Unrelated to travel even tangentially, comes this gem from Chris over at Practical Theory, a blog about teaching and school administration:

"What is the worst consequence of your best idea?"

I'm blown away. Though not original (no doubt it's been said before), it's an interesting thing to think of in this time of bad government and in trying to be one of the good people fighting for better government.

Swedish

I've decided to fail my Swedish re-exam.

I've studied for it (and I studied for the first one too), I attended most of the classes (some I was out of town, one or two I was sick), and I put work and effort into the homework.

However, i failed the first exam and I'm equally certain that even if they give the same exam a second time, that I'll fail it again.

Because I'm not comfortable taking the failure (and I'm *certain* there's no way to avoid it) without a lesson, here's what I'm thinking:

1) Minimize the damage
a) contact Study Abroad and ask what can be done so this does not impact my GPA, my finaid, and in an ideal world, it wouldn't even appear on my transcript (I'm taking enough credits w/o it from my teacher ed class to stay FT).

2) Call it a failure to learn Swedish, but reframe personally and professionally as a calculated throwing in of the towel. Recognition that my motivation and goals were flimsy and insufficient to achieve a passing grade in this class.

Learning a new language depends on mother tongue acquisition, rules, and competency - and my realization is this: beyond the rote memorization required to grasp vocabulary, my grasp of the rules of the English language is nill. My understanding of English is based on what "sounds right". While perfectly fine for using English in a communicative context, the result is a utter lack of background for learning other languages.

Building a house on sand, if you will. There's no bedrock, no background, no other experience of language rules to pull from, no ability to make comparisons, realizations, or mental structures of similarity and difference to work with. (Learning biology without knowledge of evolution?).

Rote memorization of phrases and vocabulary has gotten me this far. However, that's so utterly insufficient as to make rectifying that in a solid month of studying Swedish a sad and tragic joke.

On a personal level it's made me determined to do my best to raise a multilingual child - both for the value of learning new languages (for travel, living abroad, and for the humbling experience of attempting to communicate in a language other than your mother tongue) and for the global implications of travel and cross cultural communication.


Also, personally, I'm determined to stop saying "I have a hard time learning languages" and just shut up about the subject. Repeating that phrase and others like it, while seemingly true, is in no way helpful for learning anything. Also, on the child front, what's the value in telling a child that they're expected to do something their mother "can't" do? I'd much prefer to model the things I can do, encourage hard work, experimentation, dedication, determination, etc... stuff I have done, and will continue to do in other areas.

I'm still waffling about joining some sort of deaf get-together. The experience would be good for me. I love the culture, the astounding kindness and openness (deaf culture for me is the experience of American culture for the rest of world, perhaps?), but straight-up: I'm terrified. It's like being 12 and wanting to talk to the cute guy at the dance. I expect to be laughed at, ridiculed, and maybe even gently and pityingly humored... but above all else, I don't have the feeling or belief that I have anything of value to contribute, I feel that my presence is unwelcome or accepted on kindness, but not out of genuine interest. It's a clusterfuck of overwhelmingly negative feelings.

However, like the dance - I want to go anyway. Some sort of sick determination to be accepted, to gain that _feeling_ of acceptance (which is harder, takes longer, and requires a trust I can't conceive of) and a pigheaded belief that acceptance into a community can be based on showing up.

So that's the trade I guess. I'm going to take the failure in Swedish language but find a deaf monthly coffee or deaf camp weekend or something. It's the brutal soul-searing culturally-immersive experience that travel abroad should encourage - but without the plane ticket.


More personal realizations: I'm sad. I'd hoped that this experience of being an exchange student could be a "testing out" of the idea of emigration. A dry run, with a safety net and a return date - a preliminary venture, a making of contacts, and a testing of my personal adaptability.

In that, I've failed miserably. I don't think I can realistically consider living in a culture that requires learning a new language. That limits my options significantly.

Juvy: Swedish-style

I visited a prison that manages, almost, to not quite look like a prison.


It's for kids. Boys, specifically between the ages of 13 and 21, who have a cluster of problems (criminal, drug, social, emotionally, and usually educational) and have been removed from their homes by the state.

