This is my entry for a photo contest at the blogg DinÅsikt.

Reqirement: A photo that expresses an opinion.

This photoshop project of mine is what came to mind. It's definitely not my best photoshop job, it's far from perfect aesthetically... but I just wanted to contribute to the contest! Wish me luck!

This is my entry to a photo competition over at Fannyelina,
in cooperation with Bloglovin and Guldfynd.

The requirements are, it needs to be an emotional picture featuring jewellery.

This one is very emotional to me because of the memories. The necklace is my favourite, a simple wooden one that my love gave me the first time we met, topped off with the engagement ring that eventually followed. <3

I keep having really weird, unreal dreams. Tonight the scene was England, where me and Allen were living in some apartment. Suddenly we heard a noise at the door, and I went to make sure it was still locked and secure. It wasn't, there was some sort of security block attached to the door that made it impossible to lock. I freaked, and then spotted a big police team outside, ready to arrest me. I freaked more. They said I was suspected of cheating at an exam, which gave me my grade in Maths B and allowed me into university (as if that was a massive crime, requiring about five police officers). I was very upset cause I knew I hadn't cheated, but they said I had been allowed to use a laptop during the test, and there was no way I could have scored so high without getting help from somewhere.

Wtf! It's not like I scored that high in maths anyway. Is this my alter ego dreaming for me? Anyway, I had to prove I could get the same score without cheating, so I had to do the test again. And then it turned into them dreams where it's like you want to run from something but can't get anywhere, you know? Except I had to do the test, but things kept stopping me. The pen broke, there was people around talking really loud so I couldn't concentrate. When I had finished about three assignments, I realised I had completely misunderstood them and had to restart.

Luckily I woke up before the police got to throw me in jail or anything.

Low quality cell phone picture, just to document some paper birds I made today. Cut out with scissors from folded white A4 sheets.

Last night we watched the first semi final for Eurovision Song Contest, where 10 countries moved on to the final. It was more fun than I thought, there was some decent songs and the right ones got through. It would have been nice if Finland had made it, but the awesomeness of Greece made up for it. :)

We had this movie recommended to us, but Teeth mostly freaked me out. Here's yet another example of what happens to young people if they don't get proper sexual education. Well, I mean, the awkwardness is. Hopefully lack of education doesn't cause people to mutate and develop teeth in their genitals, but if that ever did happen then open education could hopefully have been resolved the problem a bit better...

The main character is a popular, attractive girl who for some reason is very frigid and determined to not have sex before marriage. It turns out that living close to a nuclear power plant has caused a mutation in her holiest of regions, but she hasn't noticed anything is abnormal about this, she just goes on with her life. As the story develops and she becomes interested in this guy, she wants to stick to her promise of purity. The guy however, turns out to be a bit pushy, and his attempts to seduce her end in tragedy.

Toward the end, it just got a bit much. I just felt disgusting watching it. I'm not usually prude there's a limit to what a person can endure. I mean... gross, lol. Give it a try and watch it if you're intrigued though, it's definitely... an experience.

Entering a competition over at jpic.se with this photo, for a chance to win a wireless camera trigger. It's a long shot, but wish me luck. :)

Lol, this is how I feel talking to certain people sometimes. You know who you are! *cough*

Found the cartoon on this excellent blog. It's lucky some people still take initiative about environmental issues, I feel a bit bad about "giving up" on the subject lately. I'm a selfish, self-centered person! I could use someone villing to poke me when I'm too lazy to recycle.

Not even to mention how good the actual series is, I just love the intro. There is something so simple and intense about it. It's just a guy getting up the morning, having breakfast, getting ready and leaving, but it's like art. I don't know if it's the extreme slow-mo close ups or the music or what. When he's squeezing that orange, I can almost feel the little sprays hitting my eyes.

It really reflects what Dexter is like as a person. Innocent and proper, a clean perfectionist but with that hint of something violent, the references to blood and strength, the contained calm.

Video beauty at it's best anyway, so give it a watch if you haven't seen it. Watch the Dexter series intro here.

Spent all morning arranging my teacher blog, adding link squares to info sections at the top. Think it looks pretty nice now, and hopefully all the links are leading to the right places. Phew.

It's in Swedish only, but if anyone wants to check it out, click here. Does it look okay in your browsers? Always hard to know what it will look like for someone with a different sized screen.

I made a quiz, yay! No cheating if you wanna try to answer it. Write your answers down and then check the correct ones by clicking here. How many did you get right?

1. In New York, it is Tuesday afternoon at 4 pm. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, it's 8 am. What day is it there?
a) Monday
b) Tuesday
c) Wednesday
d) Thursday

2. When driving 40km/h, it takes a car 15 meters to stop after hitting the breaks. How long would the braking distance be when driving 80km/h?
a) 30 meters
b) 40 meters
c) 50 meters
d) 60 meters

3. Which of the following was not an invention related to Thomas Alva Edison?
a) Light bulb
b) Dynamo
c) Phonograph
d) Motion picture camera

4. Which of the following statements about Charles Darwin are false?
a) He discovered the equation of mass-energy equivalence.
b) He published a theory in his book "On the Origin of Species".
c) He believed in "survival of the fittest".
d) He was on the HMS Beagle travelling a complete lap around the globe.

