challanges - the bigger the better. I even started loving them more and more during the last year.
And still, I didn't reach that stage yet, when you feel that you're ready to take the risk, maybe leave everything you have and worked for behind you, and gamble your whole life for the chance of winning something bigger than life. But maybe soon.
Again, I'm off to the store down the street to buy some snacks before MF. I think I'm gonna go for something with chocolate this time. Oh, stores which are open 24 hours a day are my favorite! They were just made for people like me, who work 24/7 and have no daily schedule with time for organized shopping. People like me are also always hungry for something sweet. I guess it has to do with spending a lot of energy...
Anyway, today I won't be watching full-screen because I have a lot of work to do (and work means money, and money means ability to buy flying tickets to Sweden this summer. That's what I'm telling myself in order to be motivated and productive). So I'm gonna half-watch and half-work. But don't be sorry for me, since listening to the music is what matters, or so I assume.
I think that overall, last week's deltävling was better, but personally I like this one more. Last week I only had one song which I liked at first hearing, and that was Loreen's. But I liked it more because of her, and not because the song was so good. I mean, it was good and she performed great, but when I listened to it on my Blackberry on my way to work, only to the music, without the show and her stage charizma, the magic wore off.
This time, however, I've got two songs which I really really like: Andreas' and Timoteij's, both in Swedish! I've already been listening to them 10-12 times since they were available for downloading, and I'm totally addicted and excited! Eventually, I don't think they're going to win. Timoteij might qualify, but they would never win Melodifestivalen. How do I know? Oh, because songs that I like never win. But anyway, it would be great to support them!
I'm also hoping for some interesting outfits tonight! After the up-to-date outfits of the three presenters last week, I'm curious to see what they're going to wear this time and how they're gonna match each other.
I'm also still waiting for the ultimate outfit that would make me search the stores like crazy with the hope to find something similar - just like Linda Bengtzing's yellow dress last year made me crave for yellow dresses. That perfect outfit hasn't turned up yet, but who knows, we have 3 more deltävlings to go (yeah, I insist on using the Swedish word and I also dare Englishize it).
SO, happy MF everyone! May this nice perioud of the year would never end!
I think I've mentioned before my "project" of watching at least one Swedish movie / series episode / TV show / etc every day. Well, it's been going on very well for the last two years, and thanks to that, my understanding of spoken Swedish became very good. On the begining I could only watch movies with English subtitles. After few months I became able to watch movies with only Swedish subtitles.
Now I can watch with no subtitles at all. That progress actually opened a whole new world of TV shows and movies for me, because now I am not...wait, what's the English word for the Swedish word "begränsad"? Oh yeah, limited*. Anyway, now that I'm not limited to well-known successful movies that often come with available English subs, I can watch just whatever Swedish movies / series I want.
Nowadays, for example, I'm watching the Johan Falk movies - A series of movies about the "adventures" of a (very hot) police officer with the same name. I became curious about these movies after I happened to watch one of them (which was called "Den tredje vågen - The third wave) and was surprised at how good and thrilling and exciting it was!
Okay, I must admit I was a *little bit* suspicious because of all these horrible crimes that were committed in the movie...they seemed to be very American in nature, and not at all so common in the everyday lives of a peaceful country like Sweden. But movies are movies, I guess. And you've got to make them interesting, even if it involves turning your heavenly peaceful country into a terror-stricken one.
Anyway, while I was watching at these movies, I suddenly noticed that unlike usually, I didn't understand 99% of what was said, but only 80%. Maybe it's because of police and crime vocabulary which I lack, but nevertheless - it made me understand that I still need to work harder on my Swedish.
That's why I decided to revive an old habbit of mine, which is writing down new words I hear in Swedish, in order to memorise them. I decided that I'm gonna do it here, on this blog, because then it would mean bigger commitment. It would happen from time to time, and it would include around 5 words each time.