It's juvy - the alternative is regular adult prison and there are only four of these high-security facilities in the entire country of Sweden.


They were currently housing 25 boys and generally see about 52 boys a year. The maximum stay is 6mo, and starts with 2mo in a lockdown building, graduating to more freedoms as they act accordingly. Prisoners were referred to exclusively as "boys" rather than inmates, clients, prisoners, or students.

I met a few of the boys - they were curious, talkative, sarcastic, clear about their situation and options in life. Most spoke excellent English in addition to Swedish. One guy was obsessed with gangsters and sounded like he wanted to run off to the states "You have gangsters there!".


Stats: After 5 years, 30% of the students have returned to jail, 30% are dead, and 30% are employed. They employ 60 people to serve 24 students.

Job placement, family counseling, free family housing while counseling is being conducted, 150SEK/week allowance, and the inability to force boys to enter treatment are only some of the services offered. Maximum class size is 4 students. The auto class I watched had 2 students and the woodworking class only had 1. 70% of boys at that facility are immigrants (not sure if this is first generation or second generation or both).


The bottom line? They get $500 PER DAY per student from the municipality for rehabbing these guys.

You know, it feels... dishonest... to read this and have written that.

But maybe that's the point. I still stand by what I wrote, Sweden _is_ an incredibly racist society on every level and has zero awareness or interest in rectifying this state of affairs.

Then I look at us and wonder - how much better are we?


I want to feel virtuous about the fact that we at least have news articles about these things, public awareness is far higher (I feel), and people understand and believe in the concept of institutionalized racism in a way that is inconceivable here. (Even considering that my unscientific 'sample' is heavily biased towards upper middle class white educated liberals and that my grasp of Swedish news media is limited, at best).


But we have poverty in a way they don't here. Does poverty + racism = genocide? Is money the only thing that's keeping Sweden from the same fate? Or is there an ethical component - would Sweden object, were they still poor, to disproportionately rising live birth deaths... among the immigrant population?

Stranger places to find resonating descriptions of travel might exist, but this, for me, is the strangest yet. Brian, of the MP3 blog Moistworks talks about travel and I'm jealous:

"I remember feeling caught between the sadness and disgust I felt at the shore's utter ruin, and the sense of wonder, of interest (the sensation I crave most), sparked in me by the tableau-- the Christmas trees lined up like mummified sentinels and a rotted wreath hanging on a raw wooden post; some of the tires so barnacled that only their shape betrayed them, clustered and weirdly beautiful, like archipelagos viewed from a plane. It was as if the debasement of the world renewed my ability to perceive it, which is the ultimate goal of all travel, and even now, several days back into my routine, some part of me is still standing on that windy dune, the malevolent refuse of a construction project looming behind me, they sky violent and bruised, rotted pine at my feet, staring down at those artificial yet glittering skerries, caught between conflicting desires-- for the world to be always transformed, yet somehow preserved."


I've been waffling on posting about my Turkey trip with A (a male friend from the states).


It was good, overall, though exhausting, and in the end I was so tired, emotionally overwhelmed, and burnt out that I have to say I might have hated Istanbul more than a few times before we got on the plane to leave.

I expected that feeling to disappear as I got back into the rhythm of Swedish life (conformity, equality, nature). I thought the exhaustion would improve my feelings retroactively, that a good night's sleep in my own bed, a few meals of knackebrod and muesli and yogurt, and I'd be missing the amazing kabobs, the joyful insanity of taxim, and the delirious contradiction of modern transport among ancient city walls.


I still don't miss it.


It's been two weeks since A and I left and I still don't have an interest to go back anytime w/in the next 5 years (after that, yes). As I think about why, this is what I've come up with:

Turkey is like the USA. Sweden, while it has problems (oh *does* it!), is characterized by far _far_ more equal power relationships between men and woman. This is the closest thing to gender equality I've ever seen (and the best situation I expect to see in my lifetime). Turkey, while having (like us) officially separated church and state, is still a shitty place to be a woman. There are official reports I'm sure, documenting the differences, enumerating the health, economic, and status detriment that your sex has on your life expectancy, general well-being, and access to power.


