Once upon a time, in a country definitely much warmer than Norway is, there was less pressure on getting that great education. Okay, okay. Lousy introduction. But, you know, in a time when people lived in an ignorant bliss – completely unaware of the many catastrophes, events, celebrities and places to visit in the world around them.

Before people knew a cellphone, an email or a text was. While the internet was pretty much fiction. Much before everyone got obsessed with the media and technology. When it was still much too common to not finish any kind of high school at all! In fact, when a lot of young men left home shortly after secondary school to become sailors, and the females were much more embarrassed to discuss any kind of behind-closed-doors activities to their girlfriends. When you could still have basically no education at all and still not be doomed to work in a seriously low-wage, awful job for the rest of your way too long and boring life.

Back then you could actually become somebody, even if you didn’t have both a BA and an MA both finished at expensive prestige universities. Or at least a BA. Nowadays, you can hardly even get that permanent job as a check out girl without having finished high school.

The days very days my grandpa and dad keep whining about. Everything that proves to me, is of course that they’re both getting old.

All honest, I think the education is fantastic. I have just no clue of what’s supposed to be so incredibly good about a world without easy self-publishing, the internet, cell phones, an overload on information and easy access to education. I’m just a bit angry at myself for not having good enough grades. I completely messed up my last year in high school and now I probably won’t get accepted into SOAS – the School of Oriental and African Studies (in London!). Their Chinese BA requires AAB, and the way I understand it, my grades are unfortunately more like ABB. I seriously hope I’ve got it all wrong.

But no, I haven’t quite given up on studying in England yet. I want to Chinese in England, even though I have a Plan B in Norway ready just in case. I’m still the dreamy kind. And dreaming is still free, even though school fees might not be.

Dreaming. You know. Everything from fantasizing about a person, daydreaming about the future, pretending you can hear the gong-gongs from the Buddhist temples in Asia or smell the scent of lavender from the fields in southern France, to imagining you’re surrounded by fairies. Or little red goblins. You choose. It was a way too long sentence anyway.

When I was tiny, somewhere on pre-school age, I was completely convinced the wind spoke to me at times, leading me to places and thoughts. Well, and that it was living in the large willow in a nearby park. My grandma even wrote a poem about that. Crazy kid? Well, I guess. Now that I think of it, it was kind of nice to feel guided by the nature. Especially since I’ve always thought most religions are more like really violent, sexual and kinda gross fairy tales. I’d much rather believe in Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf, although I had to admit I don’t exactly see what kind of religion one could make out of that. Back to the red line, aka main forest path, (if there actually is one) feeling the wind and hearing it through wind chimes and leaves rattling still calms me down and makes my imagination spin off like a crazy butterfly.

When it comes to dreaming, I’m a god-damned professional. I’ve read some place (read: in a Norwegian popular science magazine) that you have to practise around 10 000 hours before you really, really become good at something. And what is that? Around 416 days (and a half)? One year and 7,3 weeks? Feel free to correct if your maths is better than mine.

I betcha I’ve day dreamed a whole lot more than that. Actually, I don’t bet. I know. It’s more like 16 years, and I’ve been both dreaming and daydreaming. Which makes it almost constant, really. I could say it’s been almost 20 years, considering I’ll be 20 on Thursday (the 27th of August!), but I really don’t know or remember much about the first 4 years of my life. Except that I loved cats, burned my hair down – accidentally – on a candle and thus had an awful boy-short hair cut, had a wild imagination and a bad taste in clothing. Have to mention my dresses got much prettier when I reached 5.

I’m think I’m still dreaming, really. Maybe I will let the wind lead me properly some day. Like that brilliant lady in the movie Chocolat. Well, not counting the ending of it.

For a few days now, I’ve started thinking I want to move to London. I mean, I’ve lived in Shanghai for quite a while, London would be fun this time.

There’s just something about the city. Every time I’ve been there, which is quite a few now, I’ve felt overwhelmed by all of it. In a good way. In a “I wanna live there!” way. There’s so much to see, so much to do, just like in most major cities and very much unlike my home town, where I’m currently staying.

But there’s quite a few things stopping me at the moment. One of them is that I need to work for a year to get money, a second is that I’m not sure what I’d be studying there – although probably photography, another is that for photography you don’t get a scholarship for the first year since it’s -technically- not a part of the three year bachelor, and then there’s the thing about me lacking a proper photography portfolio since the old one is way outdated. And what about everything else I also want to do?

In other words, I either need to start working, both with my photography and a proper job, or just drop the entire thing. Don’t really feel like doing anything. It’s still to comfortable to just be at home and relax.

A small pointer in the right direction.

