Wow it's 2025 already! And what a 2024 year it has been...
It's already April 2025
What's been happening since?
Since I resigned, I have been to Denmark, Singapore, the US, and the UK. Of course, I've been to all those places before, but it was still fun. I've barely been in Sweden so far this year. December was a tough time for me, I was in a town where there was not much to do, despite being in the company of someone who I care and love. However, the darkness and terrible weather was just too much. As the years roll by, I realise I just don't cope well in shitty weather, especially darkness. I was born in a sunny place and lived with sun everyday. Before, I believed being in snow would be cool, and winter. And for a while, it was. But after living in this type of shitty weather (let's face it, the winter is still shitty, regardless of so called "good warm" clothes or not!) there is absolutely no way you would be mentally well or physically well. It's why there's a good amount of depression in the Scandinavian countries, people who take "happy pills", despite all the so called (which I consider, fake) happiness reports.
January I was in Singapore, visiting friends and family, having good food. It was a good time. When I was young I was very critical of Singapore. Hearing how every western country, like France, gives away "free" money to their citizens, wow, what amazing places! As I grow older and having lived now in 5 countries, I can say for certain, Singapore is definitely one of the best places to live. My biggest issue, is that it's just too damn small. However, it really is a great place to live. Everything just bloody works, no excuses. If you ever ever doubt you should move, you don't need to doubt, just move. Life will be 100% better. Yes, you might have to work. No lazing around. But guess what, your efforts will pay off. Work in Singapore, get rich, then if you really want, come to a paradise (more like a dump) like Sweden and be one of the richest people here while they're all poor shits, comparatively, and will always be wage slaves until the end of their life while claiming how everything is "great". Swedes to me are polite in your face, but behind the scenes they're mostly jealous little shits, and dislike people who make more money than them. But they're not willing to work hard or do anything. The entire country just attracts poor quality people, people who want to live off welfare, lazy people. I can give examples. If you look at the immigration statistics, most of the immigrants come from a certain part of the world. These are public numbers. That is why they will never progress beyond the pace of a snail. I might be critical, but it's the truth. Some Swedes that I know bitch about how others are making more than them, and in fact, even pay monies to websites where you're able to see how much people make. I have never seen this sort of behaviour anywhere else, except here. So, enough about Sweden, what else?
February I was in the US, Chicago, for around 18 days. It's the longest time I've been to the US so far in a while. I stayed almost 2 weeks longer than my time in CompTIA. I wanted to watch an MLS game, soccer, so I decided to stay the length of time that I did. Chicago vs DC United, which was a 2-2 draw. DC United equalised in the 95th minute through a bicycle kick, what a goal! Even though it was -8 and freezing, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But I'm never going to watch a game in -8 C ever again. I did not expect Chicago to be so cold this time, it was -17 C and then it went to 10 C. I didn't even really have the clothes for such weather.
I was really sick the entire time, actually, been coughing a lot, and I've only just really recovered, so I've been sick for almost 2 months, but I tried to make the best use of the time I was there, watching "Clue" the play and watching "The Rock Orchestra by Candlelight" at the Chicago Theatre, and visiting the Griffin museum of science and industry. I also watched quite a few movies. I think the movie theatres in the US are the best I've been to, all of them are like Gold Class, and relatively cheap. Really good seats and super comfortable. Perhaps even too comfortable, I often find myself almost falling asleep in them.
The Rock Orchestra by Candlelight
Food wise, there are also good places to eat in the US. You just have to find them. Certainly the prices can be expensive, but you can also find relatively cheap meals, comparable to prices in Sweden. Except you have to remember, the US holds the world's reserve currency, and salaries in Chicago are higher. I went to have king crab legs again at a Cajun place, and of course, ate lobster at Luke's Lobster. This time I also ate at a Mexican Taco place, twice, and it was good as well. Visited Chinatown and had some sushi there. I also ordered pho at some points to my hotel, as I was quite sick. What I find rather annoying, is the amount of tipping that goes on. Seriously if I'm picking up my own food with no service whatsoever, there's no way I am tipping.
I was staying downtime so it was very convenient to get around. I could just walk 15 minutes, catch a movie and come home. Of course this was after my time in CompTIA. During the workshop I stay in the suburbs, in Lombard, then when the workshop ends I go downtown. Thanks to my buddy Paul who is always helpful in giving me a lift. The CompTIA workshop had a lot of people, 19! Really it's quite a lot and the largest workshop I've been in.
I'll be visiting again in June. But this time I will only be in Chicago for less than 8 days, the rest of the time I will be in New York. I've been to Chicago so many times now and have seen all I wanted to see, so now it's time for something different. I haven't been to New York since 2014, so I figured, "why not?".
After the US I went to London, the sole purpose was to watch a premier league match, "West Ham v Newcastle". Newcastle won 1-0, it was expected, even though it was a home game. Was a cold chilly evening. I stayed in west London, Ealing. Was an okay area, quite decent. The hotel was new and clean, I rather liked it. It takes an hour to get to London stadium from there, but otherwise, it's a nice hotel. I liked it that they cleaned the hotel room every day, really appreciated that. It did take an hour and a half to get there from Gatwick, so quite the journey, but nevertheless I liked the hotel.
I watched quite a few musicals when I was there. "MJ the musical", "Back to the future the musical" (amazing effects!) and "Stranger things the first shadow" which was a play. I also visited Horizon 22, it's London's highest viewing platform. I made a mistake in obtaining a ticket for April, but the lady let me in anyway luckily. It was pretty sweet views from up there, 58 levels up. Just that it was really, really cloudy that day.
Oh I ate way too much McDonald's when I was in London, but it was so close to where I was staying and was the only place open until late. I also got these coupons for filling up surveys, so I kept using those to get fillet-o-fish sandwiches at bargain prices. 😆
I arrived back on the 15th so I've only been back around a month. During that time I also managed to renew my permanent residence card. I've had a lot of time to think, panic about the stock markets, which is a real shit show at the moment thanks to the insanity of Trump, and think more. I'm super privileged to have all this time to think about life and well, everything really. And sometimes I think it's a real struggle to figure out what life is about. If you're just working all the time because you have to, you don't have to think about it. Or if you're endlessly struggling. But like, if you don't have to, then what is the point of working if you don't have to? It surely has to mean something. Otherwise you're just working to fulfil someone else's dreams. I think right now I'm struggling a bit with figuring out what I want to do. It's a good thing to be thinking about though.
I just hope I have the mental fortitude to figure this out somehow. Sometimes, occasionally, I think it's easier just to be struggling in life, because then all you're doing is going through the motions.
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