I just realised that the name of the blog is not really appropriate anymore. It started out as a blog of differences and new experiences as I moved here but now it's just more or less my everyday life. Hasn't that much to do with Arizona or even the US anymore.... apart from the fact that this is where I live at the moment. Maybe I need to change it???

I get a lot of questions about the gecko and how he is doing. He is doing just fine. He is a bit shy so he hides a lot of the time which is a bit boring but I can't really change him that much. You can make them more used to people but it takes time and diligence, which I don't have much of either at the moment. He eats like a little monster. When leaving for christmas I though I was being clever giving him extra many flies so that he would make it a week by himself. My thought that he would save some for later but he had another idea. He ate them all in a night so when I left the next morning there were none left, but he made it anyway. They also become less active during winter since it's colder so I don't see him much at the moment. He still doesn't have a name, I just call him Gecko so maybe that is his name.....

I gave him a bunch of flies this morning (too many by accident) so I figure he will be like a little ball when I get home if he eats the all. He is adorable anyhow, seeing him makes me happy. :) 

When I woke up this morning, after having a very unpleasent dream, I realised that my head didn't hurt. It is starting to feel a bit heavy now so maybe the head ache will come crawling back, but I see it as progress. I will now take a minute and enjoy every morning I wake up without a head ache, for a while at least.... :)

This past week has been a strange week. Monday was a holiday so it felt like there were two sundays, which I don't mind cause that means I get the office to myself. On wednesday some strange cold hit me. I don't even know if it's a cold but my throat got really sore (word I have been misspelling many times now) and my neck muscles been aching to the point that they give me a head ache. Swallowing hurts my whole head and yawning is not an option. Made a few attempts, cause I'm a bit tired too, but had to abort every time. Couldn't even make it half way through. It was like this for four days and I figured I'd be in bed with the flu by the weekend, but no. Instead on sunday my throat got less sore but my head and neck muscles still hurt and my ears feel a bit funny. I just hope it's moving on and will be soon out of my system cause I don't really have time to get sick now. The head ache is the worst, but as long as I am on painkillers I'm ok. Just a bit grumpy. I've been watching a whole lot of movies this week too. Two during the week and four more or less within 24h this weekend. The biggest surprise was Lucky number Slevin. Much better than I expected it to be. I also saw, Vitus, Three days of rain, Shark tale, Fracture and Knocked up. Still have to watch Maria full of grace. Was supposed to watch it tonight but I didn't feel like it. I watched the episode of Chuck that I missed last week. It's an awesome show on NBC, available online! It's perfect when you are like me and never remember when your show is until it's too late. Anyways, sleepy time now for me so that I can get better or at least get worse so that I can get better after that.

I am getting a visitor in the middle of april! I was totally surprised when she asked me if she could come visit me in Sweden. I will only have been home for two weeks when she arrives. I never thought anyone from over here would fly all the way to Sweden. The only one I thought might do it is Emmanuel but I don't expect him to at all. But it will be fun to show her where I come from. :)

I'm not getting anything written on my thesis so I figured I'm gonna write something here instead. Is there something wrong with having high standards? I'm always told I have high standards and maybe even too high. I've never really seen myself as a high maintainance girl, but maybe I am. I guess my idea of someone that is high maintainance is not the same as others. To me it is someone who demands that things should be in a certain way. Things that I don't find important, often it is things that should follow the stereotypes, like the guy has to something special for his girl on valentines day. I couldn't care less about things like that. But maybe I still have certain demands on how to be treated by people and I always demand respect. They don't have to like me but they have to have a really good reason for not being respectful. Or even if they don't have much respect for me they should at least not be disrespectful. Maybe that is being high maintainance too? Or maybe even more so, cause the material stuff is easy, like buying flowers for valentines day is pretty easy to do, if you manage to remember, but to please my standards actually mean that people have to make an effort. I'm not setteling for words for very long, I want people to back up their words with actions. But at the same time I think I'm fairly tolerant, patient and understanding. I try very hard not to judge people fast. But I guess I can't get away from the fact that I probably am high maintainance. Is that something one should work on though? To lower ones standards? Depends on why I have such high standards I guess. When it comes to people I think one part is just that they can't keep my interest. There is nothing wrong with them and I don't dislike them I just don't find them very interesting. So what's my point? I don't really know..... But with high standards it's harder to become happy than if they were lower I guess, so maybe trying to lower your standards is a good idea, but how do you do that? Cause settling for less is not the same as being happy......

I am so not doing what I'm supposed to do, but at least I'm having fun doing other things. :)

Was at a party last night and there is this girl that I've met a couple of times before but no more than we would say hi if passed each other in the hallway, I stand next her and two of her friends watching some people playing a drinking game, and she suddenly asks me, "someone mentioned you play basketball, is that true?" So, I manage to squeek out a modest "yes" and she tells me that they are a bunch of people that play pick up games on sundays at 1 pm and I'm welcome to join them. It sounded like fun and a good excuse to not be working so I decided I'd go take a look, and I did. Just got back from it and it was a good deal of fun. We played for about an hour and a half and after the first game I thought my lungs were gonna get torn out, even though the tempo wasn't very high, but fortunately they didn't and after a few minutes of rest and a whole lot of water I was good to go for a second one. Probably didn't manage to make a single shot but I didn't suck too bad. I wasn't ruining the game or anything.  Think it will be a good sunday distraction for the next coming weeks anyway. :)

I just crawled out of bed. Haven't been sleeping this long but haven't had strong reasons enough to get up yet. Guess I needed to rest. I slept decent but not as good as I was hoping to. But as I was lying around in my bed doing nothing I started reading the little booklet by Colin Moon about Swedes and our customs. I don't know how many times I have read them but they make me laugh out loud every single time. We look so weird in the eyes of foreigners and the way we screw up the english language all the time is just fantastic. Think it's probably even more funny when you know what the person in question is trying to mean. One of my favorites is a woman explaining why she hadn't been sleeping well "I was raping cucumber all night".