I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I’m completely and utterly confused about the topics “education” and “future occupation”. I’ve already written a great deal about me only wanting to enjoy life as it is, but I’ve also come to the conclusion that with me being incredibly restless it would probably bore me to death before reaching 25. Even if I had millions and never needed to work, I’d still need something to keep me learning and actually enjoying living. Let’s just say I’m not the kind who can lie week after week on the beach, tanning and bathing. I’d be wanting to wander off after a few days of enjoying being lazy, which is why I heavily prefer going on vacation to large cities and not tropical beaches. And besides, I’m scared of both water, fish and sharks.

I’m a dreamer, that’s for sure. I have incredibly many dreams, places to visit, things to see and experience. So why can’t I combine all this? Why can’t I combine my dreams and the occupations I want? I can have hobbies! After all, I already have a whole lot of those. Earlier today I wrote down a list of things I’d like to do and realized that even though I can’t live on all of them, I can combine the ones I can make a living on with the ones I’d have to keep as hobbies. I think I’m repeating myself, as always, but everything seems clearer to me now. Well, at least for now.

The first occupation I wrote down was Art & Antiques dealer. Or, in a perfect world, Art, Antiques and Furniture dealer. I’ve always dreamt of having my own little store. Always as in back in kindergarten when we were playing and I was a shop owner, selling sea shells, stones, buckets, sand figurines and everything else I could get my hands on, and my friends “bought” the stuff I sold with leaves. I’m a complete eBay & art geek so finding stuff to sell in a proper store probably wouldn’t be too difficult. Too bad I have absolutely no clue about economy and how to manage a store. I guess I’d have to learn that first. Business economy classes and a job in a small store maybe? I should probably contact one of those career centres for guidance.

The second thing I wrote down was Photographer. The only hobby I’ve never gotten tired of. Everything else has gotten my interest to fade after a while, but in photography your target always changes. You never need to take pictures of the same thing and there are incredibly many photography categories to explore if you finally grow tired of the thing you usually obsess over capturing. There’s nothing more fun that dressing up and capture the essence and mood of a moment. Plus, I love using photographs as memories of the past. Documenting what I’ve done is essential for my way of being. It would also come in handy during travelling, which I love above all.

My third thought was Writer. I mean, why not? Besides taking pictures, it’s what I do. I know it’s something that’s not easy to live on, and so this is the first thing to go into the hobby category. It can in every way be combined with my forth choice, Blogging. Sharing my thoughts feels amazing sometimes, even if the response I get is neither large nor positive. Maybe I could write about my way too eventful dreams, show some pieces from my dairy, or just rant as I usually do. Last mentioned shouldn’t be too difficult, since I rant way too often and much.

Backpacking around the world isn’t exactly a job either, but since travelling through the entire world is my major life goal it can be combined with everything else I’ve mentioned so far. And besides, I’m addicted to shopping here. I could always buy things to sell off later in my, potential, store. I’d love to go to India, Cambodia, Egypt, Morocco, and the entire South-America before the age of 25.

I’d also like to be a Vintage & Avant Garde jewellery dealer. And that can easily be combined in the store I’d like to have. The only problem would be that I’m not sure I’d be able to sell off the stuff after stocking up. I obsess way too easily.

Now, Make-up Artist isn’t something I need to do no matter what the odds are. It’s more because it would be rather convenient to combine with the photography and because I’m quite vain. I already love experimenting with make up, and the right make up can sometime make the entire photo shoot. Only bad thing is that make up artist classes are quite expensive, and I’m currently a bit broke.

Last occupation I’d like to have is Seamstress. Sewing is fun, looking through fabrics is fun, designing clothing is fun. And who doesn’t want to be able to make their own clothing? It can easily be combined with the shop idea too. Hirr, hirr.

I think I really should contact the nearest career centre and attend the work related gatherings in January. I have one more year before I can start my education anyway. One year of work and pondering about possible options. It’ll be fun I hope, even though my friends will be living far away from me.

Because, seriously, I’ve only got 10 days left in Shanghai.

I’ve been unable to update during the last few months, because of laziness, the worst internet in the world, travelling and more. But here they are, the last two weeks of my time in China. I’m so unprepared – I still have two more laaarge boxes of stuff to send back home, and I’ve been too lazy for the past two weeks to just buy in some strong tape and send them off. Needless to say, I have a lot to do.

I’m going to write about my small backpacking trip around the south of China with Monique and Nicole when I get back home (because I want to post pictures at the same time). We travelled to Hong Kong, Macau, Guilin, Yangshou, Xing Ping, Chengdu and Leshan, and I have tons of pictures and stories. In Hong Kong, we went to Disneyland – and I took so many panda pictures in Chengdu!

