So I think it’s about time for an update again. I am back from Britain and that all went super-well. You can read more about it on Emanuels blog. It was a good first run and we’ve been invited to the next event in November as well.

Thi is the room we got. Two small beds but definitely nice enough to stay during the event.

The biggest difference between DreamHack and the british LAN is this:

This is me and Emanuel in London, we got a half day in town before we flew home again. Really nice town, I like it a lot, it’s not Tokyo but it’s by far one of the best places in Europe.

In London we bought food at this awesome Japanese food store with everything really Japanese. Totally awesome store, I wish we had one of those in Sweden.

After London I went back to Stockholm and have been hard at work since. Before I talk more about that I want to share something I’ve recently taken an interest in:

I have really gotten into eating nice dinners at restaurants. Like really enjoying the food and taking my time. Get in, order something really nice with a nice glass of wine and just enjoying the food. Then sit and chat and discuss things for a while until the wine is finished. When you feel like you’re getting bored with just talking (and getting a little hungry again) you order in deserts and continue the culinary experience a little while longer. After you’re done completely, no dishes, no hassle, no nothing. You just pay and leave and be done with it! Totally worth the extra cost of the food. I don’t think I would enjoy doing it more than like once a month though, but I’ve only ever done it like once a year, so I think I’m gonna start doing that more.

Anyway!
After coming back from London I switched offices to the offices of another company, for which I will be working a bit as well. They have this super-awesome thing standing on a shelf in the break/meeting room:

It’s the Emmy they won for their “The Truth About Marika” game!

In other great news, Emma has joined me up here in Stockholm — so now I’m not lonely anymore! She came a couple of days ago and she is doing the town while I’m working =P
With the arrival of Emma I have also gone down a bit in my working hours to a lean 8 hours a day =P Which honestly feels a bit more healthy.

So I suppose it’s time for an update! All of the pictures found in this post and more can be found in their full-size versions on my flickr.

I’ve been real busy here and even though I didn’t get much accomplished this weekend I work pretty much all day long during the weekdays. By all day long I mean like today, get up 8, be at work by 10, leave work at 22, be home at 23.

I’m going to try to just bring a nice little picture update because I’m too tired to write anything serious about my experience here so far.

The first couple of night I slept at a hotel (Scandic) because the guy I was gonna live at didn’t leave for Indonesia until the end of July. I really love hotels, I think I’ve said that before but it bears saying again. One reason why I really love Scandic is this though:

Their breakfasts RULE!

This is what I look at most of the day:

And this is the building I spend my time in:

It’s a reallly cool place and the offices are just super impressive and creative. I really get a feeling that the people there do what they love and it’s awesome to be surrounded by that kind of environment. It’s super high-tech and the people are way more creative than me, I really feel like a small fish in a big pond. I’m usually the big fish in the small pond, so this experience is certainly something different. It’s inspiring and fear-inducing at the same time.

This is the more typical office-space, this one is that of my colleague Daniel, who brought me up here.

The guy whose apartment I’m loaning is a pretty cool guy too, got some cool stuff here. But there’s really only two things I want to show because I don’t want to like post his entire life-story on my blog without his consent :P

Yep, that’s a Zombie Outbreak Survival Kit and a Projector right above the desk.

There are two things I really like about Stockholm so far.

It’s easy to go out and grab a beer, there are many places, pretty much all quite nice and there are usually people outside even when it’s half-late. So it’s not a ghost town after 5 pm like it is where I’m from.

The other thing I really like is this place:

It’s a bookstore called SF Bokhandeln (Science Fiction Bookstore) and they have quite a selection of manga, perhaps 5-6 shelves like the one in the picture. Almost all of it translated to English or Swedish but even some Manga in Japanese, which is cool!

They have a lot of other role-playing stuff and games so while I was there I bought a super-advanced 2 player card-game called Call of Cthulu, apparently it’s somewhat like the Magic card game — which I haven’t played.

