Slumber jack party!

Well, after much ado, I decided to Craigslist it and check out the rooms and housing market in my local neighborhood, and boy howdy! there are some seemingly too-good-to-be-true rooms available in fabulous neighborhoods at dreamy prices. I'm completely in love with the concept of looking for something available at a weird time of the year (mid-January? who, besides people running from living situations gone awry, wants to start a lease in mid-January?), but we'll see if there is any follow-through. However, I need to feel really confident, excited, and positive about this process because I'm trying to find something for only 4 months. Tricky, tricky.
Honestly, though, looking for a new place to set up camp has gotten me out of this funk entirely and really excited to be back in Atlanta. Once (not if) I find a place to live, I can start biking again in the city, really concentrate on finding a job I'm enamored with, brewing my own beer, taking possession of a kitchen where I can cook all of my meals, and go urban spelunking. Besides, I have a certain somebody I'd like to have lunch with occasionally in the city, and it's nice to not have to drive all the way downtown just to have a date.
I realized that I'd been kind of hard on myself initially when I started feeling a little disappointed about moving back, thinking that I was supposed to maintain the high I'd been feeling for the last 6 months. Then it occurred to me that I wasn't immediately in love with Aalborg, and things were sort of melodramatic for the first 3 weeks when I had a great yet untimely romance with a now dear friend of mine. I developed strong mutual feelings for someone who had a girlfriend, and it sort of put a damper on things until I breathed and remembered who and where I was. So I think it's completely natural to feel a bit disappointed/overwhelmed/uncomfortable when you have such a huge shift in your life and you're still a little more sensitive than usual.
On another note, my current living situation has made it quite easy to start looking for a new place to live. The water pipes have been frozen for two days now and we've been waterless, my grandmother just arrived tonight for the first day of her 7-week stay, and next weekend we have 3 more family members coming for my niece's third birthday party. I'm sleeping in the basement with my belongings in a laundry basket, and I don't know what I'll do next weekend when everyone else is here. This is not exactly my definition of comfortable, but I do love being home with family.

I'm content here and now. Always trying to live it and stay with it. That's a great philosophy, you know? Here and now. (throwbacks to Way of the Peaceful Warrior for its stellar "here and now" mantra)

Glædelig jul!!

Merry Christmas to everyone, happy holidays to everyone else! Denmark has been snow covered for almost two weeks now, and the sun is currently brightly shining over the sparkling, melting terrain! Perfect weather for yesterday - my first white Christmas - and perfect weather for today - no more snow! It turns out that I'm not a snow person; it's just nice for the first two or three days. I even brought a bike to Denmark thinking that I could get tough and handle Danish winters, but I have humbled myself!
I got a facebook comment from someone last night asking if Santa came to the AIK yesterday or not, and I was suddenly reminded that people get gifts on Christmas! How can someone from such a capitalist society forget that?! I guess everyone has been talking about being with family or loved ones so much for Christmas - since most of the people I know here have to cross country borders or even oceans to be with their loved ones - that other parts of the holiday have paled in comparison to being with people. At some point about three or four Christmases ago, I dried up like an old prune and totally lost the "holiday spirit" and haven't been excited about Christmas dinners, setting up and decorating a tree, getting gifts, Christmas music (a double egghh to that), or anything like that. Especially this year, I had no one to spent it with, aside from the happy couple the room below me who probably wanted something special, and it didn't bother me at all. I had a great day! I went out in the snow, organized and uploaded over 300 pictures, downloaded about four days' worth of music, made delicious food, enjoyed the quiet of my own company... sometimes it freaks me out how much I love being reclusive.
It seems, though, that I make the perfect solo traveler - enjoys being alone but also adapts well to and thrives in new social situations. Unfortunately, I don't travel well with others - easily suffocates when in close company with others.
Well, the point is, how did this happen that I am so bereft of any spirit whatsoever? I feel like social anomaly, considering how other people get around the holidays. More importantly, it doesn't bother me that I have no holiday spirit. I'm not bitter, nor do I refuse to celebrate with others... it just doesn't mean much to me. Things will be different next year when I'm celebrating with my niece(s) and nephew. Children have the magical holiday touch on me.
Everyone is gone now, other than Alessandra downstairs and Emrah at the end of the hall. The AIK is discomfortingly quiet and lacking in drunk Danes and Daft Punk being played at lunchtime. Aalborg loses a bit of its charm when everyone who made me fall in love with this life is gone. I've found it exceedingly difficult to stay in the present because I'm in between two modes of life. My Aalborg life has sort of left me and is more or less over, and my Atlanta life is just beckoning me prematurely. I've been doing my best to enjoy this alone time while I have it, and in general I've done a lot of things that I needed to do and haven't minded the unoccupied time. At the same time, I stray into thoughts of what I want to do when I get home or how much I am missing this or that from the last semester. Here and now. That's all. Here and Now.
I have a lot of things I'd like to talk about, but I think I'll wait until the timing is right. My life is about to get very different, and I am so excited to grow with these changes!