Well, survived another birthday intact. Pretty quiet affair, really. My brother in law and mother in law arrived round for eftermiddagens (afternoon) fika. Fika is a strange word. It literally means coffee break. But it tends to apply to any type of morning tea, afternoon tea, snack, brunch, or nibble. Any type of food intake that is not covered by breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It includes coffe, of course. And Swedes all appear to drink only black coffee. I don't know, maybe milk is an English thing. But it doesn't stop at coffee. On no. Nope, a fika break always includes several varieties of sweet cakes, bicsuits, buns, and breads. At this point it has progressed way past the point of snack. It's now an officially sanctioned meal. A good rule of thumb is, if you get wind that there may be a fika coming up, starve yourself for several days prior to the event.
That night we went out for the evening. Just the 2 of us. which was nice. With work, commuting, language school and horses, we never seem to have a lot of time together apart from collapsing in front of the tv at the end of the day. So it was nice to be almost semi normal as a couple.
There's a strange place just outside of our town. Officially it's a Wild West theme park. As one would expect to find in Sweden. Sweden is the home of dansband, so why not. Anyway, they have a large saloon type hall which they use for concerts, shows, corporate dinners, etc. On Saturday night it was a combined dinner and theatre evening. I've always loved live theatre, and Swedes are so enthusiastic actors. Not a lot of Oscars to be won, but they do give it their all.
The show itself was a "murder/mystery" evening, played by an acting group touring from the south of Sweden. Just the 5 of them, and one lot of scenery. They played out the performance in 5 parts, stopping for 15 minutes between each part to allow for the next course of dinner to be served. During the break prior to the final act, every member of the audience was given a piece of paper and a pencil, and asked to guess who was the murderer. The true identity was revealed during the gripping final act. All rather exciting.
I was really impressed with myself in that I was able to pretty much follow what was going on. Not every word, but enough to comprehend what was being said and what the significance of it was. Well enought to even have an idea about which one of the five actors was the dirty rotten evil scoundrel. Which amazed me. I think it was largely due to it being live theatre. Because actors in theatre performances tend to be a bit over the top with actions, and tend to be quite definite and crisp with the words, it was a lot easy to follow in Swedish than normal conversation.
So there's a tip for all fellow new players out there. Go to a Swedish live theatre performance. Just sit there watching and listening for a couple of hours. Between over the top body actions and the slow booming dialogue, you might almost make sense out of it. It's certainly easier than trying to listen to the half dead news presenters on television.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
You know you've been here too long when...
I caught myself having a conversation with a workmate about the weather today. Not so unusual. Until I realised that I was knowingly agreeing with his sentiments about how nice it was, now that it was warmer.
It is still minus frickin 16 degrees C, fella !!
I've lived here too long when minus 16 can be viewed in any way as an improvement, over anything.
It's now been snowing for 2 months and two weeks.
It is still minus frickin 16 degrees C, fella !!
I've lived here too long when minus 16 can be viewed in any way as an improvement, over anything.
It's now been snowing for 2 months and two weeks.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Another year crossed off.
It's my birthday on Saturday. Another year of waving 2 fingers at the grim reaper. Better luck next year, pal. It's also my grandmother's birthday on the same day, I should add. She'd be about 150 million years old I reckon.
For the non Kiwis amongst you, Saturday is also New Zealand's national day. Known locally as Waitangi Day. Given Sweden's love of public holidays, I'm surprised that they haven't picked up on that one yet. It's got to be better than their own one, which they share with D-Day. Nice timing there, folks. The high point of having your birthday on a public holiday is that you get a day off work. Or a day from school when I was a lad. The downside to that is that restaurants and the like were usually shut. The good ones anyway. KFC and gas stations are still open, thankfully. Otherwise my birthdays would have been a total write off.
Relevance ?
Well, in a previous life, in the dark days before my Swedish saviour spirited me away, I was married to a Kiwi girl. I recall, after we'd been dating for a couple of weeks, her mother took me aside and told me that I could do so much better than date her daughter. A shocking thing to hear at the time, but hindsight showed her to be wise beyond her years. But I'm moving off track here.
Now, I wouldn't say that she was deliberately uncaring or unthoughtful. Just a bit slow out of the blocks. She would remember my birthday, every year. Like clockwork. Problem was, that she would remember about an hour after she woke up. Sometime are lunchtime on the big day. Every year I'd hear the slam of the front door, followed by the squeeling of car tyres. She was usually back again in about 10 minutes. Which was about as long as it took to drive to the gas station up the hill and back.
I amassed a rather impressive collection over the years. Several bags of firewood, a garden hose, a set of six BP glasses, a sparkplug spanner, and a number of "easy listening" CDs. Dinner was a romantic trip to KFC. Dining in, not drive through. It was a special day after all.
