what an emotional time i'm having

I decided on sunday night (a bit out of the blue) not to come back to Bollnäs after christmas. For various reasons. I had already booked a flight home (with ryan-bastard-air) for friday the 19th, thinking it would be ok because i'm not taking too much stuff. OOPS! I didn't think I would be taking most of my stuff back again, on ryanair's 15kg limit. So I ended up carting boxes of my shit to the post office, on a little trolley, like an old man, and sending it. It was much cheaper that way. Also it means I don't have to carry it with me all the way home, major plus! Now my big suitcase is about half full so everything will wobble about but hey, as long as I don't have to pay massive overweight bills.
So all week since I made the decision, it feels all i've been doing is eating, sleeping, packing and waiting to go home. Not practicing enough. But only today has it become a difficult decision, as i've realised there are people here who I will miss alot, and lessons I will miss from Fröken (classical teacher) and Jonas Brandin (folk teacher). SPELMANSLAG (which i've annoyingly missed the past 2 weeks). :( It feels like I won't be able to find teachers as good as them elsewhere! But that's probably largely because I am here now. What makes it harder though is that Fröken said to me, after the string orchestra concert tonight that I could begin classical after christmas and that I would be welcome in her class. ARGH! But I know that there aren't enough reasons for me to stay here, and that it wouldn't be worth it (also I have no money anymore, Cath is paying for this and it's expensive, probably a reason why I have guilt dreams most nights). Tonight was the school christmas concert, which was really good, and afterwards a jazz kvintett played a cosy concert just for us, they were really really good. I will miss things like that, they are just so nice! I think thats what started me off...
I am worried that I won't play as much and therefore keep improving, but I also know you need to be more happy and inspired to feel like playing. I feel like i've had this experience and i've done it now, moved to another country, learnt another language which is a big thing really. Learnt things. I am a little worried as I don't know what's next but piss that, who ever does? I'll just have to see. I think it's quite exciting, like next I can do anything! Well it's exciting if i think about it like that, if you think i'm stupid, whoever you are, then shut the fuck up for always telling me to think positively because thats what that is OK! Normal anna would say i'm going back to shitty england to sit about at home trying to get some shitty job with nobody even in the shittiest place wanting to employ me. Somehow I find it possible to be in between positive/negative?
Anyway, party time now, i'm not the only one leaving, Lina is too. I could pretend it's my goodbye party too, though only a handful of people know i'm leaving. The rest probably couldn't give a shit. I'll leave you with some videos of ethno this summer. Watching these, it hit me why there were cameras hovering around the whole week. See if you can spot me and matty and joe! And the end of the second one is cool, england plays out! And check out Marit's speech. Amusing. Ugh, memories seem to crop up an awful lot.

CIAO

xxx

Jul, Jul, Strålande Jul...

I'm feeling christmassy! After a hectic week of rehearsals for choir and class concerts, including an early morning choir concert (7.30am), today was a nice relaxing break.
A group of 6 of us did a lucia concert (i was lucia) in a barn/cafe in a nearby village which was all christmassy and cosy. We got taken in a limosine (swish!) and walked in singing in traditional fashion with candles on my head etc, then we sang 6 songs (in swedish can i just say, i learned absolutely all the words to each one, nobody noticed i wasn't swedish!) and had free fika afterwards which was lovely! Then we got taken back to school in the limo and we also got 100 kronor each! Really nice, everbody said they enjoyed it too! I had quite a bit of wax in my hair afterwards but i picked most of it out now!
So anyway, that was an experience, now I am really looking forward to going home for christmas (less than a week!), especially since we had swedish christmas dinner on friday, which was not nice at all (lots of different types of fish and lots of mustardy weird stuff, and fish eggs and eww..). I can't wait to be home for proper english christmas food, and the christmassy decorated house, and endless films by the fire! And mulled wine! And english christmas carols in the pub! But most of all family time (obviously)! I'm thinking about christmas pressies at the moment, hoping I'll get them sorted in time! It's not very easy this year!

