I've been in Sweden now for just under 1 month. Hard to believe that much time has gone by and I've yet to venture outside of Lund. I have, however, explored just about every nook and cranny within walking distance of my apartment.

I tried to walk to the beach last weekend. It is about 10km from the city center and I thought it would be a nice walk, that I could rest and, if I felt up to it, I could walk back or else I could take the bus. Well, after just 1 hour of walking the walking path disappeared. I spent another hour following false trails until I finally gave up. Whenever I asked anyone they just looked at me and said, "Oh no, you can't walk there...it's at least 6 km from here!" and they couldn't tell me how to walk there.

So, I never made it to the beach. I hear that the warm sunny weather we're having now will soon turn to cold, dark days and colder, darker nights. I hope my winter coat gets here soon. Jin sent it just after I arrived here so hopefully within the month it'll get here.

I would really like to travel more since I have so much free time. My classes have begun and I am bored out of my mind. I have just 6 hours of class per week. As of yet, I have no assignments. I have just started reading some of the course work but the teacher says it's more of a reference, not to be read cover to cover. So, I spend my days inventing important things for me to do.

Today's mission was to find a job. This is not an easy task since I don't speak Swedish very well yet. I've been studying by myself and would like to take a course but I'm afraid that it is too expensive unless I find a job...the funny thing there is that I can't find a job until I can speak Swedish. One hotel said they'd 'let me know' in the next 2 weeks. Other than that...oh, I'm also going to stop at Burger King in a little bit. I figure maybe since I have some Burger King experience from my high school days I'll have a shot.

I may have had a lucky break. I stopped in a shop to buy something and standing in line I met a guy from Uganda who's a teacher at the university. We were talking and I "happened" to mention that I'm looking for a job and sure enough, he seemed gung-ho about trying to get me a job in the Univeristy doing something. We'll see. I'm also going to plaster signs around the university offering my experienced editorial skills for papers or dissertations since there are over 1000 foreign students here who all need to write in English. Back in Japan I've had several of my 'clients' works published in journals. Not bad!

I'm also working on putting pictures on this page. It is a problem because the internet is very skitterish, not just in my room but in the whole dorm it would appear. On good days it stays connected for 5 minutes, disconnects for 10, then comes back on. Other days it stays off for hours, and some days doesn't work at all. Today seems to be a good day so I can type this and wait for it to connect again to publish it. That doesn't work with the pictures. I've tried to upload them 3 times now and everytime I get shut down. So, hopefully the internet problem will get fixed and I can get those pictures up soon.