So here are the words I'm gonna memorize for the time being (taken from Håkan Hellström's lyrics)
1. Stråke - Bow
2. Kass - Useless, worthless
3. Rämna - split, crack
4. Misär - Misery
5. Bedrövlig - Misrable
Yeah, yeah, a lot of misery in Håkan's songs. Now I'm off to watch another Johan Falk movie while eating Reese's peanut butter chocolate cups. If there's anyone who's reading this, have a great & peaceful weekend!
* This was supposed to be an example of what often happens to me after I'm working too much on my Swedish - it starts to devour my poor English.
It's been quite an interesting day. First, I got to work with our store's visual merchandiser for the whole day. The girl who's a visual merchandising trainee was taking a day off or something like that, so I was asked to come and help him instead. That's why I woke up at 05:00, took a taxi to the mall and worked with him non-stop, especially in the Divided department which is my personal favorite.
It turned out to be quite a busy day, because we got about 10 clothes racks, all full of new clothes that should be placed in four different departments. So it all was a little messy and stressed, and we took a lunch break only at 14:00, but for me it was all fun and exciting. That's how it feels when you do something you like - time flies and you don't even notice it. You don't even notice that you're hungry, and as the case is with me - I'm usually hungry.
At the afternoon, after I took care of a huge clothes rack with 4 new jeans models to place at the Denim department, I was allowed to go home. And when I got home, started the amazing race of me trying to change clothes, fix make up and hair and pack my bag as quick as possible - because I had to make it to the Eurovision show in Tel Aviv that was about to take place in 3 hours!
I made it on time, eventually. Unfortunately, I didn't sing so well at the show. It's been a while since I sang in front of people, and I might have forgotten that I shouldn't choose upbeat songs - it confuses me. That's why I always used to stick to ballads.
Anyway, after the show was mostly over and I was heading out in order to make it to the last bus back to Jerusalem, a guy stopped me and told me: "Your Swedish was perfect in that song!" I asked him how could he know that, and then he told me what I could guess myself - he was Swedish.
Wow, that really made my day! To hear that my Swedish sounded perfect to a Swedish person is worth so much more to me than performing well on stage! When I walked in the streets of TLV on my way to the bus, I just couldn't stop smiling. "Perfect" is a strong word indeed.
That made me reach this final conclusion - I wanna keep on doing those things which I'm good at. I want to go on with visual merchandising, and I'll try and work with the store designers at every possible opportunity and then have lots of experience.
I also wanna go on with studying Swedish - watching a Swedish movie every night in the last two years turned out to work well for me. I want to sign up to a Swedish course in Sweden this summer again, and reach the highest level of C2, according to European languages standard.
And I want to fullfill all of my dreams and have more opportunities to hear things which make me smile with no ability to stop.
On wednesday I'm gonna take a part in a small Eurovision karaoke show of OGAE Israel. It's gonna be a contest, and the whole thing is gonna be held in a club, with a real stage and stuff. Exciting! Especially because that means...that I have an opportunity to create a new outfit.
Well, as a self-diagnosed shopaholic, I constantly look for opportunities to buy new clothes. Usually it sounds like "I had a really bad day and need to feel better by buying a new mini skirt" or "I need a vacation and can't afford it, so maybe I'll buy a nice dress and plan to wear it while I'll walk in the streets of the country where my future vacation is gonna take part" and so on. As I said, my shopping is characterised by pure rationality and actual needs. Or not.
So...buying a dress. Since I'm gonna sing 'Det gör ont", I was looking for something which is in the Lena Philipsson's year 2004 style, and by this I mean - very feminine and bright-coloured. I was looking all around the mall and couldn't find something like that. All I found was colourful-but-too-casual dresses, or elegant-and-sexy-but-dull-coloured dresses, mostly in black or gray.
But at the end I found the perfect dress - in my own closet! I almost forgot that a month ago, I went to see the first-ever Forerver 21 store in TLV and saw there a marvelous fancy dress, which I fell in love with, and bought it even though I didn't have any special occasion (I usualy don't have special occasions) in which I would be able to wear it. And now...the perfect occasion!