5. Who has not released a cover of the song "I Fought The Law", originally by Sonny Curtis and The Crickets?
a) The Clash
b) The Hollies
c) Roy Orbison
d) Green Day

6. Who is currently the richest woman in the world, according to measures in early 2010?
a) Liliane Bettencourt, inherited cosmetics giant L'Orial
b) Christy Walton, shareholder of Walmart
c) Susanne Klatten, inherited stake in BMW
d) Anne Cox Chambers, primary owner of Cox Enterprises

7. Which is the longest river in Europe?
a) Danube
b) Nile
c) Seine
d) Volga

8. Which of these is the most populous city proper?
a) Tokyo
b) New York City
c) Mumbai
d) Beijing

9. What does "ambidextrous" mean?
a) A word that can be interpreted in more than one way
b) To be equally adept using your right or left hand/foot
c) It is a description of animals such as frogs, toads and newts
d) A building technique to build amphitheatres

10. Which is the brightest star in the night sky?
a) Vega
b) Polaris
c) Sirius
d) Arcturus

If there is ever a movie you'll regret you ever started watching...
it's this one. In fact, The Human Centipede is not much like any other "normal" horror movie. With no soundtrack at all, just the cries and screams, this is nothing but someone's sick, sick fantasy.

According to Wikipedia, the creator of this movie didn't even tell the financiers about certain aspects of the plot until it was finished. He probably didn't think they'd give him the money if he did, so that tells you a bit about what we're dealing with. To be honest, I don't even want to talk about the plot. Why don't you read Wiki, it's all covered there lol.

This movie is not yet available on DVD, but you can sign up to be notified when it's released on amazon.com.

Also worth a read is the article British newspaper The Sun wrote about the movie, entitled "Is this sickest film ever made?"

Practicing to take correct ID photos in class, like for driving licences and passports etc. Thanks to Alexandra, Emma, Jenny and Joel.

I sold my first photo! I was contacted by Oxford University Press in Madrid last week, since they had seen photos on my Flickr account that they were interested in purchasing. And now, all the transfers and agreements are final. Very flattered that someone is willing to pay for my work, and glad it's gonna come to some good use. Thanks again to my wonderful model who agreed to do this shot with me. :)


Model: Elin Askänge

[ This photograph has been purchased by Oxford University Press España S.A. for online and offline use. It may not be used for any purpose by anyone else and has therefore been waterstamped. ]

Description by Fabio Fanni from OUP: "I personally find this simply amazing, it shows an excellent level of execution and a really strong character. We do love this picture, it’s fresh, lively, and it has got quite of a unreal twist and it fits perfectly the message we want to deliver in terms of image for our product."

By the way, I'm very impressed with the new Spotify features. :)

Now we can all add our local files to the spotify library, meaning importing the entire iTunes library so there's no need to jump between the two applications looking for that specific song. Mix playlists of Spotify tracks and your own mp3s all you want!

Also, you can now connect with all your friends on Facebook and see what playlists they recommend. Very handy, easy to connect. Usually I'm pissed off when sites make major changes but this is a good one.

With the new "starred" function I made a playlist of some favourite songs. I decided I wouldn't be allowed to include more than one song from the same artist, so that it would be more diverse. View my playlist here.

I wouldn't usually just link to a random youtube-video for no reason, but this is seriously one of my all time favourites in the genre of hilarious musical live performances.

Flight of the Conchords are a musical duo from New Zealand, they also have a tv-series featuring their music. It's the most awesome thing ever. I haven't seen the show, but all the music is on youtube.

The below video is my favourite song, Jenny, performed live. I can't stop laughing at this, it's such an awkward moment. If you would like to see more, some other of their songs are If You're Into It,
Bret You've Got It Going On and Albi the Racist Dragon.

Today is Ascension Day, one of them random holidays I always forget about and therefore get a couple of unexpected days off school. Not complaining. :)

When you've studied media like me, and is constantly reminded to be critical about everything, it's like you can't read headlines normally anymore. That's my career damage.

If I see a headline saying "where to find hot weather this weekend - up to 20 degrees!" I can't help thinking it's probably a scam and when I buy the paper it will tell me "the nice weather iiiiiis iiiiiin lovely SPAIN! book your tickets here".

Or, if it says "this is why he's leaving the princess" the rest of the sentence is probably "all alone over the weekend when he goes to a conference in Brussels". Just saying.

This is slightly related to what I said about Americans being drama queens, except Swedish people just get excited about the most random little things. They're not too interested in Halloween or prom night, but when it's that time of the year... when it's time for Eurovision, that's a different story, they all go CRAZY!

The big talker right now is our crown princess is getting married this summer. Whoop-di-doo. I swear, if I see another ad to buy the official wedding chocolate or wedding china or coffee mugs with the happy couple in little love hearts, I don't know what I will do. Have people got no life? It's like they got no one in their own lifes to pay attention to and to shower with best wishes and love, they all have to love the same person.

