: Time flies.

It's been a bit over a year now since I restarted this blog. It's also been a month since my last update, which means it's already been a month since my birthday. Time flies. During this month I've been mostly playing some new games (Torchlight II and Borderlands 2, as well as quite a bit of FTL), which is the main reason why there hasn't been an update here. Another reason is that I haven't really had anything to write that isn't the same whiny stuff that I've been writing about lately. I've written several posts this month, but I just haven't published any of them. I've just deleted them all, partially because I couldn't put what I wanted to say into words, and partially because I didn't want to be so whiny.

It's been a good month, though, over all. Had my friend Rune basically living at my place for three weeks as we played TLII and BL2 until we dropped (almost literally some days), which was really fun. I didn't really exercise at all during these weeks, and I ate a lot of snacks and stuff, but somehow my weight still went down. Not quite sure why, but I guess it's a combination of increased metabolism and better choices when it comes to the actual food I've been eating. Not to mention that I've started having a lot of smoothies after I got a blender as a birthday present from my grandparents. They say it's supposed to be healthy, so I guess it is. 

I'm back on track with all that stuff now, though, have been exercising a bit again the past week (although it's a bit hard getting back into it after three weeks), and have once again cut out all forms of snacks and stuff like that. Weirdly, my weight seems to have gone slightly up again the past few days, but I guess that's bound to happen some times. It'll go back down again in time.

Other than that... There's really not much to talk about right now. There's nothing new or exciting that has been going on, unfortunately. Nothing that has led anywhere other than to disappointment, anyway. Things are still at a standstill with Lisa, unfortunately, although I do now understand better why. And my attempts at moving on has been fruitless. That's really all there is to say about that.

Hopefully it won't be another month until my next update, and hopefully I'll have something good to write about the next time I write. 

: It's my birthday.

Today is my birthday. I turn 28 today. Hooray for me?

I have a history of a sort of semi-depression around my birthdays, I think since my 18th birthday. Last year I didn't really have that, partially because I went to the Netherlands on that day, so I was pretty distracted by that, but mostly because it was the first birthday of my life that I was in a relationship. We didn't get to spend the day together, because of the trip, but... Either way, I didn't experience any particular depression about it. The three years before that... Well, the first two of those years it didn't hit that hard because I had the sort-of-job at DeltaData. The third it was a bit weird, because I knew that the company was bankrupt and I wouldn't have a sort-of-job anymore at the end of the month.

The main reason why I feel this way bout my birthday is because of the lack of progress in my life. Or maybe I should say the lack of potential for progress? At least I couldn't see the potential for progress. I didn't have a real job, and didn't see it as possible in any way that I could get one (which I still don't). Having the sort-of-job helped a bit, but I knew that I'd never be hired as regular employee. I didn't have a girlfriend, and didn't see it as possible that I'd ever get one. When I finally did, I was doubting the reality of it for a while. Now that it's over I'm sort of back to thinking it won't happen again. At least I'm having a really hard time getting it to happen. Health-wise I was also doing really badly, which was mostly caused by my sleeping disorder. Before I got my diagnosis and meds that actually work (most of the time), I didn't see any potential for improvement there either. I just didn't have the energy to work on it, because of my lack of sleep.

This year I'm not hit that hard by the depression. As mentioned, I still don't see any possibility that I'll ever have a real job. But I have an explanation for why it is the way it is. I can live with that, as long as I'm allowed to, so to speak. I don't have a girlfriend, and my attempts to "fix" that just isn't having an effect. At least it seems that way. But it has happened once. It can happen again. My health is slowly but surely getting better and better. It's the one thing in my life that actually is progressing, and it feels great, it really does. And the fact that I've managed to get my apartment back to a liveable condition during this year also helps quite a bit. 

I don't have a great life. It's really mediocre, in so many ways. But it's getting better. In small ways, a little bit at a time. And that makes me feel a bit better than previous birthdays.


I have no specific plans for today that is related to my birthday. I am going to a party tonight, but that's the wedding party for my aunt and uncle, who got secretly married earlier this summer. So that really makes no room for me to make any plans of my own. Oh well. I'm sure it'll be fun, and I can pretend it's also my party, I guess. I am thinking of having a LAN next weekend, though, which really is better timing anyway as Torchlight II is released (finally!) this Thursday. I know at least Rune is coming. If anyone else wants to come just message me wherever you can find me. Or just leave a comment here.