The dress is royal blue, which is a more Invincible-Carola colour than Lena Ph, but who cares. It's a pleated dress made of chiffon and its skirt moves when one turns around...perfect! In addition, my friend lended me a pair of extremely high black heels which I'm gonna wear with it. All is left to do is...buy some accessorize tommorow. And that's gonna be the real fun!
Some things are just meant to happen, and are just bound to be sensed by everybody before they happen. Loreen's success this night is one of there things. After being a favorite last year, with her song becoming a hit even after she didn't have such a success in MF, it was just clear that if she takes part this year, it's gonna be a victory. She just took everyone's breath away with her great performance tonight! I'm still breathless!
And now to the show. Well, one of the things which always interests me is to see how current fashion is reflected in the outfits of the presenters and participate in ESC and its related contests. Well, the three woman-presenters did follow current main trends:
All three of them beared a mixture of three trends which are really strong now: Lace, sequins and gold. I need to buy a dress soon, for a Eurovision singing show I'm taking part in, and the three of them really gave me some ideas (I think I'm gonna go for the Sara Dawn-Finer style).
And a few words about the songs, before I must go to sleep (morning shift tomorrow, which means I must wake up at 06:00). When I first listened to the songs, I thought it was a very weak week for MF. I thought Loreen was going to take the show by a storm because she had the only good song. Well, after watching the show and listening to the songs attached to their performances, I've changed my mind. It wasa great collection of songs!
I loved The Moniker, even though I used to hate him after last years upbeat sleeping pill called "Oh my god". I adored Torsten-something with his mature charisma (marry me Torsten!). I was charmed by Dead by april even though I usually don't fancy those metal songs. I liked everything, even the ridiculous Banan who sang a rather funny song about Swedish "culture". The songs which I least liked were Afrodite's (boring) and Marie's (catchy but nothing special. The song didn't suit her, I think). But Loreen is above all, ofcourse. She and her georgeous hair style with bangs covering her whole face. Adorable.
Let's only hope that next week's gonna be just as fabulous. Oh, next week! I just can't wait for next week!
"Just came back from the local grocery store with some snacks and drinks before Melodifestivalen! Oh...those are marvelous days in which all you need in order to achieve pure happiness is a good internet connection, a proper link for downloading songs, a few coins to buy some goods and ESC community facebook friends who post MF related statuses which make you feel it's a real holiday! Happy Melodifestivalen everyone!"
Marvelous days indeed. I'm so looking forward for all of this MF excitement to begin! I've downloaded the songs today, and gonna load them into my blackberry tomorrow. I'm gonna listen to them on my way to work and feel the MF spirit, the Swedish spirit, the ESC community spirit...which I love so much.
This reminds me strongly of last year, when I've just started to work at H&M. It was also MF time then, and I was taking the bus to work every morning, listening to 'Oh my god" (by Le kid, not The moniker) "Desperados", "E det fel på mig" and more favorites. I remember wanting so bad to buy a yellow dress after totally falling in love with Linda Bengtzing's performance. I wonder what MF outfits would inspire me this year!
Right now I hear my annoying rommate closing the door to her room and turning off the lights. Let her go on with her boring, ordinary, sterile life while I'm having fun leading my messed-up, caffein-full, productive and creative industrial commercial life! In about two weeks I'm out of this appartment, and wouldbe able to live my life without a strict lady who thinks this appartment (which she doesn't even own) is some kind of a university programme you need to be accepted to.
But now it's 02:26 minutes to MF, so let's not deal with unpleasant things, and let the fun begin!
I was making an attempt to listen to some 2012 Eurovision season songs lately. So far I mannaged to download only the songs of the Norwegian preselection - simply because the access to them was the easiest, and I am lazy, and don't have much free-time lately. Anyway, I uploaded those Norwegian songs to my blackberry yesterday, in order to listen to them on my way to work the day after - a thing which didn't happen, because I missed my bus and therefore was very tense, with no mood for music.
But I did listen to those songs on my way back from work. I certainly did. I went through the songs in my usual impatient manner, and by this I mean - listening to the first ten seconds of each song, and then, if I lose interest, switch to the next song. Most songs were really good and nice to listen to, but nothing special. And then...came some first seconds of a song I was never going to press "next" upon...