Here’s me and a good buddy spending our Saturday trying to figure the thing out :P

Well that’s it for now, I’m off to shower and then maybe watch an episode of Gantz if I feel there’s time and then sleep. Same procedure tomorrow, up 8 — home at 23.

By the way, I try working 12 hours a day now because I’m going to the UK on Thursday to host a game (more on this later) and need to catch up on work in advance. It’s suprisingly hard to work 12 hours though. With 1 hour of to-and-from-office-traveling and 3 hours of breaks and food a day. A 12 hour day turns into 16 hours. If you want a remote chance at getting 8 hours of sleep and some time to yourself, 10 hours is pretty much all you can do. I don’t like cutting into my 8 hours of sleep but I might have to, I do during school without much problem but I’m not used to it now. Oh well. For now I’m doing 10 hours a day and just hoping that I’ll be able to work like 2 hours a day in the UK.

Hur upptagen jag är går verkligen i vågor. Ibland är det väldigt lite och jag får slappna av och ta det lugnt, chilla med min favorit TV-serie för tillfället eller spela spel. Ibland är det så mycket att jag känner mig stressad.

Just nu har jag 4 projekt igång på jobbet, jag jobbar inte jättemycket på dem, men det är ändå saker att hålla i huvudet. Rätt så mycket med varje projekt. Jag gillar inte det riktigt.

Ovanpå det har jag såklart skolan, som är som vanligt. Jag har inte gjort någonting de senaste 2 veckorna utan sparar allting till lovet och planerar ta igen då.

Vilket leder mig till att jag ska ta igen saker på lovet, och avsluta projekt. Jag siktar på att avsluta alla projekt under lovet och komma ikapp så att jag ligger helt i fas.

Just nu känns det ganska jobbigt, det är saker överallt och allmänt mycket att göra. Jag ser inte riktigt hela planen och hela bilden framför mig, inte lika klart som jag brukar göra.

Det fixar sig, det gör det alltid. På något sätt lyckas jag dra ihop allting och känna mig nöjd i slutänden. Det tvivlar jag inte på.

Jag måste bara hitta något sätt att sortera allting i huvudet så att jag kan få tillbaka mitt perspektiv.

Jag har lyckats få ett riktigt nice jobb på Lunicore tack vare tips från Emanuel. Som har fått exakt likadant jobb uppe i göteborg på ett liknande företag.

Jag kommer jobba med saker jag tycker är kul och håller min tidigare bestämda gräns på runt 8-15 timmar i veckan. Jobbet går ut på i princip samma sak som jag gjorde i min enskilda firma, fast kanske mer allmän programmering än bara webbprogrammering. Vilket är vad jag vill.

I bästa fall kan jag jobba heltid under lov också, vilket vore nice.

Har inte kommit igång så mycket med det än, men ska ha möte i övermorgon och sen får vi se vad som händer.

Just nu är det fett mycket i skolan också dock, så får nog ta det lugnt med jobbet tills tentaveckan är över. Har 4 feta tentor att försöka klara av på samma vecka så denna och nästa (och nästa igen) kommer bli 10-20 dagar allihopa.

Det känns kul hur som helst, och att Emanuel också har ett likadant jobb gör att vi har ännu mer gemensamt och gör det ännu mer roligt faktiskt.

Skolan har börjat lätta lite igen. Det går väldigt mycket i vågor, men just nu ligger jag nästan i fas. Framförallt, även innan när det var som mest, tyckte jag inte direkt att det var jobbigt. Det var bara.. mycket att göra.. Naturligt på något sätt… ja.. inte jobbigt helt enkelt..

Jag har börjat titta lite efter jobb. Jag behöver något soft jobb jag kan jobba runt 10 timmar i veckan när det passar mig, eller ett heltidsjobb under 4 veckorna över jullovet. Jag håller på att försöka få ihop pengar till en resa nästa sommar. Vi får se vad som händer med det.