: Ups and downs. UPDATED

Yesterday I felt awesome. I felt a lot better than I had felt in a long time. I don't know why, but it doesn't really matter. I started a new tumblog(?) for my health, although I'm not quite sure exactly what to put up there yet, other than progress pictures of myself as I (hopefully) lose more and more weight. I might post my exercises there too, but for some reason I can't post directly from Fitocracy to a secondary blog, it automatically posts to my primary blog. I don't know if that's a problem with Fitocracy or Tumblr, but it's annoying. On the other hand, the default Fitocracy tumblr-posts are awful, so it might be better to post on my health-blog manually. Anyway...

The first post on my new health-blog on Tumblr.

I also had some fun in the kitchen yesterday. I made the most home-made pizza I've made in years. I still used a pre-made crust, the type that you just roll out and then put stuff on it, but I didn't take any more shortcuts. Previously I have bought those pizza topping mixes, that you mix with the meat and some water and then "yay, finished". I used actual fresh vegetables, namely bell pepper, onion, mushrooms (yes, fresh, not the canned kind) and tomatoes. And I used chicken instead of pork or beef. The result was pretty delicious, although not perfect. I made some notes about how to hopefully make it better next time, though. Now if only I could find a more whole-grain crust...

The result of my kitchen fun. =)

Today I, unfortunately, feel rather crappy. Most likely due to waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to sleep again for over an hour. This has been happening more and more lately, and it's very annoying. It might be because I lost my focus a bit for about a week and a half, and pretty much "fell off the wagon" when it came to both exercise and eating habits. I've gotten back on track now, so I hope it'll get better again soon. But due to my lack of sleep last night, my workout today felt a lot heavier than it should have.

It's a shame the actual effect of my sleeping meds isn't that long. It pretty much just causes me to fall asleep, and then I'm on my own, so to speak. If I do wake up in the middle of the night, the whole thing is essentially cancelled. I mean, I do get the benefit of the rest I've gotten up to that point, but it's hard to fall back asleep, and even when I do it's not as restful as it was before I woke up. Weirdly, though, this doesn't seem to happen if I just have to get up to pee. I guess maybe because I'm sort of still halfway asleep or something? 

Either way. I'll most likely be heading to bed relatively early today, and hopefully I'll get a good nights sleep tonight. If I do, I'm gonna try to reach at least 25mins, hopefully 30, on one of the sessions on the elliptical tomorrow. I've been as high as 35mins, but I honestly don't know what was going on that day. I must've had some sort of amazing energy burst, 'cause the 35min session was the last of three, the first two being 30min and 10min. I want more days like that... 

Update:
I decided to go for a walk tonight. I was about to ready to just zone out with a movie or something until bedtime, just had to take out the trash... Then I got outside, and the cold fresh air was just... Heaven, really. So I decided that I should go for a short walk, despite the rain. By the time I actually got to walking the rain had stopped, and the air felt a bit less fresh, but I went anyway. And I went much farther than I had planned. And I probably could've gone even further if I hadn't forgotten my water bottle. Probably should've done this in the first place, and just skipped the elliptical today. Oh well, now I've done a little bit of both. And I feel a lot better.

: My goal in life.

Warning: This post consists mostly of me beating down on myself. I'd prefer it if you just move along if you can't deal with that, or for some reason feel the need to act superior, make fun of it, or beat me down even more.

For the past year I've been thinking a lot on what my goal in life is. A lot of that has to do with my ex asking me that question on several occasions in the time before we broke up. It's a question that I, in my situation, hasn't been able to answer. When you think about having a goal in life, you usually think about stuff like careers, or having children, seeing the world, changing something... Stuff like that. I don't have those goals. That doesn't necessarily mean I don't want any of it, but it's not important to me in that way.

: What happened this Friday.

For no real reason, here's what happened on Friday.

09:58 : Gets an SMS from my brother, asking if I'm awake yet.

10:00 : Alarm rings.

10:00 - 12:00 : Getting ready to leave (eating breakfast, showering, etc).