My firsthand experience of Istanbul was glowingly positive for the first 4 (of 6) days that we were there. At my insistence, A and I told everyone that we were married (when registering for hostels or in casual conversation) and I told people that I was from Vancouver, Canada.


A said he was from Canada a few times, then started telling people he was from Chicago. While I applaud his convictions of honesty and truthfulness and ambassadorship for our depressingly backward country, it wasn't a risk I was willing to take (my rationale went like this: I don't agree with the policies of our country, so I'm not willing to risk my safety on defending our collective reputation).


What happened on Day 5? I told someone (a hostel-worker guy we'd been friendly with several times and were having enjoyable conversation with) that A and I weren't married.


Bad move. An hour later, we're on our second cup of free coffee, we've just seen the (private, guests not allowed) rooftop view of Istanbul including glorious view of the Blue Mosque and the nightlife of Sultanamet. Not bad, right? I'd also pried my hand off of a hostel bannister where it was crushed in an attempt to sneek a kiss while A's back was turned (don't worry folks, this was a "polite" attempt and it was foiled). As we exited this fine establishment, I got desperate hand-grabbing, promises of rides home before our plane ride the next morning, and more offers of free drinks (maybe alcoholic ones this time). Charming, huh?


I was glad I was as tired, exhausted, and dead sober as I was that evening, because I can say it wouldn't have been particularly safe to be anything else. I also feel I got the polite treatment (no, I'm serious, this really felt like the local concept of polite) because I was a tourist and in a progressive, tourist-friendly, liberal section of the city (and dealing with someone self-described as liberal, educated, and whose job and livelihood was dealing with tourists). I can't imagine if I were poor, drunk, non-western or less-assertive.

A and I walked home quickly, staying with well-traveled and well-lit public streets -- and I thought about the absence of this feeling: this fear, of bodily harm, of lack of self-ownership, of rape, that I've been "missing" for the last four months. It's subtle, but I feel no fear walking home alone across a dark campus late at night, even drunk, here in Sweden. I'm perfectly comfortable sitting in a remote, basement room of a building I don't live in, stark-naked, all alone, late at night. (It's the campus sauna, in case you're curious.)


The contrast is in how familiar that feeling was, how expected, how normal, and how unsurprising - I'm "used to" the high-alert super-paranoid expectation of someday dropping my guard in exactly the wrong circumstances and suffering the "consequences", as we call them, of being drunk, wearing a skirt, having breasts, staying out late at night... and being female.


So do I want to come home? No, not particularly. I don't miss that feeling and I don't miss the lack of autonomy, or being treated like public property... or dirt. It's a feeling advanced education, a powerful job, money, investment portfolios or other markers of success can't eliminate.


Had a long conversation with another female American exchange student last night. We traded experiences and observations of the shocking-to-us gender equality, and our own responses to the occasional reminders of the constant fear we live in in the states.


We also bitched about the conformity, the culture-wide racism and frustrating same-ness... and how much we miss the diversity, relatively quick acceptance of immigrants, and widespread personal expression back home in the states.

It's not perfect here, but I expect to miss it for a long time.

"American pets are just the canaries in the coal mine on this, folks. If we don't demand an end to the FDA protecting the food industry's profits instead of the American people, if we don't demand to know where the components of our food are coming from, soon it'll be American children hooked up to tubes and wires in hospitals, victim to organ failures for what seems to be no reason at all." -BAB, on recalls

I can't claim I was particularly up-in-arms about the pet food recalls - I've been watching em, sure, but not closely, and only as a noteworthy but ultimately boring (disgustingly 'more of the same') news item.

Until this quote, above, from Brilliant At Breakfast.

I can't say I have much to add - she makes a brilliant and much needed point (and for me, epitomizes what I think of as "good journalism") and raises points for a discussion I don't expect that we'll ever have, in this (American) culture, but badly need to be having.

