Days of Our Lives

I've been challenged (what would I blog about if people didn't keep challenging me I wonder?!) by Skolfröken to write about the years that I have experienced that end with a 2 or a 7.

1977 - I was 1 and don't remember too much. I do have a memory of standing in a big field (I know now that it is Öland) and getting afraid because my parents were ahead of me (they were probably not very far away but at that age even 10 metres is probably an abyss). This must have been in the summer of 1977 so I was a year and a half.

1982 - I was 6 years old, in pre-school and longing to start school. We had Kindergarten classes once a week but I mostly remember learning how to light matches (some sort of safety lesson I guess) and drinking coffee with lots of sugar and milk (some sort of becoming-an-adult lesson?). My parents contemplated putting me in school one year early but decided against it as they wanted me to stay with the friends I already had and let me play for another year. I started school in 1983 instead, which is perfectly fine with me now because otherwise I wouldn't have the same friends I have now.

1987 - A highlight this year was that I got a new cousin and was able to play with her instead of my dolls (now she's 20 and wild!) We had a caravan in the yard of our little country house that I pretended was my own home (much bigger than my little playhouse) - mostly playing with my friend Malin who used to spend a lot of time with us there.

1992 - I finished compulsory school. I think the end-of-year party both at the end of eight and ninth grade was at Folkets Park, where we tried - unsuccessfully - to get in for free. I had been madly in love with the same guy for the last three years of school but nothing never happened between us, not a few years later when he was interested in me either. By that time I had moved on.

1997 - I started university in January that year, after having been an au pair in the USA for a year and worked at a pre-school for a few months. I spent one term at Stockholm University before moving on to Uppsala in the autumn of 1997. At Uppsala I met two girls, Jenny and Lena, who talked about studying in the UK, an idea that really appealed to me. In an interesting twist Lena ended up staying only for six months or so and Jenny went to the US instead, while I remained in the UK for four years.

2002 - I finished my MPhil at Oxford and did an internship at the European Commission - two really important milestones in the beginning of my career. After the period in Brussels, in March 2003, I moved back to Sweden, something that took a while to get used to. It probably wasn't until 2004 I felt that Sweden was truly my home again.

2007 - The best time is always the present. I am madly in love with a guy who seems equally in love with me, so I think this is the beginning of the rest of my life!

I challenge Johanna and Karin!