I cannot recall the last time I was happier for a year to be over. I have finally broken up with 2007. Now all we need is closure.

It started out well enough. Life was good, or at least it was stable. I hated my job, my boss, occasionally myself, but more often than not the sheer predictability of it all would be comforting (though of course also frustrating). Summer came, and I spent an amazing month in Germany catching up with my old friends, Adventurous, Optimistic and Fun-Loving, whilst filling up all the holes which my mundane 8-to-5 job had left in my soul with copious amounts of culture and caffeine. Then came autumn, and the structure I had spent so many years developing - myself - fell to the ground.

I have not cried so much in years, and must have saved a fortune on eye make-up remover. The break-up was followed by a breakdown (you know, for the sake of balance). I lost it, and by 'it', I mean 'almost everything'.

In many ways I'm still stunned by how quickly it's all happened. I have to start over now, and I am not ready at all, which means I'll have to do what I despise most: 'just' take the plunge and see what happens.

And so 2007 came to an end. Always true to form, I got my grand finale of heartbreak and utter humiliation on New Year's Eve, but by then I was too exhausted to look back. It's 2008 now, and I got a ridiculously expensive make-up remover for Christmas. How's that for a sign?

So, 2007, it's over. There is no more 'us'. And it's not me, it's you. Goodbye.

I am stupid. I just am. It’s like a law of physics or something, I just have to face the fact and get on with it. God, how disappointing.

You know what I was supposed to do with my morning? I was supposed to get up really early, have breakfast at Eva's, then spend the rest of the morning studying my arse off. And what do you think I did instead? I got up really early and had breakfast at Eva's, period. I spent almost four and a half hours having breakfast. And, of course, talking and laughing, swapping other people’s secrets behind their backs and all in all having a lovely time, but that is beside the point. I essentially spent half the day eating, and now I feel stupid. And full.

This, though, is not what I intended Munchies Monday to be all about. I was thinking more along the lines of recipes, cooking hints and whichever food-related funny stories I come to think of along the way. I mean, my flat is quite small, so I basically live in my kitchen (slash living room, slash dining area, slash study…), and something good has to come out of that, right? Because I may not be the greatest cook in the world, but eating? Eating, I know. ’Hello, my name is Elisabeth and I am a foodie.’ ’Oh, uhm *crunch crunch*, hi Elisabeth!’

I was doing this interview thing on Facebook a while back, and one of the questions I had to answer was ’What are your favourite foods?’ The answer to this, like that to questions about one’s favourite book, song, film, writer, colour etc., changes constantly. My answer at the time was ’Fruit, fish and Cheez Doodles’, and it is true, these are some of the good things in life. Along with wholegrain pasta, potatoes, all kinds of herbs and spices, beef, ’rømmegrøt’, freshly baked bread with butter, all kinds of soups, risotto, cheeses, dried strawberries, walnuts, veggies baked in the oven with olive oil and fresh herbs, everything with the word 'caramel' in the title… The list goes on. These days I have a particular weakness for all things healthy-tasting, because of my perpetual fear of getting sick again before exams. That means lots of fish and vegetables, water, white tea and home-made soup. A few weeks ago I craved ’man food’; fried eggs, baked beans, meat, melted cheese and, of course, beer.

What’s my point in telling you this? I have no idea. I suppose just to inform you of my undiscriminating love of all food (except liquorice, but seriously, who in their right mind would eat that stuff?). Food is such an important part of being alive, and my philosophy is, why not make the most of it and have some foody fun?

I love makeup. I have always loved makeup, ever since I was a little girl. I know makeup. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I blame it on my aunt. One of my oldest memories of her must be from around 1990. She had long, red nails and was just back from Cuba. She is a trained beautician, and for most of my childhood she worked in a shoe shop - her handwriting is still on some of my mum’s shoe boxes: 'For Eli! Do not sell!' To me, she always seemed like the most glamourous creature alive; tall, skinny as a rail, blonde, tanned and beautiful, and always, always with some fun makeup in her purse. That’s how it started, you see: She would buy something she wasn’t completely happy with - an eyeshadow that was too shimmery, a lipstick that was too red - and so she would give it to me. It was our little secret, and it has continued to this day. We are talking about a picky woman searching for the perfect brown - I get a lot of freebies.

I instantly loved my new playthings. The colour and shape of my eyes seemed to change completely, just because of some forest green eyeshadow. There was particularly this one lipstick - an almost gloss-like red Shiseido - that would make me feel so pretty. I can still taste it. And I needed that. I didn’t have a very good time in school, in fact I felt like the fattest, ugliest little cow that ever lived (mostly because I was told that that was what I was), but the makeup sort of gave me a feeling of being ahead of them. It felt like I knew something they didn’t. In fact, I think I must have, because you know that pastel phase that all girls who grew up in the nineties went through at some point? Baby pinks and blues, cheap shimmery lipgloss and Maybelline Great Lash? Never had that. To this day, the thought makes me smile contently.

You can always tell my general state of being by taking a look at my hands. If I’m going through a rough patch, they will be too: The skin will be dry, the cuticles bitten raw, a couple of the nails perpetually chipped or with dirt under them. During happier times they always look their best; skin soft, nails even, un-nibbled and perfectly manicured. That’s how they should look now, but a couple of the scars and rough spots from the restless biting are refusing to go away.