Tomorrow I think I'll bake something (thanks for the recipes marit!)..I'm in the mood and bought some ingredients, but I'm also going to concentrate on uni stuff for next year which is important (and stressful!). I think we also have a rehearsal tomorrow for the class christmas concert (oh yeah!). Gosh I'm busy, I'm just glad I didn't go to this party in Stockholm tonight as I was planning to.
I forgot to say about the concert, we have 2 45 minute slots with fika in between, for the first we are doing a swedish fairytale with music (i'm doing a solo) and for the next we are having a normal concert. We'll see how it goes..

Photos of Lucia up soon, as soon as I get them from parents who were taking them.

Love Anna

xxx

p.s. i hope james gets in touch soon!

Malung, Snow, Books, Boots and Rucksacks

So I spontaneously went all the way to Malung Folkhögskola on Wednesday morning, left at 6.15am to get there at 12.30. When I got there I was kind of worried, as I did not really know where I was, whether I would be welcome or anyone who goes to the school, but somehow I managed to find my way to the fiddle course and introduce myself and take part in the lesson. Made some new friends, got a floor to sleep on and ate dinner, then went to a concert in the church in the evening with people from the music courses playing (including a ukranian girl playing violin and singing who was amazing, and a really really good accordion player, who incedentally had been at ethno sweden and remembered me, though I didn't really remember him!) That was really good. I also met a guy on the fiddle course who coincedentally had been to folkworks 2004, and we turned out to have been in the same class! That was a bit weird, we know lots of the same people too! He was friendly. After the concert I played for a bit with 3 girls from the fiddle course, including Hannah Andersson who went to Bollnäs 2 years ago and I met at Bingsjö stämma this summer, and a really nice girl called Sara who reminded me of lucy a bit! I must stay in touch with them all on facebook now and visit again sometime in the future!

I planned to go home the next afternoon however there was a dance evening that night (it happens every week!) so I thought I'd stay another night. So i sat in on lessons again, tried out the other fiddle course, did a singing workshop, then had to make a trip into malung (about 25mins walk on a main road) through the snow (kind of wrecked my boots) to buy a new rucksack because the zip on my old one had broken. Anyway the dance evening was brill, there was playing list where you could write your name/s down for a 15 minute slot and play in the middle of the room while everyone danced around you. I danced alot and even got a tune together with a couple of people from the fiddle course. That was fun.
I also met a really nice belgian girl called evelyn (oona, she said she knows you!) and we exchanged tips for learning swedish!

Anyway I've been steadily working my way throught swedish childrens books now, which feels really great. I need to pay another visit to the library actually to get more, and it's a great excuse to check out the childrens library area (we all know how much I love them, Bollnäs' is even better than Rättvik's).

Love Anna

xxx

Lucia competetors at the ready!

Ok, who will be lucia has turned into a bit of a competition because one girl is apparently desperate to be it, even though she was lucia last year. I think it's pretty obvious who should get the chance, seeing as we don't have it in England and everyone says they would vote for me, however I don't think there will be a vote (because everyone would vote for me so it wouldn't be fair) so we'll have a lucky dip type thing. Wow, exciting stuff! But I mean, if I win and she starts crying I may just give it to her anyway...!

I also might be going to Malung Folkhögskola to visit tomorrow, but am waiting to hear back from a teacher there if I have anywhere to stay. If I do go, it means I will have to leave here at 6.15am! Early! But I think it will be worth visiting to see what it's like there and it will probably be fun! Also partly to get away from the lessons here...our replacement teacher while Jonas is off being a dad is 'jennikel' a swedish woman who speaks english with an irish accent, has a masters degree in irish music, plays only irish music, teaches only irish music...yes. And last week it took about 3 hours for the class to learn 2 pretty boring irish reels (they can't DO irish, they can barely do swedish!) I had to leave at one point, because it was literally wasting my time sitting there, I have to practice! Anyway I probably won't go even if I don't go to Malung, I can't afford the time and really don't want to learn irish tunes. We should be spending our class time on our christmas concert, which is swedish coincidentally.

Love Anna

xxx