Also, I have a really bad cold. The throat-rasping, lung-spitting kind. Suits me well for standing over a half hour outside in cold, rainy weather and minimal clothing while trying to hail a cab. Damn the Chinese for not having a queue system, or manners enough to let the person who hailed the cab drive off in it. Every time I managed to get the attention of a free cab, some damn person came running from the side, jumped into my cab and drove off before I could protest. And that happened several times.

Manners isn’t the greatest thing with cab, metro and traffic culture in general down here, so I get happy every time I see the governments campaigns of behaving. Lately, there’s been “metro guards” in the larger metro stations during rush hour. They force the people to cue up on the sides so people can get off before the others get on, only to fail miserably when the train doors open and the Chinese get into a desperate (no, not kidding) frenzy of getting themselves as fast as possible into the train (while elbowing, kicking and screaming) – ignoring the people inside the wagons just as desperate attempts to get out.

It’s the same thing for the seats too. “The battle of the seats”. Be one second too slow, and someone else has put their ass down in the seat you were targeting. If there are free seats when the door opens, you’ll see people diving to get them. Even if there are old people needing them nearby. I don’t see people giving away their seats very often down here. It’s much more common to really pretend like you aren’t paying attention, so you can keep the seat to yourself.

I stood at People Square for a while last week, just observing. Every time the people got forced to stand in a queue (and the queue sneaks and the ones who still didn’t get it got scolded and sent to the back of it), they’d break it and start running towards the doors as soon as they opened. I’d say amusing, if it weren’t for the fact that I have to take that damn metro reaaaaally often during rush hour. I’m going to see if I can tape it sometime before I leave. We’ll. Otherwise I can just ask to borrow some videos from friends.

On another topic, it’s also really warm here now, but the temperature changes fast.. It goes from sunny 35 degrees Celsius to 25 and raining so fast that around 20 to 23 degrees seems icy with the air condition on in the metro.

Don’t you sometimes just feel good? For no reason, even. Today is the first time in a long while I’ve felt beautiful, but it makes me nervous for some reason I can’t quite define.

There are times I feel so shallow that it’s almost sickening. Like every IQ-point I had disappeared the day I realized I could look good. As if every book I’ve read, every article I’ve analysed, studied and written means nothing and that all my, even though sometimes random, knowledge is either gone or good for nothing. Like all my education and good grades were wasted beyond comparison, since I still have no clue of what to become. There was a time, quite a long ago, when I wanted to study psychology, forensic anthropology, sociology or even, at times, literature. Every topic could interest me, every detail was important, and my education – state of mind – mattered. Now I’m blank. I felt challenged by studying Chinese for a while, but I realize now more than ever that, as I’ve always been saying, I have the attention span of a gold fish. I can’t stay focused for more than a few months at the time, I never have and probably never will. Maybe I do have a will of fire when it comes to starting something new, but I almost never finish what I start. How am I supposed to finish a university degree like this? What could I possibly work as when I don’t want to stay in one place for more than a few months?

I think that if I first manage to start school again after this year with Chinese, I’ll probably study “something within art”. I do have more thoughts on the matter, but chances are I’ll change my mind once more. Art history? Literature? Clothing design, photography, mixed-media paintings or seamstress studies? I already love all of them. I’d love to make my own clothes, fire off my mind with paintings, or live off my stories and “rants”, the last one because it’s something I’ve done since I was somewhere around 12 and never have gotten tired of. Photography would be amazing too, but taking pictures because other people would want me to and pay me for it removes all the love I have for it, and all the passion to continue with it.

Should I be honest and seem even more shallow while feeling even better?

I would like to do nothing. Nothing. All I really, truly, want is to travel the world while writing and taking pictures of it.

When I started thinking about it, I had no clue of what kind of New Year resolutions to create this year. Or how to make sure I don’t break them.

There’s always so many things I need to do, and a year is such little time to make so many dreams come true in. I managed to finish last year’s resolutions because I kept everything realistic, even though I dreamt a lot when I made them. It must sound a bit silly, but instead of in a blur in the beginning of January and then start trying to solve them right away, I usually make them proper and realistic as the year goes on. They start out as dreams for the new year, and then I shape them into something do-able. Y’know, and then I make myself a list of all the smaller pieces and parts I need to do to get the big dream come true.

50 small dreams are easier to fulfil than one huge. And now, after thinking of it for quite a few hours, I think the two large goals for me this year will be to start the beginning of a great portfolio for modelling, and to get enough photography experience to master using a strobe properly. Next year I’ll hopefully be good enough at distributing my time enough to decide joining the Flickr 365 Days challenge. The mini-goals are many, many, but like I said – I’ll make that up as I go along.

I need to loose some weight too, or actually I don’t – but I want to be a perfect XS again and not just a half size in between XS and S. Probably won’t though, unless it happens by it self. I’m really not a big fan of dieting.

Happy Brilliant New Year, darlings! It will be. Feel like sharing your own New Year Resolutions?