I just over twenty-four hours I will be re-entering the buildings I love and fear more than any other: Those known as The University. They house so much wisdom and intellectual force that one feels like one is experiencing a parallel reality, or visiting an exotic country where the books are heavier, the colour of the light is more muted, the air smells like a spice blended from dust and people and coffee and clouds and ideas. My last trip to this particular country turned out a miserable failure; I basically dug out the brand-name bohemian in me and sat downing cappuccinos the entire year. I have since learned, or at least realised, a thing or two about myself that will hopefully cause me to spend my opportunities more wisely this time around, but being aware of how much I yet have to learn about myself, I can't help but wonder: Will I get it right this time?

I am a smart girl; I always have been, and to a certain extent I have always been aware of it. Through the years I've had all manner of self-image issues to cope with, yet I can honestly say that I can't remember an extended period of my life during which I sincerely doubted the capacity of my mind. Its content, yes, but never its potential. I have very few good things to say about my experiences in public schools, but it has to be said that it helps to have the reassurance of a good mark at times when you spend your days worrying about whether or not the rest of you is good enough.

Being smart, though, somehow didn't quite cut it in the one place where I expected it would. I remember being shocked by how unnatural it felt for me to be walking the among hundreds of duffle coats on their way to the library, their intellectual watering hole. I was convinced that they knew something I didn't, that I had missed some kind of meeting where all new students were let in on the secret to successful studies, and told to just 'follow the advice, but for the love of God, act natural!' I basically spent the entire year trying to figure out where to start.

I'm not sure that a year in an academic coma has done me any good, but I like to think I have learned something about myself that will ease the process of learning just a little. I may not have a map pointing me in the right direction, but I have become a little better at using my head as a compass rather than a safe, and if I lose my way, I can just follow the duffle coats until I rediscover my very own yellow brick road. Hopefully, by the time I reach the end of it, I'll have figured out my wish.

And if it never ends, well, I'll just have to keep walking. I hear the views are lovely.

This is the kind of Monday which could drag even the most perky of cheerleaders down from the top of the pyramid and into a quagmire of depression and frizzy hair, and yet I'm sitting happily at my computer, drinking coffee and trying desperately to eat slippery little mango pieces without dropping them onto my keyboard. It's a national holiday, and that alone may be enough to make a religious woman out of me.

I just noticed that a picture of me from 'russetida' has been posted on Facebook. My first, actually. I look much like I always have, except for a few crucial differences:
- I'm wearing over-sized, dirty, funny-smelling clothes
- I have a slightly shorter forehead (the picture is of me fixing my make-up, and I always do that wrinkly forehead thing, throwing off my facial proportions entirely)
- I have the long hair that I killed about 40 cm of before Heimtun, so as to seem a little less prissy and high-maintenance. So much for that; all it resulted in was my missing my hair.

I sometimes catch myself thinking about how little I have changed since then. My entire life is different so far as my general circumstances are concerned (I believe they call it 'growing up'), but there is a big chunk of me which I feel has remained unaltered through the process of supposedly 'growing into myself'. I still spend most of my waking hours worrying that I'm just not good enough at this game, with all the hundreds of sub-issues that might include. I'm not pretty enough, smart enough, disciplined enough, thin enough, funny enough, polished enough. Luckily, I can combine that absolutely exhausting pattern of thought with other things, like work, otherwise I would never get anything done. Thing is, though, I'm getting tired (joke being, of course, that I can't even get this right). And I'm starting to realise that none of my extremes of thought are close to reality. Neither the 'Nobody else thinks like this, so great, I'm incompetent even more ways than I thought, I can't even think right' nor the Life Philosophy according to Lina Lamont 'Doesn't everybody?' has turned out to be true. So what now?

I think I have just got so used to the thought that I'm not liked that I've come to depend on it. It's a great excuse to have in all kinds of ways. But then everyone needs to learn to manage by themselves at some point. Without their parents, without their teachers, without their friends' approval of everything and, in my case, without the disapproving voice in my head that just won't shut up. I've been waiting for it to go away for years, and during that time I've become excellent at making deceptive first impressions and other tricks that salvage my social life, but this has really got to stop. It's annoying me, and worst of all, it's something I can list under 'bad qualities', meaning it is no longer serving its purpose.

From this moment, if I ever respond to a compliment with any other phrase than 'thank you', feel free to hit me over the head with a hammer (except perhaps you, 3ff3ct3r; you can hit me with something softer, like a cat) . I need it. I'm getting far too good at lying.

Less agonising post coming soon, to a Livejournal near you!

Jeg fant et bilde av meg med langt hår. Jeg angrer på at jeg klippet meg nå som jeg ser hvor pent det er (på bildet). Jeg vet det egentlig var ganske slitt og ikke så tykt og ganske slitsomt siden det ble flokete og satt seg fast i ting og sånt. Men jeg liker å ha kort hår også. Men det er det som kjeder meg nå.
Det var faktisk ikke ment å være en allegori, det bare ble det. En skikkelig fæl en, også. Men venner hjelper.