I was totally charmed as my ears were filled with the delicate sounds of a piano intro, with the most touching melody and chords in the whole world. I was captured as the song developed in such a flawless way. The real test - the chorus test, didn't let me down either, The song was totally perfect. You know, when you listen to most songs, you tend to think criticly: "mmm...at this point I would have done it differently", and so on. However, while listening to this song, I was repeatedly thinking: "Wow. This is how I would have wished to do it, if only I could". And as the ending lyrics of the first chorus came:
"...If you don't cry, then why should I"
I just started to...cry, uncontrollably! Unexplainable tears were flowing from my eyes. It was as if this song reminded me of everything I ever wanted to be, but couldn't. This is the song:
Norra Foss Al-Jabri: Somewhere beautiful
I know nothing about the singer, nor about the song-writer yet, but I will do my little reasearch. I feel, however, that this song had to be created by someone who's just like me, in some way. Crying just at the mere listening to a beautiful song for the first time is not something that usually happens to me. It does, however, happen to my with movies, especially Danish Dogme movies. With music it rarely happens to me, unless the song is really personally meaningful in some way.
Here are the few songs that managed to make me cry, in my whole lifetime:
Mikael Erlandsson: Tills jag möte dig
Musically, not such a special song at all. But it's connected in my memory to the first person I've ever fallen in love with, who sang this specific song to another girl. I was listening to this song a lot in the year of 2004. I couldn't speak Swedish then, but I understood the meaning of the line: Jag saknar ord att beskriva hur jag mår - I lack words to describe how I feel - and it was a sensitive line to me, because it was a first love, and I really lacked the words to explain to myself why I was feeling so needy and so bad.
Sofia Karlsson: Moesta et errabunda
There's no You-tube link to this song, but it's a wonderfully beautiful track with a very movig and sorrowful melody. I discovered it accidantly on my playlist after I broke up with a boyfriend. I was walking on my way back from university to the bus home. It was dark and raining and I was freezing and had no coat or umbrella as it was supposed to be summer. Suddenly this song came up in my headphones, and the beautiful sad melody made me understand how lonely and helpless I felt outside in the rain, recalling how this ex-boyfriend ignored me completely the whole day at school and just laughed with his friends. The tears that came as a result from the music were really liberating...
Roxette: You don't understand me (abbey road version)
Marie Fredriksson is my absolute idol. I adore her fierce kind of beauty, and her heavenly voice which is so dominant and powerful, yet can be so fragile at times. I always liked this song - this is my ultimately favorite Roxette ballad. This version, however, was new to me and I listened to it for the first time after I've read about Marie's illness and everything she's been through. This video is poweful and inspiring in itself - and together with her story, it made a strong impression on me. I didn't cry right after watching it - only almost - but the blast of emotions was so strong and I wouldn't have minded if I did.
So those are the songs that are capable of making me cry. Oh...events, memories and music! This combination can sometime create a mixture of emotions that leads to awkward outbursts of feelings that only the one who feel them fully understands...
Everyone who knows me can tell that I'm an obsessive blog-opener. Every once in a while, when I feel like sharing things that I currently do, think or feel - I open a new blog. If I have the necessary time, ofcourse. So, now is such a time, and therefore, I'm opening a new blog.
Oh, it feels so good! To write what one has inside one's mind again, to express oneself.
I made this blog a "general" blog - no special theme except for the obvious "creative" theme - I'll surely post here photographs that I take, and maybe some fashion-related and music-related items, because that's what I usually do. I don't want, however, so stick to a certain theme - "fashion blog", "photography blog" and so on. That's beacuse I'm a perfectionist, and as one, I hate moving away from a theme, after I've decided on one. That's why the theme, this time, is gonna be "everything".
So here there'll be notes about everything. Music. Fashion. Art. Thoughts. Feelings. TV shows. Even politics, maybe, if I feel like it. Notes about everything. Because life is far too much complicated for a single-theme blog!