Public health is about choices. It's about making some choices easier than other choices. It's about making those bad choices more expensive in some way, less desirable, and the 'better', healthier choices more attractive, easier, and less expensive.

It's about making value judgments about what's good and what's bad. It's judging bad choices from good choices and trying to make those bad choices harder, make the good choice more likely. It's about controlling behavior through limitation of choice, application of rewards and increasing punishments.

It's patriarchal, authoritarian, and puts those who 'know better' in powerful positions over those with less power, less knowledge, less authority, and less empowerment.

Through the application of knowledge, power, and money over those who are poor, needy, uneducated, and with different goals... we attempt to make those lives better. Unwillingly. We don't ask the permission of the patient for treatment.

We treat, and in our arrogance we hope that we're right.

Because being wrong would be much more than just a mistake - if authority is used without consent, and is wrong - what separates that action from abuse, neglect, or even torture?

We make choices for other people on the aggregate level - and for most of those people we make the right choice. Their lives are healthier, longer, and of greater quality than if we'd not taken action. But for the minority few who aren't helped, whose lives are harder, who are hindered by our bureaucratic actions - what responsibility have we to them?

Do we have any? Or because the numbers are small, are they insignificant? Is it a balance? Do the numbers of good deeds outweigh the deeds of increasing pain? When is something wrong with the system? 80/20? 70/30? 50/50?


We need cultural answers to these questions before we can ask the larger questions about 'quality of life' of our doctors, or have conversations about assisted suicide with our family members.

We need these same answers if we're to address larger issues of public health (ignoring completely the concept of "health care") - adequate, inexpensive, and healthy food, comfortable, convenient, safe housing, reliable, affordable and easy to use transportation, education, and the existence of a variety of jobs and welfare systems for those who are unable to work.

I don't have answers as to how to create that cultural change, or how to answer the dilemma of public health with democracy, or even the answer to my ethical problem of desiring removal of the TV despite objections of my partner (my goal is greater health but my method is authoritarian - what's the solution?).


Thoughts on these questions are actively solicited. Anyone who has figured out a moderate 'third way' to these dilemmas, please speak up.

I love evolutionary theory. I'm sad that I'm finishing my undergraduate degree (not sad about that!) and won't be able to take an evolutionary theory class before I graduate.

So much of what is being discovered through this method of approaching various areas of science is immediately applicable to our lives. It's far more accessible than the historical disciplines and provides a popular understanding for psychology, nutrition, and understanding of biological or business processes.

More importantly to me, it provides a framework for understanding scientific process, discovery, new methods of thought, and fashions of psychology or nutrition in a critical way. Criticizing the latest nutritional scam shouldn't take advanced degrees in nutrition or health, it should be a logical, simple, and straightforward process to apply to the conclusions of a study, author, or public figure.

The tragedy that is the dumbing down of science and the farce that is "intelligent design" is another post for another day, but it bears noting that the future repercussions of the educational decisions we make today will be with us for the next 80 years at minimum. Isn't teaching students to be critical thinkers while respecting scientific thought, research, and discoveries one of the goals of education?

Children are allowed to close doors in preschool here.

They are allowed to play outside of direct adult supervision behind closed doors.

It doesn't sound like much - but think about it. In this post-Columbine school environment - the idea that students would spend any time at all unsupervised, except by accident, is shocking!

There's a reading room with a bed in it. I saw the (male) preschool teacher throw no less than three children on the ground and spank them (in fun, outside in the snow, during some inventive variant of 'tag').

Outside I watched children hide behind bushes, play alone, in groups, on jungle gyms, throw snowballs, wedge themselves between a fence and thick bushes, and run wildly in circles. Inside two boys closed themselves in the block room and proceeded to throw toy trucks across the room (not at each other). Another child sat at the kitchen table and played a memory game by himself.

Other children played with blocks, legos, barbies, and one boy spent 15min pushing a baby buggy with a doll in it past the exchange students smiling at us the whole time.

