Here's a song I like. It's called Måndagsbarn (Monday's Child) and it's by a Swedish singer, Veronica Maggio.
And my favorite Jens Lekman song, which reminds me of driving home from Mills on 580, with the Bay spread out to the left.
My second favorite Jens Lekman song, but my favorite video by far. He makes me laugh.
Also, two of my favorite Swedes, Suburban Kids with Biblical Names.
Why am I doing this, instead of writing up the results of the univariate analyses I did - the results of which were laughably insignificant (statistically) - for birth weight, birth length, etc., and suicide in adulthood? Maybe because suicide is a really depressing outcome to write about. I'll be so happy to finish this paper and move on to the much lighter topic of affective disorders.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
April April, I do what I want
Just got back from Berlin, which I thought was cool if semi-drab. Our flight was delayed because of a computer issue in Berlin but our Scandinavian Airlines pilot apologized profusely at least ten times, literally, even though it was something he had absolutely no control over. I liked that. I'm happy to be back in the land of the Swedes.
One of the people we met at the conference was a guy from North Carolina who's doing a Fulbright in Germany this year, and while we were at the Pergamon Museum this afternoon he told me that April Fools's Day in Germany is just called "April April," and that there's an associated saying, which I would like to adopt as my personal motto for this and every April to come - "April April, I do what I want."
There were some good April Fool's Day jokes in the Swedish newspapers this year. In one city they wrote that they had decided to switch from regular tap water to carbonated water, and there was a whole thing about reassuring people that it wouldn't be weird to shower with carbonated water but that in fact it's been shown to have certain therapeutic properties. A newspaper in another town had a story encouraging people to stop by Systembolaget, the state-run liquor store, at lunchtime because Systembolaget was having a fire sale of their inventory because they were about to renovate the space and this was cheaper than moving the inventory during the work. The higher the proof, the more the price would be slashed. Maybe this is a sign that I've been in Sweden too long. If you know Systembolaget, this is very funny.
I saw my current name and my soon-to-be-name in Berlin. At the Pergamon Museum, the Pergamon Altar from the 2nd century BC has a vast frieze with a representation of Phoebe - Phoibe in Greek - with her daughter Asteria, attacking a giant. This picture is from some Australian University but C. took a picture of me in front of it, along with some people who stood there for bloody forever ogling a map of the ancient world on the wall. Also, apparently Phoibe/Phoebe was the 3rd goddess to hold the Oracle of Delphi. I didn't know that. In the picture below, she's the one holding the large spear or ramming object or whatever it is, naturally.
And I saw the street with the name that I'll get in approximately 2 months - DANZIGERSTRASSE. Now that's a mouthful. P. took a picture of it for me. This was shortly before a waiter spilled an entire stein of beer on me at the bar we were at in Prenzlauer Berg.
One of the people we met at the conference was a guy from North Carolina who's doing a Fulbright in Germany this year, and while we were at the Pergamon Museum this afternoon he told me that April Fools's Day in Germany is just called "April April," and that there's an associated saying, which I would like to adopt as my personal motto for this and every April to come - "April April, I do what I want."
There were some good April Fool's Day jokes in the Swedish newspapers this year. In one city they wrote that they had decided to switch from regular tap water to carbonated water, and there was a whole thing about reassuring people that it wouldn't be weird to shower with carbonated water but that in fact it's been shown to have certain therapeutic properties. A newspaper in another town had a story encouraging people to stop by Systembolaget, the state-run liquor store, at lunchtime because Systembolaget was having a fire sale of their inventory because they were about to renovate the space and this was cheaper than moving the inventory during the work. The higher the proof, the more the price would be slashed. Maybe this is a sign that I've been in Sweden too long. If you know Systembolaget, this is very funny.
I saw my current name and my soon-to-be-name in Berlin. At the Pergamon Museum, the Pergamon Altar from the 2nd century BC has a vast frieze with a representation of Phoebe - Phoibe in Greek - with her daughter Asteria, attacking a giant. This picture is from some Australian University but C. took a picture of me in front of it, along with some people who stood there for bloody forever ogling a map of the ancient world on the wall. Also, apparently Phoibe/Phoebe was the 3rd goddess to hold the Oracle of Delphi. I didn't know that. In the picture below, she's the one holding the large spear or ramming object or whatever it is, naturally.
And I saw the street with the name that I'll get in approximately 2 months - DANZIGERSTRASSE. Now that's a mouthful. P. took a picture of it for me. This was shortly before a waiter spilled an entire stein of beer on me at the bar we were at in Prenzlauer Berg.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ich bin ein Berliner
+I'm going to Berlin from Sunday-Thursday, for some Fulbright conference that I don't entirely understand the point of. I've never been to Germany, except randomly to the Frankfurt airport multiple times, so I'm not complaining. I think it may be tremendously shallow of me that one of the things I'm most excited about is getting to go to the Berlin location of Galeries Lafeyette, the incredible Paris department store.
+I don't know what the current dollar/euro conversion rate is right now, but I will probably not be able to afford anything at Galeries Lafeyette, not even some of the French cheese I've been dreaming about. The Swedish krona is now at 6 to the dollar - 5.99 the last I checked, actually! - which is just dismal. When I got here it was still closer to 7, and people here tell me about the times when it was 12 kroner to the dollar.
+My foot has made a miraculous recovery, and it looks like me, Jake, and my lingonberry-stained shoes are going to be able to run the marathon after all. I had been feeling so crushed, and the pain was horrible and constant for almost a week, and then yesterday morning, all of a sudden, it was like 80% better. I'm not running on it this week but I've been doing as much cross-training I can. This is a huge relief. At the peak of the injury I was having horrible visions of hobbling down the aisle at the wedding in one white Marc Jacobs shoe and one white cast.