The celebration of my birthday has improved considerably over the past 8 years. Due to the change in casting. It'a a lovely day, and I look forward to it again, just as when I was a kid. It's just a bit of a pisser that I now have to go out and buy my own firewood.
For the non Kiwis amongst you, Saturday is also New Zealand's national day. Known locally as Waitangi Day. Given Sweden's love of public holidays, I'm surprised that they haven't picked up on that one yet. It's got to be better than their own one, which they share with D-Day. Nice timing there, folks. The high point of having your birthday on a public holiday is that you get a day off work. Or a day from school when I was a lad. The downside to that is that restaurants and the like were usually shut. The good ones anyway. KFC and gas stations are still open, thankfully. Otherwise my birthdays would have been a total write off.
Relevance ?
Well, in a previous life, in the dark days before my Swedish saviour spirited me away, I was married to a Kiwi girl. I recall, after we'd been dating for a couple of weeks, her mother took me aside and told me that I could do so much better than date her daughter. A shocking thing to hear at the time, but hindsight showed her to be wise beyond her years. But I'm moving off track here.
Now, I wouldn't say that she was deliberately uncaring or unthoughtful. Just a bit slow out of the blocks. She would remember my birthday, every year. Like clockwork. Problem was, that she would remember about an hour after she woke up. Sometime are lunchtime on the big day. Every year I'd hear the slam of the front door, followed by the squeeling of car tyres. She was usually back again in about 10 minutes. Which was about as long as it took to drive to the gas station up the hill and back.
I amassed a rather impressive collection over the years. Several bags of firewood, a garden hose, a set of six BP glasses, a sparkplug spanner, and a number of "easy listening" CDs. Dinner was a romantic trip to KFC. Dining in, not drive through. It was a special day after all.
The celebration of my birthday has improved considerably over the past 8 years. Due to the change in casting. It'a a lovely day, and I look forward to it again, just as when I was a kid. It's just a bit of a pisser that I now have to go out and buy my own firewood.
Less is More
I read a really good comment on another Swedish blog today. Concerning the government sponsored SFI language course. And the speed of the course. I've also read a lot of people mouthing of about how they "knocked the course off in 3 months". And I wonder how they are faring today. Maybe I'm just a bit slow when it comes to learning languages, this being my first attempt and all. But think about it for a moment:
Can you REALLY learn and understand a foreign language in 3 months ?
I started off with a hiss and a roar. Ripping through my assignment books and asking to sit a new exam every week. Ticking off each of the 21 levels in my course with a sense of triumph. Then it dawned on me. This isn't about getting an SFI certificate. That wasn't going to help me at all. Finishing the course meant bugger all. I wasn't going to suddenly have implanted in me a Swedish language translation chip on graduation day. The point of the exercise was for me to learn Swedish. Sufficiently well so that I could survive out there in the big cruel world.
So my strategy changed. I finished the first 8 of my 21 assignment books in the first 3 months. The final 13 took me a year. And I'm bloody happy about that. A year and a bit of dedicated language study has given me so much more confidence and a much clearer understanding. I'm no Swedish language expert, I figure that's going to take a few years more yet. But what I've learnt, I've retained. And I understand it. And surely that has to be the point.
I could have sat every test in 3 months also. Cramming the night before. But how much of it would I really have understood ? How much of it would I have retained after 3 months, with the intensive information overload regime. Sod all, is how much. It's not some state requirement, you don't have to go to school. So why shoot yourself in the foot by trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible ?
There are no shortcuts to learning a language. Not in my experience. I needed to pull it apart, start from the ground up. Understanding fully all the whys and hows of language is vital if you intend to be more than a repeating chimp.
SFI gets a bad rap around the place. But I'll wager that the negativity comes from people who saw it as a necessary evil to be tick off as quickly as possible, the "3 month" club. Rather than viewing it as a vital tool to building a new life. If you do the bare minimum required to pass a test, it won't be enough. And you'll say that SFI is rubbish. The level of education in an SFI course is limited by your own participation. We had brilliant indepth group discussions that went way beyond the scope of the course. There's no law against that. No teacher jumped in and says "stop talking like that, your Swedish is becoming too good". They loved it. You can only get to that level of confidence if you take the time. Rush it, and you're wasting your time. It's that simple.
My advice: So long as you are progressing, make the most of the system and stay as long as you can. It's your life, after all. And there ain't no prizes for finishing first.
Can you REALLY learn and understand a foreign language in 3 months ?
I started off with a hiss and a roar. Ripping through my assignment books and asking to sit a new exam every week. Ticking off each of the 21 levels in my course with a sense of triumph. Then it dawned on me. This isn't about getting an SFI certificate. That wasn't going to help me at all. Finishing the course meant bugger all. I wasn't going to suddenly have implanted in me a Swedish language translation chip on graduation day. The point of the exercise was for me to learn Swedish. Sufficiently well so that I could survive out there in the big cruel world.