There were 4 preschool teachers and 32 children from 1-5 years old. We watched them sing songs, dance in a group and alone (hen dance for girls and a cock dance for boys), hear stories about magic eggs and farmers and play bongo drums while being accompanied by their classmates in song. After this high-energy music extravaganza, lasting 20-30min, the children were 'free'. Most chose to go outside and play in the snow. Some chose to stay inside, unsupervised (or perhaps the instructors were relying on us to supervise?).


In my observations about yesterday, I am most struck by the free and comfortable touching that happens between teachers and kids and the incredible freedom that children are given to choose what they would prefer to do. In addition, though everything was brand new and the school is considered quite prosperous (nicer neighborhood, music specialty profile), there was an amazing (to my jaded American eyes) disregard for what we'd call "safety".

I didn't see anyone get hurt and only heard one child cry, once, for 10seconds because she discovered that an exchange student that she fancied was leaving. Children played with incredible restraint, even the truck-throwing boys (they played only in the block room and only with the door closed and never threw anything at each other).


I'm not quite sure what conclusions to draw from this. The preschool students look far healthier, happier, engaged, interested, and creative than any preschool I've seen in the United States. However, the safety standards here are obviously far different - with apparently the result of producing healthy, safe, creative, independent children and adults.

I don't understand.

First first-hand Swedish school experience today. We didn't teach, but talked to and observed some classes (w/o preparation) in a Swedish High School. It was a medium size HS with 400 students and was located just outside of town. As such, it was particularly "Swedish" with only two non-Swedish (immigrant) students in the whole school.

The school was a long low building, one level, in a straight line. The cafeteria was a separate building behind the school (and the lunch was *vile*, though free for all students and staff, including us). I didn't take a picture though I was tempted - mashed potatoes (w/ ketchup), a bowl of sweet relish, and what I can only describe as huge salty spam hotdogs served by the 'slice'/spoonful. Also, hard biscut-crackers with butter/margarine and milk or water. And shredded carrots without dressing, which some students actually took.


The students in classes were engaged, actively, which was a huge change from my experiences of American schools. Some students asked questions, others paid attention w/o coercion, and other students made occasional quiet comments to their neighbors (the most 'acting out' that I witnessed). The students have an incredible amount of freedom - 10-20min between classes, completely unsupervised in the hallways (the teachers retire to the lounge for coffee and sliced bread with butter). There are only 20-22 students per teacher in class and the power dynamic between teachers and students is far more balanced than in the United States.


Democracy and the democratic process were mentioned countless times, both in reference to classroom progress and in reference to the incredible (to us) freedoms we witnessed. Teachers look relaxed and do not yell at their students - I am unclear on what punishments are available or what other method they use to obtain obedience... perhaps none, if the headmaster's claims are to be believed. Also, teachers look to students for approval of teaching methods and feedback about presentation of material in a way I would normally associate with the power dynamic between office colleagues.

So in contemplation of Swedish cultural views on drinking - I spent this weekend drinking. It was fun, comparatively moderate, useful socially, but has left me with an association of slothfullness. I'm not sure if I've (this quickly?) internalized the Swedish cultural view of working hard and partying hard or if I just happen to be ready for a new challenge and the boredom is asserting itself particularly after a weekend of heavily social recreation.

Thinking about thinking - ended up reading today about mind and concept mapping, both as study tools (they look more useful to me as review tools than as a method of studying - the lack of detail seems prohibitive for lectures) and as 'learning to learn' tools (learning a framework, then details, to be 'hung' on the framework 'pegs').

In reflection, I think the timing has much to do with personal events awaiting me in the States (impending professional school) and a desire to find a coping strategy in advance of jumping in. I feel the coping strategies that got me through undergraduate school are unlikely to be rigorous enough for the stresses of professional school.


Personally, professionally, and mentally, I feel a sharp desire for optimization - cutting useless fluff, increasing focus, and a researching of options post-professional school (without goals, staying afloat becomes goal enough).

Reflecting on my American cultural tendencies, my strategy would be to "try harder"; more rigorously control my time, my actions, and to carefully schedule metered work increments to attain specific goals. (Goal attainment through rigorous planning).

