I got a plan... at least for now...

I have been wanting to write a something, and I have several times started on a new post, but in some ways I never seemed to be able to set down and get it down on paper. Why I don't know, time has just been flying the last few weeks, which has been so nice. > busy is good.

Life has starting to normalize which I still don't know how to relate to it. A lot of things has changed during the last months and weeks, and I'm still working on getting the whole puzzle into one piece, but I'm getting there. It has taking it's thorn, but I'm slowly starting to figure it out. 

I have had some big dilemmas trying to figure out want to do - how do I want to live my life - want kind of job/education/"career" do I want to pursue. I have always been Nikoline - the bike rider. Ever since I can remember I have been socialised with cycling, and it's okay, but I'm starting to get there, where I kind off just want to be ME!

When I look back I have done some pretty funny stuff, if you can put it that way. I have always done want I desire the most, and I have always had fun doing it. My life so far has been a big mix of training, working (otherwise no money to race for), travelling/exploring new countries and meeting people from all over the world - all this related to my cycling activities. I have been so privileged, and I don't feel that I have missed out on anything, on the other hand I have gained so much in stead. I'm still not ready to leave it all behind, and properly never will be. I simply love riding my bike to much. So far I have had 16 years of racing together with my bike.... 

But I have realized that I in the future want to do something more, I want to be more than I rider. I need to have more or different aspects and contents in my life. After a lot of THINKING during my stay in Belgium and returning to DK my future questions now has answers. For the first time in many years I sent out my first application for a new study out, I didn't get in, but I'll try again next year. I was quite sad when I got the message, because I felt ready for a new chapter in my life... don't know if I make any sense, but it has been hard to find, that one thing I want to do for the rest of the life, (beside riding my bike) I can't afford riding my bike forever... I have been pleased with doing what I really love for many years, and finding a "replacement" for that has been hard, and cost many emotions and tears, but I'm slowly accepting the fact, that I can have just the same amount of fun,enjoyment and achievements elsewhere... and maybe even more...! who knows? I have accepted that my life is running on narrow and winding roads, and no brad highways. I will work hard to improve my skills and then apply again next year, and after some more thinking I will apply one more place as well ;-) 

So now I got a plan, and I'll try to stick to it, but as the impulsive and easy going person I am, I wonder how long it will last... One/A plan or idea is better than nothing. 

A lesson cycling has taught me during the last many years, is the importance off doing something you really love and desires. 

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More important things

When reality strikes back, it can hurt! Yesterday I had a aftershock, and once again I found myself wondering/fearing about the future, and what it will bring/contain, and how I should relate or react to it. It's funny because I wasn't feeling sad, and I had spend some great days together with my family and friends, but that was at least what I thought, but sometimes body and mind operates in two completely different ways. 

That combined with 2 good night out, and a tired mind and body, my shield fell down, and I let a good friend in. Not once during the last few days had I thought about it, but apparently unconsciously I had, and my because my mind too busy during something ells my body took it up, and I got tired of saying everything was all right.

But future is future, and now it's written down, I have related it to me, and now it's out of the system. This morning I woke up with a good feeling! I will stick to dreaming about what the future holds, and not worrying so much about it. So now I'm back on positive thinking and back on track with my study test. 

There are more important things in life, than worrying. 

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Ready Steady Action GO

Sometimes, or in my case often, there isn't a long complicated path between taking a decision and then bringing it into practise. Therefore Saturday I was at the start line at the "local" mountainbike race in Silkeborg. Don't know if you can call it local with 1200 participates, but fun indeed it was. It was my first "meeting" with my MTB and I finished working on it around 10pm. 

The weather was a bad - really bad, with heavy and on going showers through out the race. It was my first ever marathon race and first ever tour in the MTB, so I didn't know what to expect and have to behave. 

I'm definitely not a long-distance mountain bike rider, in fact I think it was the rainy weather who made it so much fun. It reminded me a bit of cross! I really liked the fact that I could just only focusing on keeping the speed and keeping warm. It was properly my first long ride ever on a MTB, don't know what it says about my normal MTB training effort - once a road'er always a road racer - even though I'm planing on this season to change it! Now the season has begun only 1½ month before the scheduled time. 

As they always say; racing is the best training you can ever get! 

For the moment it's quiet here, spring may finally have arrived - enjoy!

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On track

I'm back or at least it feels like that.., but I don't know if I really have been gone.. Confused! So am I! The last few weeks, ever since I came back from Belgium, have been a roller coaster ride involving applying for social assistance, seeking jobs, finally figuring out what I want to do, what I want to study when cycling doesn't take up all my time and energy. I have realized this season that no matter how passionate I am about my cycling, I simply can't make it a living. Now I am back on the "right" side of the system - the side of the pay checks, and it feels God damn good. 

