At the bottom of the food chain...

I saw a nurse in the subway. How could I tell? She was wearing her nurse uniform. And the I start wondering: if you use your nurses garment going to work does that not defeat the purpose of the special clothes for working in a hospital. I'm thinking cleanliness-issues here. It is actually the second nurse I have seen out and about. But the first time I did not think much of it. But this time it was so clear that she was commuting to work. And while writing this I see another woman looking like she just got out of an operational ward. But then again "fashion" here is a bit different so she just might like that turquoise garment and matches trousers with at hospital t-shirt. What do I know? I'm just doing the observation. You come to your own conclusions.

I'm actually late for work today. It just totally slipped my mind to set the alarm. So I woke up ten minutes to ten with a Design meeting starting at ten. So that got fucked up. I do not have many meetings but it seems that when I have them it is either first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening. Yesterday I had a meeting booked at 5 p.m. but then no one but me showed an I could conclude that they had some other meeting on the manager level because every one of them where gone. So at 6:30 I got a hold of my director and she told me that we would not have the meeting this night. It is not always important with times and letting people know. Or it could be that I am furtherest down on the food chain.

And no it might look like a thought but it is not a revenge. At least not a conscious one.

Warm and moist

So this week starts with a hot night, and not hot in the sense you would like it to be. No lonely hot. Could hardly sleep. Finally I managed to shut my eyes at 3 in the morning and then I woke up before the clock. How is this possible. I don't know.
Monday meeting at work, from what they tell us things are going well even if there is still disturbances from the big site closure earlier. Well I must say that I listen to that with some interest even though it does not affect my work. It is or was a major event in the world.
Work today was somewhat hampered by time restraints that turned out to be totally useless. But that is the way things goes sometimes. Probably possible to make up for it tomorrow.
Someone asked me about nervousness and it is true at some points I feel quite nervous. Event though someone says something I have done is good I find it hard to fully trust does words meaning just that. And even if they mean good, maybe they where expecting awesome? Pressure is building.
During daytime you sit in a cool office and again I most point out that it is not cool in the sense that you would like it to be but in the old sense of the word. So when you go home at 7 p.m. you leave the building and enter a moist and warm atmosphere: only five steps out on the street your shirt sticks to your back and small beads form in your forehead. You try to look cool, in all the senses making your way to the subway. Then when you get there you step into a wall of even warmer air and as you plumet into it's caress you are embraced by a blanket of air hard to breath and so thick you feel you must cut your way forward with your arms as knifes. The subway and it's air is about the sweatiest places I can imagine even though I have visited Spanish discotheques on the Balliares at 4 in the morning and rode a mule through the Egyptian desert during high noon as well as searched the back streets of Sofia for a strip club with a pool during high summer. No nothing compares to New Yorks subway system. And when I get home one of my flatmates tell me that thus far this summer has been really cool. Not in the sense you would hope to have your summers but in the sense that makes life easier...

Another Week

Ok, so this very short week is now ended. I did not manage to work even 30 hours. All though I'm still at the office and time is close to 8 on a Friday evening. Today there is a Hyper gathering in about one hour. I had hopes to get some company for a dinner tonight but drew blank on that. I guess what I should write about is the miscommunication that has taken place the last days and mostly on my account I have been doing work that was not supposed to be done. Hopefully it can be used later on. For instance I designed 10 screens when I actually only needed 1. Not super.
Ok time to let work go now, and meet NY on a Friday night...

Short Week - Long Hours

If it is a short week like this one, since we had 2 days of does it automatically put you in for extra long hours? Even though you are free and that is all good and so you still feel a need to do your 37,5 or close to it. There are much to be done, and less time to do it in. I just realized today that the deadline of my current project is suggested for tomorrow. So I stayed for a 12 hour day today. It was really ok because I had nothing else planned for the evening and I like to sit and work on the details without being uphold by others and noise and so on. Although I noticed I got fairly unperceptive in the end and had some concentration problems. So there was nothing else to do but pack up and try to get home. For even though I knew I was not going to be able to get in to the Subway through the Madison Avenue entrance I had no idea that my service would be canceled this night. I ended up walking to Rockefeller center instead, a fairly nice walk so no harm done. But I start to feel that the subway is as reliable as an unreliable junkie friend: tells you one thing, does not do it, tells you a time and is late by three days, or just plainly messes your life up with small shit. And you still end up paying every month.

No biggy, just a feeling this far… Hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight since I slept lousy last night.

Expat Swedes 1

After my initial 2 weeks here it feels relevant to make a few observations on the Swedes I have meet. Of the ones who have been here for a longer time I notice that they are very much in love with the US of Who gives a shit. They are not very appreciative of Swedish values although they are proud to be Swedish. That is something of a conundrum to me. But I guess this is what can be described as fuzzy logics for the social arena or just plain and simple the human capacity to choose what to include and what to close your eyes to.
And on this theme I must kill a myth that I was cradling myself until yesterday. I thought that Swedish people that moved to NY to work where somewhat cooler and more interesting than normal Swedes. Like my self. ;-)
But yesterday I meet the most boring couple. So very Swedish in every respect that that word can have a negative meaning. At first I did not realize that they where a couple and I just thought that there are a man and a woman of Swedish decent that can´t be much more blend. No that is not fair. The man was more than blend. He was down right irritating while bragging about his job, celebrities that he used to hang out with and so on. Together with the stile: yes you guessed it: office shirt, blue. Middle age-belly to go with that and soccer-player hairdo. Oh yes. And his girlfriend in a dress with colourful floral print to make up for here grey persona. I gave her more than one chance. I gave her about 30 minutes to say something interesting to explain how she could hang out with the bull-boy but I drew blank on that one. 30 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Perfect Timing

Oh, I think I never had better timing. Maybe this is the way it is going to be for the rest of my life? Super bad timing the first part and from now on nothing but the best...
So we are having a few days off because of the independence day coming up this Monday and I am sick! Really sick, hardly leaving my bed and definitely not leaving the apartment kind of sick. And to top things of: it is pouring down outside.
It actually started a few days ago with a left sided throat soar. Which eventually migrated to the right side. And during the night broke out to be a full on cold with cough and fever. Well I might also mention that during the night we had a roof-top-hoping which was quite spectacular. I only took part in two of the three rooftops parties, but it was quite enough. The last roof was huge and sported some golf turf and a perfect view of Manhattan. I might ad that the partying took place in Williamsburg, to the astonishment of no one who knows NY.

Sick + rain + no work for another 3 days = perfect timing.

July

So this was Friday first of July. I worked a half day, did not get lunch but instead sat 2 hours at the bank to get me an account. So now I have an account, yey!
Workwise I think it is going well, I started a new project today. Very secret of course, new artist site. Even if it feels a little like the factory of sites I think todays work was very exciting. New ways of working and as we often discussed at Hyper Island: if there are no limits, you can not be creative!

Well it is well passed my bedtime so I'm signing off now. Sleep tight!