The Swedish view (as I currently understand it) would be to further those goals five days a week with intent, passion, and deliberately focused attention. On the two weekend days, forgetting, relaxing, and recovering from both the workweek and the weekend excesses would be the goal. (Goal attainment through excess). Planning happens in the early stages and has more to do with agreement about intent, consensus building, and 'broad strokes' work than details - those are handled independently by the person encountering them in the process of completing their work.


On a personal level, this would mean navel-gazing about the reasons for my goals, brainstorming about possible methods of attainment, exploration of alternate scenarios, fleshing out specifics of long-term-goals and then working on those items without step-by-step planning or periodic reassessment of goal progress (my time being better spent on actual progress rather than planning).

I haven't died, gotten ill, or fallen into a ditch - though I haven't posted in a while or taken many pictures.

Nor has my brain rotted in my head - wheels are still turning, cultural adjustment is taking place, and I'm still making observations.

However, I feel slower about these - not quite sure of my conclusions. Still percolating.

Two subjects at the moment: the Swedish school system and their astounding focus on individual choice and democratic decisions as a basis of their process in a way that I can barely picture or comprehend. The school visits we'll be making next Wed and Thurs should be instructive in this area.

Secondly: drinking. There's a very different cultural expectation than I have experienced elsewhere on the subject. I am curious about this area both from my interest in discovery as well as from a public health and addiction perspective. I'm curious how addiction is defined, treated, and handled socially and culturally and what/if there are public health repercussions of this cultural model of drinking (which involves fantastically heavy drinking on the weekends and complete sobriety during the week - and I'm not talking only about college students).

There seems to be a pervasive refrain of 'trust/listen to the child' here that sounds mundane but in experience is quite extraordinary. I am curious how this intersects with a medical process whose first step (in the US) is a highly coercive manipulation of the patient into accepting both the medical definition of their situation as a 'problem' and the medical treatment for the situation which involves a period of dependency and external rule-making.

In crossing cultures, even if the language boundary is a comparatively minimal one, traditions are changed. While this happens in a wide context (Americans have never heard of St Nicholas or the Italian/Swedish tradition of Lucia), it also happens in a small, personal context, on a daily basis, while living - transplanted - in another culture.

I belong to the church of coffee. I belong to the church of a lot of things, actually, so my membership here isn't exclusive, but it's a daily ritual I invest a fair amount of time, effort, and enjoyment in practicing.


Like most traditions and customs as practiced in our own culture, my practice is invisible. I have no pictures of my coffee ritual, coffee maker, or favorite mug. Pictures do exist of the long process of roasting your own coffee, which I highly recommend - not as easy as opening a bag of pre-ground pre-roast, but enjoyable nonetheless.


So, in the spirit of continued documentation, I present to you pictures of my own mundane coffee ritual as transformed by the transplantation and adaption process.

Everything changes - from the text on the milk container (which I cannot read), to the orange cow patterning and blue and white daisy icon signifying brand, to the fineness and taste and strange smell of the brown sugar I use to flavor my coffee.





The coffee changes, but this is a predictable and expected change. The coffeemaker was a gift, quite thankfully, from my fadder, Maria. I have not seen much evidence of their popularity - apparently Swedes prefer to take their coffee at work and at school.

In addition to belonging to the Church of Coffee, I am also a staunch supporter of the Church of Breakfast. Like the Swedes, Breakfast is a significant meal, not to be missed. Breakfast is yougart in cerial, in this case musli. It's a popular Swedish choice, but not exclusively. I've had this breakfast at home. The difference is in the yougart - sweetened, flavored, thinned, and arriving in a cardboard 'milk' container or plastic juice-type jug.


Even with the variety of differences, the magic red button remains the same.

Today was a better day.

It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't painless, but it was far, far better than yesterday.

For example, once my phone charged and I was actually able to make phone calls, I called about my bike - and the tires didn't need to be replaced!

After a quick bus trip downtown ('centrum'), I picked up my bike from the shop. In anticipation of some pain, I got on - the anticipation was warranted... the pain was severe.

