Off to a good start

Sunday was more about trying to move my stuff to my new house and get settled in, so today was the day to start being organised and seriously looking for houses and jobs. My plan to sort out a personnumer today did not work out - just as I was ready to leave the house I realised that some paperwork I needed for that was in a suitcase at my friend's house on the other side of Stockholm. Thankfully I retrieved said suitcase this evening and will be able to do that tomorrow instead.

I made a big effort to be efficient today, and I think it paid off. I've now finalised a meeting about a job for next Monday, and I think this will be a really good prospect, although I obviously don't want to get my hopes up. I found a few other job opportunities that would be suitable for me today, and applied for them. I'm pleased to find that there are quite a few options available in English, as my Swedish isn't yet good enough to work in. I also applied for a couple of babysitting/nanny jobs, as I did this type of work in Finland for a while, and I feel that balancing one or two of these jobs would give me an income, but also allow me plenty of time for art. At this point I'm not wanting or expecting to necessarily get the best job, I just need a stable starting point and I can build from there. One of the people advertising a nanny job got back to me straight away, we spoke on the phone and he was very positive, all going well I might be meeting him tomorrow.

I also replied to a couple of adverts for rooms to rent. However, this evening that side of things became much more positive. Unbeknownst to me, one of my boyfriend's friends lives here, and he has very kindly offered to help me, generally with getting settled here, but also with finding somewhere more permanent to live. He has given me some great suggestions of areas that might be suitable that I hadn't known about, and has offered to help me with looking for places and making contact. This is a big help, as his language abilities are obviously a lot better than mine. I feel much less alone now that someone has volunteered to help me a bit with this stuff, and after today I'm feeling much more optimistic about my future in Sweden. This person is also helping my boyfriend a lot with finding job opportunities here, and if we're lucky this might mean we are separated for a shorter period of time. But again, everything is still very new and uncertain so I don't want to make assumptions or get my hopes up.

I had a bit of a wobble this evening, I think mainly because I miss my boyfriend, and maybe I'm becoming a bit frustrated with my language abilities. I know I've only been here for 2 full days, and I've only been learning Swedish for less than three months, and perhaps I set some unrealistic expectations for myself. I can understand a lot but I'm not used to hearing people speaking in Swedish, because I was learning in England. At this point I need to consciously think about what most words mean, and that makes it quite difficult to have a proper conversation with someone. I know I have to keep trying, and I know there were times in Finland when I wished I could give up and go home. Obviously you forget those times once you've become settled and have built a happy life for yourself. It's still so early on, and now that I'm gaining more of a support network here I hope that things will keep on improving. Maybe I need to be a bit easier on myself when it comes to speaking Swedish. Apart from this wobble I've had a really good, productive day, and I hope that this continues tomorrow.