So my strategy changed. I finished the first 8 of my 21 assignment books in the first 3 months. The final 13 took me a year. And I'm bloody happy about that. A year and a bit of dedicated language study has given me so much more confidence and a much clearer understanding. I'm no Swedish language expert, I figure that's going to take a few years more yet. But what I've learnt, I've retained. And I understand it. And surely that has to be the point.
I could have sat every test in 3 months also. Cramming the night before. But how much of it would I really have understood ? How much of it would I have retained after 3 months, with the intensive information overload regime. Sod all, is how much. It's not some state requirement, you don't have to go to school. So why shoot yourself in the foot by trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible ?
There are no shortcuts to learning a language. Not in my experience. I needed to pull it apart, start from the ground up. Understanding fully all the whys and hows of language is vital if you intend to be more than a repeating chimp.
SFI gets a bad rap around the place. But I'll wager that the negativity comes from people who saw it as a necessary evil to be tick off as quickly as possible, the "3 month" club. Rather than viewing it as a vital tool to building a new life. If you do the bare minimum required to pass a test, it won't be enough. And you'll say that SFI is rubbish. The level of education in an SFI course is limited by your own participation. We had brilliant indepth group discussions that went way beyond the scope of the course. There's no law against that. No teacher jumped in and says "stop talking like that, your Swedish is becoming too good". They loved it. You can only get to that level of confidence if you take the time. Rush it, and you're wasting your time. It's that simple.
My advice: So long as you are progressing, make the most of the system and stay as long as you can. It's your life, after all. And there ain't no prizes for finishing first.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Day After
Well, here I am, still alive. The lying buggers at the Swedish weather office. It was nowhere NEAR -30 deg C yesterday. 20, maybe. But certainly not 30. Mind you, they did get the rest of it pretty well right.
If that was my first true arctic blizzard, then I'll be quite happy for it to be my last. I have to confess, that I always wondered what it would be like, to experience a real winter. The last 2 have been relatively tame. In hindsight, I probably should have stuck to wondering.
First mistake for the day was in driving to work. I had a few errands to run, but, if ever there was a day to take the bus, yesterday was that day. It was actually ok driving in on the motorway. A couple of dodgy areas where the wind was blasting snow across the road. But manageable. What I didn't know was that the real storm wasn't to arrive for another hour. Being the tight-wad that I am, I don't park inside parking buildings. Not at 10kr an hour. Nope, it's always been the outdoor parking place for me. 3kr an hour I can live with. Yesterday, again in hindsight, it wasn't my smartest decision.
By the time I got back to the trusty Volvo at 4pm, I had to dig around in the snow drift to find the door handle. I kid you not.
Now, there's a reason why everyone in Sweden owns a Volvo. And it's not for their looks. It's because they work. No matter what, they go. And keep on going. I've owned 4 wheel drive Subarus, and a Landrover. So I was pretty skeptical about the ability of a simple front wheel drive car in a climate like this. But this car starts in a flash and goes exactly where you point it. Every time. Man, I was glad of it yesterday. As I crawled through town, I passed a guy stopped in the middle of a major intersection. He was lying in the snow, frantically trying to dig his Mercedes Benz out of the snow. "Buy a Volvo", I muttered smuggly.
Sure, you instantly age 20 years on the inside, the moment you sit in a Volvo. But when you're driving up the motorway at night, through 30cm deep snow, at 90kph, it's blowing and snowing like buggery outside, and it's 22 degrees inside the car, who gives a shit.
It probably deserves a bath this weekend, I reckon.
If that was my first true arctic blizzard, then I'll be quite happy for it to be my last. I have to confess, that I always wondered what it would be like, to experience a real winter. The last 2 have been relatively tame. In hindsight, I probably should have stuck to wondering.
First mistake for the day was in driving to work. I had a few errands to run, but, if ever there was a day to take the bus, yesterday was that day. It was actually ok driving in on the motorway. A couple of dodgy areas where the wind was blasting snow across the road. But manageable. What I didn't know was that the real storm wasn't to arrive for another hour. Being the tight-wad that I am, I don't park inside parking buildings. Not at 10kr an hour. Nope, it's always been the outdoor parking place for me. 3kr an hour I can live with. Yesterday, again in hindsight, it wasn't my smartest decision.
By the time I got back to the trusty Volvo at 4pm, I had to dig around in the snow drift to find the door handle. I kid you not.
Now, there's a reason why everyone in Sweden owns a Volvo. And it's not for their looks. It's because they work. No matter what, they go. And keep on going. I've owned 4 wheel drive Subarus, and a Landrover. So I was pretty skeptical about the ability of a simple front wheel drive car in a climate like this. But this car starts in a flash and goes exactly where you point it. Every time. Man, I was glad of it yesterday. As I crawled through town, I passed a guy stopped in the middle of a major intersection. He was lying in the snow, frantically trying to dig his Mercedes Benz out of the snow. "Buy a Volvo", I muttered smuggly.
Sure, you instantly age 20 years on the inside, the moment you sit in a Volvo. But when you're driving up the motorway at night, through 30cm deep snow, at 90kph, it's blowing and snowing like buggery outside, and it's 22 degrees inside the car, who gives a shit.
It probably deserves a bath this weekend, I reckon.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Global Warming
The weather forecast for tomorrow is:
-30 degrees C
90kph winds
40-50cm snow
You know it's not going to be a lot of fun when the northern office of the Swedish Road Administration, who doesn't stop for anyone, advises people not to drive.
Remind me again. Why am I not on a tropical beach somewhere ?
-30 degrees C
90kph winds
40-50cm snow
You know it's not going to be a lot of fun when the northern office of the Swedish Road Administration, who doesn't stop for anyone, advises people not to drive.
Remind me again. Why am I not on a tropical beach somewhere ?
Health and Happiness
Had a great night at Swedish language school last night. We had been given an assignment to find a newspaper article during the week, and then to present the article to another group of students for discussion. Now, being from a small town, there's not a lot of newsworthy happenings. So our local paper is usually padded out with stories of the weird and wonderful. Which suited me just fine for this exercise. Anyway, bottom line was that 7 of us sat around for an hour, discussing the news, and life in general. There we were, Lebanese, Polish, Estonian, Chinese, Kiwi, Vietnamese, and French. A veritable gathering of the United Nations ended up having a right royal bitch session about the shortcomings of the state run pharmacutical outlet, Apoteket.
For anyone not familiar with the Swedish healthcare system, prescription pharmacies, all called Apoteket, are government owned and operated. Swedes are a bit paranoid when it comes to drugs, so pretty much anything stronger than an asprin requires a trip to the doctor (läkare), and a prescription (recept). There's the odd private doctor around the place, but, for the most part, doctors are employed by the state. They mostly work out of communal medical centres, known as vårdcentral. Which centre you go to is usually determined by your post code, but they are about to loosen up on that a bit so that you can pretty much go where you want.
On a bizarre side note, Apoteket is also the outlet for all animal medicine. Feels a bit odd asking the chemist for laxatives for my cat. They look at you like "sure, for the cat. We believe you. You sicko".
One thing they have done well, is their electronic system. Once the doctor (or vet) has typed your prescription into the computer, you can pick it up from any Apoteket in the country. No clumsy pieces of paper. Just flash your ID, and the drugs flow like water. If they have the drugs, that is. I've lost count of the number of times that my prescribed medication has been "out of stock". But the theory's good.
So that was our evening. Seven of us from the far flung corners, stumbling around with our Swedish. I really enjoy those nights. They are good, intelligent people. There's no pretence at hierarchy. We're all bollocks, and we know it. And that's kind of a nice feeling. Knowing that when you strip away any home country advantage or status, and make life a true level playing field, that we are, all of us, just the same. There's no race, religion, or cultural distractions. It's a very unique experience, quite surreal. And definitely the highlight of my experiences so far.
For anyone not familiar with the Swedish healthcare system, prescription pharmacies, all called Apoteket, are government owned and operated. Swedes are a bit paranoid when it comes to drugs, so pretty much anything stronger than an asprin requires a trip to the doctor (läkare), and a prescription (recept). There's the odd private doctor around the place, but, for the most part, doctors are employed by the state. They mostly work out of communal medical centres, known as vårdcentral. Which centre you go to is usually determined by your post code, but they are about to loosen up on that a bit so that you can pretty much go where you want.
On a bizarre side note, Apoteket is also the outlet for all animal medicine. Feels a bit odd asking the chemist for laxatives for my cat. They look at you like "sure, for the cat. We believe you. You sicko".
One thing they have done well, is their electronic system. Once the doctor (or vet) has typed your prescription into the computer, you can pick it up from any Apoteket in the country. No clumsy pieces of paper. Just flash your ID, and the drugs flow like water. If they have the drugs, that is. I've lost count of the number of times that my prescribed medication has been "out of stock". But the theory's good.
So that was our evening. Seven of us from the far flung corners, stumbling around with our Swedish. I really enjoy those nights. They are good, intelligent people. There's no pretence at hierarchy. We're all bollocks, and we know it. And that's kind of a nice feeling. Knowing that when you strip away any home country advantage or status, and make life a true level playing field, that we are, all of us, just the same. There's no race, religion, or cultural distractions. It's a very unique experience, quite surreal. And definitely the highlight of my experiences so far.
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