Persevering, I started home. I came to a fork in the bike path. Not sure of the right choice, I went right (knowing that eventually I would make it around the lake and back to the University but hoping I'd picked the shorter path). I should have gone left.


The two good points of this choice are the pictures you see here and an ongoing sense of thankfulness that when I walked home the other night I inadvertently took the left path (otherwise I'd never have attempted to bike it - the right path is far longer than the left!).

In addition, I gained a greater appreciation for the value Swedes place on nature. It was a cold day - clear but dark and bitterly cold with some wind but no snow.

People were out in force around the lake. It's a primarily scenic route - and rarely was I alone on the path (it's a 5-8km loop). People of all ages; some biking, some walking, and a group of three with ski poles walking in deeper snow along the side of path. In addition, I saw two old people - people so old they helped each other walk, slowly, pausing every couple of steps in the middle of the path.

I was in awe. They were _opting_ to subject themselves to the cold, the wind, and the elements on one of the more unpleasant days I've seen yet in my time here! And they're "old and fragile", at least in theory, and certainly in appearance. A fall (they were walking on packed snow and ice!) would result in a trip to the hospital and months of rehabilitation and possibly surgery...?!! What would posses them to voluntarily walk around a lake if they had anything else even remotely attractive with which to occupy their time?!!

I didn't talk to them, so I can't answer that question, but I can guess, based on what I've learned in my classes so far. Swedes like nature. Really. A lot. Almost all of them, almost all of the time, even when the rest of the world (or at least me) thinks they're utterly crazy. I learned that New Years eve is spent outside, knee-deep in snow, in expensive formal wear, watching fireworks. I am aghast.

I may perhaps see the beginning of an understanding of their public health system. Nature is revered, protected, and cherished. In addition to protecting people's health, animal and plant life and health is also protected. Perhaps for a country dedicated to spending three weeks before Christmas and two or three (or five!) weeks around Midsummer in rural country cottages, nature has a more immediate meaning than the theoretical understanding we as Americans have of it, viewed from our car windows, between strip malls, parking lots, and subdivisions?

Perhaps also this love of nature involves spending time with it... walking around lakes, walking into town, even if a car is an option, building extensive walking and bike trails in addition to roadways. Perhaps this, in addition, involves involvement in athletic pursuits, also contributing to greater overall health.

Laundry.


You wouldn't think it was that different in another country, right?

You'd be wrong.

Once getting in the door (which took about 15min and that was _with_ the tip thankfully given to me by my hallmate that the system uses a magnetic key entry found on my keyring), I departed again and returned with my laundry.


I scheduled a time for myself (now) using the Swedish-language laundry controller through many errors and guessing.

I placed my laundry in two machines. I added soap (guessing at the correct slot). I chose my wash option (thankfully there were English instructions on the wall about what the different wash cycle icons meant). I pressed Go.

I got flashing lights and a flashing timer icon.

I tried a second time.

At this point another student came in to retreive her laundry from the drier so I was able to ask her what the problem was. After repeating my steps, she got the same result, much to her surprise. Then she asked which group I'd signed up for? Uh, group?


Apparently scheduling is even more controlled than access being given simply to a number of people during a two hour period... you have assigned washers and driers. What a disagreement-preventing idea!

I placed my laundry in the correct washers, added more soap, pressed the same buttons, and it washed. I'd read that Swedish laundry systems are known for being particularly harsh (downright brutal to anything other than cotton, in fact), with a reputation for returning clothes in a condition far different from when they were placed in the machine. I chose a wool wash cycle and was pleased with the results (on my perfectly normal non-wool clothes).

While I waited, I knit, and got a bit further on my sherbet sock (which I'm considering converting to a toe up Jaywalker sock).


After the washing, I had two options for drying. There was the option I was most familiar with - a tumbling cylinder full of heated air. On this version I got to choose temperature as well as dry time. The other option was one I'd never seen before and reminded me of proofing chambers for bread in bakeries (pix is with visual interest, of course).


A hot air closet (?) is the closest description I can come up with. Drying racks for air drying of delicates (also with choices of air temperature and cycle time). Interesting!


And of course, lastly: