A meme about the past
I'm going to do a meme!
How it works: you comment saying you want to do the meme, I give you an age (please tell me how old you currently are as well), and you fill out the meme questions with what applied to you back then, and what applies to you now. naye gave me 21.
That was a long time ago. I turned 21 at the midyear point of 2002.
I lived in:
I still lived with my parents and brothers in the house I grew up in. It was a two-story house built in the 70s or early 80 in a place some 30 kilometers north of Stockholm. We moved in there right before I turned six, and I went to school in that area. It still sort of feels like my "home town", even though I haven't lived year for many years now. It was a nice house, but very uncentrally placed even within the town. Most of the year, the best way of getting anywhere at all was going by bus to the center (and possibly commuter trains from there to go to Stockholm), and buses only came every half hour - and on weekends once an hour. Biking was nice in summer.
In the fall of 2002, I went to Japan for the first time, for three months. During that time, I lived in a small (but by Japanese standards, actually quite large!) apartment in Shimotakaido, close to Shibuya in Tokyo.
I drove:
An old-fashioned three-geared bicycle. Otherwise, nope.
I was in a relationship with:
I knew even then that "relationships" weren't my thing, even though I didn't have the words for why, or knew that there were others like me out there. (Turns out I'm asexual and aromantic, concepts that I didn't discover until 2005.) I did, however, have an excellent friend group at that point. I have many happy memories of weekends playing tabletop RPGs (mostly Shadowrun), though at that early point in time, I think I was too shy and awkward to roleplay much of anything - I got better.
I feared:
Failing at anything. Speaking in front of people. Making a fool of myself. Broadcasting my ignorance of pretty much everything except the topics I had specifically studied in school/university. Being noticed. Not being noticed. Having someone be attracted to me and having to turn them down. Being such a boring person no one would want to be friends with me. Breaking down and crying in public. I was still basically a teenager, and it didn't help that I was living with an untreated depression that made everything more difficult than it should have been.
I worked at:
My main occupation was studying Japanese full-time at Stockholm University. The department was absolutely horrible, and I chalk the fact that I made it down to stubbornness more than anything else. The reward was, apart from learning Japanese, the three-month stay in Tokyo (studying at Nihon University), mostly financed by a scholarship arranged by the involved universities.
I did work quite a lot during the summer of 2002, as a grocery store clerk. It was sort of boring and brain-dead, but it was easy enough, and it brought in money.
I wanted to be:
Happy, I guess. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted from the future except some vague idea of stability and contentment that I had no idea how to accomplish. I liked being a student, because studying, at least, I knew I was good at.
It is now thirteen years later. On the one hand, it feels like at lot has happened in that time, and I have certainly grown a lot as a person, but on the other hand it feels like it wasn't that long ago.
I live in:
I have just moved into a tiny sublet apartment in only slightly off-central Göteborg. It feels quite comfy now that it's furnished, and it's by far the most central place I've ever lived in in Sweden. (In Japan, though, I've had apartments five minutes from Shibuya twice, which is way more central.) It's tiny and grotesquely overpriced for its size (because of subletting), but I think it's good enough for a year or two.
I drive:
Nope. I still don't have a driver's license. It's quite likely I'll never get one. (Although in Göteborg in particular, this is almost a plus! Turns out driving in Göteborg is notoriously maze-like.)
I am in a relationship with:
Like I said above, asexual and aromantic, so no. I have a better relationship with myself these days, though - the chronic depression is under control, and I don't hate myself as much. And I still have friends, even though they're all long-distance by now.
I fear:
I fear the future, for all sorts of reasons. I fear growing old. I still fear being friendless.
I work at:
I have recently been employed as a PhD student of History at Gothenburg University, which is basically a dream come true. In Sweden, being a PhD student comes with an employment and a salary, which means they only take as many students they can pay a full salary for, which means competition is very stiff. But it also means I now have the safety of a real, full-time job, while doing what I love to do - studying and researching history. I have four years to write a thesis while also taking some courses, attending seminars and conferences, and probably spend some time teaching university students at lower levels.
I want to be:
A PhD student! Which I am. o_O After that, the ideal would be to stay employed at a university as a researcher, or at the least a part-time researcher.