It's strange how many things for the moment just snaps into place. I still miss a lot of pieces for my "never-ending" puzzle, but at least now I can sense the how it could end up looking like! I have caught myself daydreaming about what my future may contain! 

First focus is to build a staircase so I can crawl up from the financial hole, which my Belgium 6 month stay has left me in, but the 2 of April I'm back into employment.  

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An educational Friday.

After some quiet days which haven’t really been action packed. Because of my current situation with unemployment have I applied for social benefits? I have started on an approximately 3 weeks "educational program" as a "activation" because I'm under 30 then I have to do this program, which is completely waste of time and resources if you ask me! I can write page after page about this subject. The truth is that the system is set-up on a really non-functional way, and it seems like the no one is getting something out of it!

For me this is a necessary stop because I don’t have a job, but I’m searching and waiting for answers from the ones I already have talked with. For me this is a necessary evil as for many others in my “group”. Most of us have an idea on what they want to do, and we are just waiting for an answer from the university or military. It’s very frustrating and hate been treated like a child and being talked down to, as I don’t understand anything.

As I mentioned in my last post I’m starting but slowly to figure out what I want with my life, and this has involved a new application for a new study. Yep I’m planning and hoping for 4 more years on school benches, unbelievable but true. But before the dream can come true I’ll have to pass two tests, the first one starting in just a few weeks, and then I hopefully can start on the study photojournalism in Århus to either September or February. If not then I’m going to keep pursuing it until I get in.

Today I spent a lot of hours working on taking portrait which is something I have never done before! I had a very educational and fun Friday with my good friend, where I learnt quite a lot, my head is full of impressions and my new passion just reached new heights. Here are some of the highlights from the day. I still got a lot to learn and I have only just begun to photograph.

I want to say thank you to Tony for being so patient to day. All the pictures used in this post are from my educational Friday!  

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Yesterday

The Belgium cross bubble has burst! After returning back to DK, my days has been really quite, and honestly I haven’t done that much. Ever since my concert in CPH and a weekend trip to Malmö my head has been so quite, which for a time has been very much appreciated.

I’m slowly starting to adapt to my life in Denmark. These couple of days I have been dealing with all the paperwork which comes when you are unemployed, and still need something to live for. This has been very frustrating, and I have only dealt with it, less than I week, and it already starting to get to me. It’s not the fact that I don’t have job, it the hole thought about that my cross dream about returning to Belgium for one more season, might going to end before it started! But it’s going to work out, just feeling a bit burn out for the moment, think it has to do with that I for the first time in my life had to apply for “social assistance”. No matter what, I really didn’t like it, and it made me feel unimportant and uncomfortable.  

I’m starting but slowly to figure out what I want with my life, don’t have a master plan, but the basic lines are starting to pop up in my head, and giving me kind of a direction off where I want to go, and what I need to do in order to get there. Which is nice, it gives me a certain piece in mind, now that everything ells around me more or less is floating.

In order to keep focus I’m working on my Bucket List – you know just to keep me focused so that I’m not falling back into old habits and pattern.

As a complete contrast to my day yesterday, I witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen – I felt like sharing it with you guys. 

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Not just a place to stay

On my last weekend down here, a good friend of mine gave me a "photo-assignment". The task was to capture/describe my home in Belgium through the camera lens. So I did, and it was quite harder then I thought. 

I have in the past touched the subject home, and what it is that makes a home a home, and once again I was forced to think about what is the ingredients for a home. What is it that I for a long time has considered my home to be a rented room in a house in Blauberg, in the middle of Flandern for home. A house with absolutely none of my personal items except for my beloved Pink Panther (teddy ;-) - never to old for that). It's always with me, it's my most precious "object" that I own. Silly I know...! 

How can I describe with pictures my home in Blauberg? How can I feel at home sitting in a sofa in a country where I don't speak the language, where most of all my connections to the surrounding world goes through facebook, twitter or skype. How do I describe all this with pictures in stead of words! Yeah see the challenge of the assignment... It's still an on-going process!

And then it hit me; the final ingredients that made the big change - the crucial point where it felt like home wasn't all the stuff I was surrounded by! It was all the cool, crazy, funny, friendly people which I during my last 5 months has shared this house with. They made it feel like a true home, and not just a place to stay... 

So this is my Belgium home assignment in pictures and a little bit in text. It's still an on-going a task, and I will think about some more and better describing pictures, but for now this is what I got. 

It wasn't the fact that I could mess all that I wanted without being told differently :-)

 

Oh yeah - the favourite spot - before the sofa was angled so that I had a perfect view for the TV 

(no comments please - I know...) 

My precious :-) 

The once who made it feel like home part 1. 

The once who made it feel like home part 2. 

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