12:00 : Leaves my apartment.

12:15 : Buys some food for the day and withdraw money for the bus and the play ticket.

12:25 : Bus arrives, there's some delay because of a delivery. Gets on and fills my bus card, thinking I can use it on the next bus as well.

12:40 : Bus finally leaves, 10 minutes late.

13:35 : Bus arrives at Gjøvik.

13:35 - 14:25 : Waiting for the next bus at Gjøvik.

14:25 : Accidentally turns around and sees the bus I'm supposed to get on. If I hadn't, I probably would have missed it, and had to either go back to Dokka or wait another two hours. Gets on it, realizing I can't use my bus card on this bus. I basically wasted 300 NOK earlier, although I can use it at any time, so it's not that bad.

14:30 : Bus leaves.

14:45 : Gets some new directions from Lisa; Instead of getting off the bus at Stubberud, I'm supposed to get off at Feiring church and meet some people at a "gathering place" there.

15:30 : Arrives at Feiring, starts walking up to the church.

15:45 : Arrives at the church, realizes I wasn't supposed to go up there.

15:55 : Starts walking along the road to Feiring Jernverk, hoping I'll get lucky and be able to hitchhike with someone who's going up there.

16:05 : Gets a ride further up the road with a woman who's going all the way up, but she has to stop off at home first. She'll pick me up again later if I haven't been able to hitchhike with someone else.

16:15 : Gets a ride all the way up with a couple of the actors.

16:30 : Arrives at the parking lot, realizing I'd be probably very close to dead if I had walked all the way up, starts walking to Jernverket.

16:45 : Arrives at Jernverket. Gets a message from Lisa; The actors have already started preparing, so I wont be able to meet her until after the play.

16:45 - 19:00 : Sits around waiting, talks to a couple of people, eats a bit. Gets visited by a small lizard while I'm sitting on a bench, before moving over to the area where we're suppose to watch the play. Turns my phone off to save battery.

19:00 : The play starts. Pleasantly surprised by the actual acting, although the play has a bit too much focus on Christianity for my taste. It's a historical play, though, so I guess that's unavoidable.

20:25 : A short break.

20:30 : Turns on my phone to check the time, gets a message that my brother-in-law has tried calling me. Calls him back, telling him I might arrive at Gjøvik two hours later than I had planned, because the play lasts longer than I thought. He says he might send some English speaking people to drive me home..?

20:40 : The play continues.

21:40 : The play finishes. Goes to look for Lisa. Sees her talking with some of the other actors, decides to wait until she's free. Sees that she has noticed me.

21:50 : She starts walking back to where the actors change.

21:55 : Gets a message. She's hurt her foot somehow, says she'll be right back when she's changed.

22:00 : Gets another message. She has left Jernverket because she's hurt her foot worse than she originally thought, has to go somewhere to get the wound cleaned. Very disappointed I was so close, but didn't get to actually meet her.

22:10 : Talks to the woman I hitchhiked with a short while earlier, asking if I can hitch a ride back down. She works there, so says I'll have to wait. Some friends of hers says I can go with them. 

22:20 : Starts walking down, in the opposite direction from where I arrived. 22:40 : Arrives at the parking lot, gets in their car. Passes Stubberud, where I was supposed to get off the bus earlier, and gets driven to Feiring, where I did get off.

22:50 : Arrives as Feiring.

22:50 - 23:50 : Lying down on the bus stop at Feiring. Texting a bit with Lisa, asking what happened. She had managed to step on a nail. Her foot is bandaged, and she's on antibiotics. So, yeah, no wonder she had to leave. Still very disappointed that I didn't get to meet her, though. I also send an SMS to my brother-in-law asking him to please pick me up himself, if possible, I am in no mood to deal with people I don't know.

23:50 : Gets on the bus, 10 minutes late. Eats a bit, then just sits and waits for the bus to arrive, don't want to do anything, just really want to get home at this point.

00:45 : Bus arrives at Gjøvik. Gets in the car with my brother-in-law and some Lithuanian guy. Apparently my brother-in-law's car was behind the gate at the camping lot, which was locked at 23:00, so they had to use the Lithuanian guy's car, which he's not allowed to drive because it has Lithuanian plates.

