The Kiss by Klimt
The Kiss by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
The Kiss by Picasso
The Kiss by Francesco Hayez
The Kiss (V-J Day in Times Square)
The Kiss by Edward Munch
The Kiss by Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker
The Kiss by Constantin Brâncuși
The Kiss by Auguste Rodin
The Kiss by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
The Kiss by Edvard Munch
The Kiss by Madonna and Britney Spears
The best thing about autumn is the cool air and the feeling of something new that begins. Autumn is when I get going again and I love to get going, I love the feeling of productivity and knowing that I am doing something with my life again. There’s magic in the air (cold crisp sunny air and the smell of autumn). I love scarfs and coats and cups of warm drinks in an environment that is getting colder.
I want to eat good food this autumn. First, I am going to catch up on all the foods I missed from the UK when I was in Sweden: nutritional yeast, Sainsbury’s vegan cheddar, lentil crisps, chips & curry sauce, salt & vinegar, Papa John’s pizza and a cheeky Nandos. After that I want to eat ‘healthy’ (I hate that expression because there are so many contradictory views on what is ‘healthy’). In my case that means a lot of fruit and veg, whole foods rather than ready made, foods that are rich in nutrients and foods that make me happy.
I’ll drink coffee. Always coffee.
I’ll wear my new stripy top (it’s evenly striped i.e. the black stripes and the white stripes are the same size) and my soft grey scarf and my Dr Marten’s boots and my Charlotte Tilbury lipstick in the shade Bond Girl.
I’ll get a job and spend my days working and on my free days I want to explore London and write in cafés. I’ll go for runs and I’ll Netflix and chill with my bf in our room. I’ll read a lot of books in Swedish and continue reading plays (I’m thinking 1/week or is that too ambitious?). I want to paint and draw and go for walks in parks.
At this point a year ago I was doing pretty much the same thing as I am doing now: waiting for September and to go back to the UK, but then again a lot of things are very different. Last year I knew exactly what to expect: my final year at university, studying and reading and writing. Now I know next to nothing which is also quite a freeing thought.
I pay more for a coffee in Sweden than I do for a rum & coke in the UK. Almost twice the price. I don’t even want to know how much a rum & coke is in Sweden. Everything is more expensive in Sweden apart from housing but then again I want to live in Stockholm and there the prices are super high anyway. Millenials get a lot of flack for living with their parents for longer than previous generations but what are we to do when there’s no way most of us will ever afford even a tiny flat in the bigger cities?
My friend sent me her essay question for a rewrite that she has to finish before term starts. It is a question about Jane Eyre and what role dreams and visions play in the novel. I’ve never read Jane Eyre and I can’t either because I lent my friend my copy but seeing the question awakens something within me. I also want to write an essay. I thought I’d never say that. It’s like constantly going back to that partner who treats you badly. That partner that plays with your emotions, that manipulates you, puts you down and makes you doubt yourself. But then you finish with him. You think it is time for you to focus on yourself instead. You come out on the other side, stronger.
After a while it begins to feel a bit empty. Who am I without this person? How do I make it in the world without this? So you go searching, looking for the kick this relationship gives you and before you know it you are back in the same type of relationship with the highs and the lows and the constant stress in the back of your mind. You’re doing research again. You’re writing essays again. You are back in battle.
I think this is where I will have to halt my comparison because if this would be a real case scenario I’d say: run from the person that emotionally manipulates you and build a safe-place as far away from this person as you possibly can. The difference is also that extending your thinking process, no matter how stressful that might be, (hopefully) develops you in the long run whereas there are no good arguments for staying in a toxic relationship. With essays, the highs and lows are challenging but you grow from it. The relationship with your essays is a battle within you, with your own ideas most of the time whereas you shouldn’t have to battle with your partner. But maybe there is a similarity in that in the pursuit for knowledge we always want what we don’t have and relationships often work like that as well.
My 10-year-old sister has her first day back at school today and I got up early to braid her her. They’ve left now and I’m sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. I’m starting to get that feeling inside again, that feeling of excitement over the fact that we are coming into autumn. And autumn is my favourite season.
Autumn is the season of new beginnings. Summer is often very needed and after a hard year at school I need the rest and the calm of summer but autumn is special to me. So special. I can’t think of anything better than a crisp but sunny autumn morning where you have to wear a cosy scarf to stay warm but you can still wear your sunglasses. Frost glitters on every surface. The leaves explode into a myriad of different bright shades of yellow, orange, red, pink, purple and they contrast the blue sky. When I was still at school I was always excited about getting new stationary. I could spend ages in the local bookshop and stationary supplier and pic out my matching set of pens and paper for the next year.
This autumn is going to be different from every autumn ever before: I am not in education any longer. I have no reason to buy new stationary so I will probably have to do so anyway. For no reason. For stationary in itself. Every single autumn in my life so far has meant either returning to my old school for a more advanced year or beginning some place completely new, accompanied with varying levels of newness and nervousness. New cities have been conquered in autumn and new friends made, and, while this year will be different in the education sense a new city with new friends will be conquered as I am *drum roll* MOVING TO LONDON. I can’t wait!!!
At some point I want to make love to a sensitive art guy to see how he’d touch me and make me feel. I want his long hair to get tangled up with mine and for our slow breaths to mingle between us. I want him to take it slow and to be careful, yet assertive. I want to feel the passion in every moment and when we’re done I want to clasp him tight to me as tears trickle down my cheeks, and maybe also his, because crying is the only way to let our emotions when they’re that strong.
I just need to write something here for once. Because I never write these days. Apart from the 5000×2 and the 2500 word essays I handed in last week. All due on the same day and I wonder why my department does that? And also how it can be ok to have most of my assessment for this entire year due within the space of a month. In that sense May is a horrible month.
On the other hand the weather is becoming nicer and warmer and soon, soon, soon, soon, soon I will be DONE WITH UNIVERSITY. But, as one of my friends said: A lot lies between then and now.
And he is right. I have substantial amounts of studying to get through. Numerous Shakespeare plays to refresh and reread, a lot of theory to familiarise myself with before my Literary and Cultural Theory exam, and several plays + secondary readings to find for my European Theatre exam in 12 days time. It is all very stressful. Sometimes I struggle to get to sleep at night and I am tired every morning when I wake up.
The thought of the future kind of scares me. This is the first time in my life where I have finished something without having a clear plan of what is going to happen on the other side of what I am doing now. The answer has hitherto always been: more studying. I need a break from that now. I need to write and read what I want to write and read and not live under the constant pressure to perform well. It is mostly a pressure I put myself under I think so I should really be able to overcome it but hey nevermind. Not now. I just drink more coffee instead.
Jag skriver mer sen, okej?
I get up in the morning, do reading on the bus, sit in the library and read before my seminar, have a seminar and then an hours break, in which I do reading, a 2h seminar and then a lunch break for 2h 30min in which I try to do reading but it is very slow. I have a seminar for 1h 30min and then at 6pm I finish and take the bus home where what awaits me is essay writing and more reading.