How it works: you comment saying you want to do the meme, I give you an age (please tell me how old you currently are as well), and you fill out the meme questions with what applied to you back then, and what applies to you now. naye gave me 21.
That was a long time ago. I turned 21 at the midyear point of 2002.
I lived in:
I still lived with my parents and brothers in the house I grew up in. It was a two-story house built in the 70s or early 80 in a place some 30 kilometers north of Stockholm. We moved in there right before I turned six, and I went to school in that area. It still sort of feels like my "home town", even though I haven't lived year for many years now. It was a nice house, but very uncentrally placed even within the town. Most of the year, the best way of getting anywhere at all was going by bus to the center (and possibly commuter trains from there to go to Stockholm), and buses only came every half hour - and on weekends once an hour. Biking was nice in summer.
In the fall of 2002, I went to Japan for the first time, for three months. During that time, I lived in a small (but by Japanese standards, actually quite large!) apartment in Shimotakaido, close to Shibuya in Tokyo.
I drove:
An old-fashioned three-geared bicycle. Otherwise, nope.
I was in a relationship with:
I knew even then that "relationships" weren't my thing, even though I didn't have the words for why, or knew that there were others like me out there. (Turns out I'm asexual and aromantic, concepts that I didn't discover until 2005.) I did, however, have an excellent friend group at that point. I have many happy memories of weekends playing tabletop RPGs (mostly Shadowrun), though at that early point in time, I think I was too shy and awkward to roleplay much of anything - I got better.
I feared:
Failing at anything. Speaking in front of people. Making a fool of myself. Broadcasting my ignorance of pretty much everything except the topics I had specifically studied in school/university. Being noticed. Not being noticed. Having someone be attracted to me and having to turn them down. Being such a boring person no one would want to be friends with me. Breaking down and crying in public. I was still basically a teenager, and it didn't help that I was living with an untreated depression that made everything more difficult than it should have been.
I worked at:
My main occupation was studying Japanese full-time at Stockholm University. The department was absolutely horrible, and I chalk the fact that I made it down to stubbornness more than anything else. The reward was, apart from learning Japanese, the three-month stay in Tokyo (studying at Nihon University), mostly financed by a scholarship arranged by the involved universities.
I did work quite a lot during the summer of 2002, as a grocery store clerk. It was sort of boring and brain-dead, but it was easy enough, and it brought in money.
I wanted to be:
Happy, I guess. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted from the future except some vague idea of stability and contentment that I had no idea how to accomplish. I liked being a student, because studying, at least, I knew I was good at.
It is now thirteen years later. On the one hand, it feels like at lot has happened in that time, and I have certainly grown a lot as a person, but on the other hand it feels like it wasn't that long ago.
I live in:
I have just moved into a tiny sublet apartment in only slightly off-central Göteborg. It feels quite comfy now that it's furnished, and it's by far the most central place I've ever lived in in Sweden. (In Japan, though, I've had apartments five minutes from Shibuya twice, which is way more central.) It's tiny and grotesquely overpriced for its size (because of subletting), but I think it's good enough for a year or two.
I drive:
Nope. I still don't have a driver's license. It's quite likely I'll never get one. (Although in Göteborg in particular, this is almost a plus! Turns out driving in Göteborg is notoriously maze-like.)
I am in a relationship with:
Like I said above, asexual and aromantic, so no. I have a better relationship with myself these days, though - the chronic depression is under control, and I don't hate myself as much. And I still have friends, even though they're all long-distance by now.
I fear:
I fear the future, for all sorts of reasons. I fear growing old. I still fear being friendless.
I work at:
I have recently been employed as a PhD student of History at Gothenburg University, which is basically a dream come true. In Sweden, being a PhD student comes with an employment and a salary, which means they only take as many students they can pay a full salary for, which means competition is very stiff. But it also means I now have the safety of a real, full-time job, while doing what I love to do - studying and researching history. I have four years to write a thesis while also taking some courses, attending seminars and conferences, and probably spend some time teaching university students at lower levels.
I want to be:
A PhD student! Which I am. o_O After that, the ideal would be to stay employed at a university as a researcher, or at the least a part-time researcher.