I'm never gonna understand the whole celebrity phenomenon. I mean yeah, I'm gonna watch Eurovision too, but that doesn't mean that's all I'm gonna talk about for three weeks.

I know I sound like I'm no fun, but... yeah maybe I'm basically no fun. At school everyone goes on about graduation parties but I'm not interested. I like to enjoy the little things in life instead.

Yeah... after this, I think we're done with horror movies for a while. With The Haunting in Conneticut, it's as if no one ever realised that adding more and more slamming doors at one point goes past scary and into plain ridiculous.

At the start, I thought it seemed to be a pretty good movie. Classic story, family has a son with cancer and since they need to live closer to the hospital, they rent a cheap house which turns out to have a history as a morgue. I love those little moments when the unknowing victims wander around the house and you catch a glimpse of someone moving in the background, or a dead face in a mirror, and you jump in fright and think "phew, that was a good scary one". There was plenty of those, straight to the point, getting started with the freaky images long before the inhabitants realise what's going on.

But soon, the tempo had to pick up. And that's when it got really bad. When you start off too early you just have to go worse and worse until I, as a viewer, didn't even care. Less is more, people! When you have no sense of reality left, why would you care about the story anymore?

By two thirds of the movie Allen had officially placed this in his "at least top 5 Worst Movies Ever". Not good. We were mostly bored waiting for it to end, if we hadn't paid good money to rent it we might not even have watched it all. Weak ending. Kind of bad acting, most of all from the mother. So yeah... not my favourite.

This was just too funny, Allen recorded a guitar cover of the Spongebob Squarepants theme. It was awesome, I especially like the little solo at the end, took him a while to get that right.

I remember riding these guys when I was younger... who would have thought driving a car would be harder? You'd think machines don't have a mind of their own but you'd be wrong.

This recent article in the Sun got me a bit angry, but not for same reason most people got upset, I would guess. The article is about the younger sister of Scotland's youngest mum, who herself fell pregnant aged just twelve. The quote that annoyed me was the following:

"The girl is nothing more than a child herself, yet she's talking about drink, drugs and sex. She shouldn't even know about these things at her age."

And now, here's one big part of the problem. "She shouldn't even know." Adults are so scared to talk to their children about embarrassing things that they go find out things their own way. Honestly, just cause you don't tell your eleven year old what sex is yourself doesn't mean she's going to stay innocent and ignorant to all parts of the forbidden adult world forever, okay?

I know of so many girls who had their first periods quite early and no one told them it was gonna happen. Usually, they're terrified! They think they did something wrong, or have a dangerous disease, or are being punished by God, or that they're dirty and disgusting. When in fact, what happens to them is very normal and happens to every girl on the planet. Wouldn't you like them to know that? Sometimes they will hide it and not tell anyone, out of embarrassment, trying to get rid of the blood with tissues when they could just have told their mum and had all the sanitary products they needed.

Same goes for sex and drugs, you know. Children need the correct information from the right place, they do. If you don't tell them exactly how things work they will go find out for themselves. Children are curious. They will see references to sex and drugs on tv and all around them, they will ask their friends about it, they will try things for themselves.

Please don't be scared to let your children know about the world. You might think a ten year old knows nothing but they do. I'm still young enough to remember what it was like. They can take it, you're not gonna ruin their minds by letting them know about what drugs can do to a person or teaching them about safe sex. The risk of them finding out things the wrong way or getting their facts mixed up is far greater if you don't educate them.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is dangerous and we must fight it.

See more flowers here.

I can't believe how quickly summer is coming along now! The long winter and slow spring has tricked me to believe there is plenty of time left, but really there's not much. There is only a few weeks left for me to finish all my courses, my exam project, and also I'm thinking I need to start taking driving lessons really soon. Like... book them NOW. And it's SCARY! What if I'm shit?

Last night was my last day at my part time telemarketing job. I've worked there since Sep08 so it feels a bit weird to leave, but I think it's a good thing. Now that I'm moving into new phases of my life I need to leave behind my old school and my old work and focus on my new things.

It'll be fun! I'm gonna be brave! I can pass my licence and do excellent at my summer jobs and it will all be great. Yaaayy.... *whimpers in fear*

Who believes a single woman whose word is against the word of the LA Police Department? Isn't it easy to claim her to be crazy? But imagine her despair when her lost son is returned to her by the police and she realises the returned boy is not her son at all. No matter what proof she has to show that there has been a mistake, officials refuse to listen.

There's nothing like a true story, that's what makes this any good to me. I was a bit worried during the eventless middle part, that there wasn't much to this story at all. But, if you get through to the second half, there are plenty of new plot lines to make this more unbelieveable and interesting by the minute.

Really enjoyed it after all, makes you think about who to trust and how our society works. This might have been a long time ago but there's no doubt in my mind that plenty of similar things have happened through history and still today.This is a great story about hope, trust and fighting for what you believe in.

This weekend we've focused a lot on bugs and other closeups out in the forest on our photo walks. Should lend a proper macro lens for next time hopefully.
Click here for more insects or closeups.