The Month of March

I knew something was wrong, I posted the April month today but missed the one about March. The month of March did pass fast, but it wasn't without anything worth mentioning happened...

The 4th to 9th of March, just days after my family left I went to San Fransisco with Mark and Teresa. They are good friends of ours, Mark is playing tennis with Josh and Theresa and Mary Sue are on the same soccer team. We were going there to visit their daughter Jena, who goes to the Dominican, a college in San Rafael, just north of the Golden Gate bridge. Mark had some kind of work to do, a meeting or seminar to go to, and Theresa and I met up with Jena and we all spent some time together and I took the chance to see another great city.

From Wednesday, the day we arrived there, up until Monday, we explored everything from the Fisherman's Warth, the Golden Gate Park to Little Italy and Chinatown.

Mark, Theresa and Jena are all vegetarians/vegans and I got introduced to a broad variety of that kind of food and I started to love it! After I got home again I've been trying to, as often as I can, chose vegetarian alternative such as soy milk instead of other dairy products, tofu instead of meat, and more fruits and vegetables.

Later this month I had nose surgery after an incident that occured at a soccer game. I can tell you the whole story. My team was playing Santa Monica High School, which is the best team in our league. The game had already been post-poned once because of bad weather, so that day, despite the pouring rain and the bad conditions we had to play. After the first half the score is 1-1 and Santa Monica is getting a bit frustrated as they are not winning as easily as they had expected. They begin using tougher body contact and play with elbows high etc. The accident happened on a goal kick as I was going to head the ball coming towards me in the air. Looking around I see a girl next to me, almost as tall (which is very rare considering I'm a head taller that almost everyone on my team). As the other girl realizes that she can't get to the ball after I already headed it she throws up her elbow in my face whereupon I fall down to the ground with an intense pain in my face. Two things I want to point out here, neither the girl nor the referee took any notice of me getting hurt. I would have thought that either the girl would've said sorry, if it was an accident, or the coach giving her a card, preferably a red as it must have looked pretty ugly. Finally though, the referee blew the whistle and paused the game. In front of me there was a puddle of blood and my white jersey was colored red. I could barely feel the pain in my face anymore and got help to walk of the field so the game could continue.

Later that evening I made the first in a long serie of visits to the doctor, who at that time said she couldn't decide whether anything was broken etc. because of the swelling. But as soon as the swelling had gone down, if I experienced any difficulties breathing or I could see a change in appearance I should go back to the doctor. But as for now it didn't look like there would be a problem, she said.

Three weeks later, when I still couldn't breath through the right nostril I went to the doctor, who told me straight out that my septum (which is the internal divider of the nose that separates the two nostrils) was deviated and the frontal bone was fractured. This meant that for me to be able to breath properly again surgery was necessary. Luckily my parents were here at the time and they made the decision and allowed the surgery. Otherwise, Mary Sue said later, she doubted that she would've given her permission but rather make me wait until I returned to Sweden to have surgery. The whole procedure of pre-surgery meeting, the surgery by itself, the post-op meeting and the check up meeting was really tiring. But after all, the nose looks like it did before the accident and it works the same too. Thank God!

On Friday, the 27th we went to Mary Sue's partner Susan's new restaurant opening. The restaurant is called Street, and was crowded with important people. I brought my camera, which I've become profoundly fond of and I spoke with one of the photographers who were there about additional lenses etc, which might my next step in my "photo-carrier".

On the 28th of March it was Earth Hour, which means that everyone was supposed to turn off all electronics etc in your house between 8.30 and 9.30 pm PCT, to show they care and wants to conserve the environment. Personally, I went with Josh and Kieran to the restaurant MetroDiner, but I still did what I could at home and turned off all my electronic devices. While we were eating the light were suddenly swithced off, and I realized it just turned 8.30 pm. Even the neon light on the outside went dark. We sat with about ten candles lit on out table the rest of the meal. It was nice and gave me a little bit of faith in the fight against the climate change.