00:45 - ? : Tells my brother-in-law about my day on the drive to Dokka, leaving the Lithuanian guy out of the conversation as he doesn't speak Norwegian. Oh well.

? : Arrives at home. Vewt.

I'm very glad I was having a LAN this weekend, 'cause my mood got infinitely better when I got back home. I really needed to have people there, 'cause basically nothing had gone right that day. It got my mind off what had happened. The only really good thing is that I got to see Lisa, and she really is beautiful, but it's a lot less than what I wanted to get out of this trip. Hopefully I'll get another chance soon.

Oh, and I got to some exercise as well. =P

: Cut out of my life.

There comes a few times in your life where you have to choose between your own well-being, and your friendship with someone very close to you. A while back I had to make this decision in regards to someone I had been very close with for quite a while, and I decided to go with my own well-being. I decided to cut this person completely out of my life. I deleted her number from my phone, removed her from my friends list on every social site, stopped using MSN because she was the only person I ever really talked to on there... Etc. And I sent her a last message telling her how I felt and why, explaining why I had decided to do this.

My life, and my mood in general, changed drastically after this. I used to talk to this girl a lot, almost every day. We had a lot of good talks, but we also talked about a lot of stuff that was really painful to me. I had a huge crush on this girl, possibly the strongest crush I've ever had, and most certainly the longest. She tried to develop feelings for me in return, she really did, on several occasions, but it just doesn't work that way. In short; I had been "friendzoned", hard.

When we talked about trivial things, it didn't matter much to me, I was just happy to be talking to her. But then there were the times where the subject would change to love or sex, or anything else in that direction, and I'd feel a physical pain run through me. I wanted her more than anyone else, yet I was doomed to a life of being her "relationship councilor", listening to her complain about, and trying to help her with, her love life. Pretty classic case of "friendzoning". And while the first couple of days after I cut her out of my life were riddled with doubt, the sense of peace I experienced after a while of not talking to her or thinking about her, being able to focus on more important and relevant stuff, was surprising. It's probably one of the best things I've done for my mental health this year.

Making this decision wasn't easy, though. First of all; It seemed really unfair to her. She didn't really do anything wrong, she can't help feeling the way she does more than I can. She just wanted to be my friend. I'm the one with the problem, why should I "punish" her to get over it? Second; I really enjoyed a lot of our talks, even the ones that went into painful territory. She was one of the very few people I was able to have long and meaningful conversations with online. I'm very difficult to talk to online, as I have a tendency to just say what I have to say and then just go silent. I guess that's what it is to be an introvert. She managed to get me going, though, and part of me really didn't want to lose that.

In the end, as I've said, I decided to go with my own well-being over both her feelings and the convenience of having someone to actually have long online conversations with. I decided that it wasn't worth dealing with these painful feelings all of the time. And even though she still pops into my mind from time to time, and I start having some doubts as to whether I did the right thing or not, I really think I'm better off with her out of my life.

: Summer-LAN (and more).

This weekend will be interesting.

I'm having a LAN this weekend, from Thursday to Sunday. Not quite sure who'll actually show up yet. The ones I know will come, will probably be here on Thursday. The rest, if they come, will be here sometime on Friday. I hope most of the people I've invited will show up, 'cause it's been a while since I've had a real big LAN, would be nice to have that again. If all the people I've invited (who hasn't already said no) comes, we'll be 8, including me.

On Friday, however, I will be gone most of the day. I hadn't really planned this, I had actually abandoned this plan before I started inviting people to the LAN, because I thought it would be impossible to get there by bus. But it turns out it's a lot easier than I thought, so I'm gonna do it anyway. I'm going to a place called Feiring, more specifically to Feiring Jernverk, to see a play called "Menn av malm, jenter av jern". I'm not really going there for the play (although I'm sure I'll enjoy it); I'm going because the girl I've been talking to for quite a while now is in it, and it's a great chance to finally meet her.

So, I'll be leaving home at about 12 on Friday, and will hopefully be back home at about 23:30 (my brother in law is gonna drive me back, as there are no buses that late). That means that I won't be here when people show up on Friday. But, as I said, a couple of people come on Thursday (and at least one of them will be here all day), so anyone who comes on Friday should still be able to get in.