+Last week, on March 25, it was Våffeldagen (waffle day) in Sweden. For me, this meant that I got to eat the heart-shaped waffles they made at work for fika, with cloudberry and lingonberry jam, and whipped cream.
I just looked it up and apparently the day has its origins in Jesus/a pun. March 25th is precisely 9 months before Christmas - hence it is Vårfrudagen, or Our Lady's Day. However, when you mumble this, it sounds just like Våffeldagen.
+On Sunday, P. told me about something called "Mördarsnigel," or "murder snail." The name cracked me up, it's so incredibly dramatic. In English it's known as the Spanish slug, and because of rising temperatures it's become a big problem in Sweden because it invades and destroys gardens. I can't get over the fact that instead of calling it "Spansksnigel" or something, which I guess would be totally unacceptable because it might possibly affect people's attitudes towards Spain or the Spanish, which would be unfair, the Swedes choose to call it a murder snail. Regardless, it sounds nasty.
+I saw a flyer for some program at the University of the Arctic at work today. Now that would be an interesting place to study. There's a program called "circumpolar studies." I love that.
+I don't know what the current dollar/euro conversion rate is right now, but I will probably not be able to afford anything at Galeries Lafeyette, not even some of the French cheese I've been dreaming about. The Swedish krona is now at 6 to the dollar - 5.99 the last I checked, actually! - which is just dismal. When I got here it was still closer to 7, and people here tell me about the times when it was 12 kroner to the dollar.
+My foot has made a miraculous recovery, and it looks like me, Jake, and my lingonberry-stained shoes are going to be able to run the marathon after all. I had been feeling so crushed, and the pain was horrible and constant for almost a week, and then yesterday morning, all of a sudden, it was like 80% better. I'm not running on it this week but I've been doing as much cross-training I can. This is a huge relief. At the peak of the injury I was having horrible visions of hobbling down the aisle at the wedding in one white Marc Jacobs shoe and one white cast.
+Last week, on March 25, it was Våffeldagen (waffle day) in Sweden. For me, this meant that I got to eat the heart-shaped waffles they made at work for fika, with cloudberry and lingonberry jam, and whipped cream.
I just looked it up and apparently the day has its origins in Jesus/a pun. March 25th is precisely 9 months before Christmas - hence it is Vårfrudagen, or Our Lady's Day. However, when you mumble this, it sounds just like Våffeldagen.
+On Sunday, P. told me about something called "Mördarsnigel," or "murder snail." The name cracked me up, it's so incredibly dramatic. In English it's known as the Spanish slug, and because of rising temperatures it's become a big problem in Sweden because it invades and destroys gardens. I can't get over the fact that instead of calling it "Spansksnigel" or something, which I guess would be totally unacceptable because it might possibly affect people's attitudes towards Spain or the Spanish, which would be unfair, the Swedes choose to call it a murder snail. Regardless, it sounds nasty.
+I saw a flyer for some program at the University of the Arctic at work today. Now that would be an interesting place to study. There's a program called "circumpolar studies." I love that.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sommar startar nu
Today is the first day of European Summer Time - we "sprang forward" an hour, although I managed to accidentally spring forward an extra unfortunate hour as well. For some reason my phone doesn't automatically adjust to new time zones - of course it picks up the correct network time but that's not what it actually displays. Slightly bizarre. So last night before I went to sleep I set it forward an hour. I also use it as an alarm clock. When it went off this morning I was really tired but it took me about half an hour to realize that my phone had indeed set itself forward an hour also. So I woke up at 6-something, which was not at all my intention. Even though the time change meant the sun right now rises a little later than it had been rising previously, it's still rising so bloody early that it was completely bright and sunny out so it didn't occur to me that it was so early.
I am pleased that the days here are now longer than they are anywhere in the US, I believe. Dawn began here at 5:38 am, and dusk will end at 8:08. The length of day will increase by approximately six minutes a day for a while. In Berkeley, dawn began at 6:30 and dusk will end at 7:57. The length increases much more slowly, about two or three minutes per day.
One thing I'm disproportionately excited about with moving to Ann Arbor is that since it's on the very edge of the Eastern Time Zone, it stays light until really late in the summer. It's already pretty good right now - dawn doesn't start until 6:52 but dusk ends at 8:28. At the beginning of July it will stay light until nearly 10 pm, compared to New York at the other edge of the time zone where it will only stay light until about 9.
I'm not sure what it is with me and extreme weather/climate/meteorological events. I think it would be safe to say that I don't know anyone else who cares that much about the tiny minutiae of sun path and day length.
.
It was the perfect day for the beginning of summer time. It's been beautiful and sunny all day, in a hazy but glaring kind of way, and even though we had our first real snowfall just over a week ago, the temperature was very mild. And fittingly, I had my first trip to the Stockholm archipelago today. P., her friend A. (who is also a doctor), and I went to Sandhamn. The name means "sand harbor." There are 24,000 islands in the Stockholm archipelago and there are extremely different landscapes/topography throughout. Sandhamn, obviously, is sandy. It's also on the outer Eastern edge of the archipelago so a lot of it looks out onto open sea. You can see where it is on the map here.
I'm pleased to say that I got a lingonberry stain on my sneaker. We walked on big boulders and along the sandy beach and along small roads lined with pine trees and through these fields where the entire ground was covered in really thick, squishy moss so your feet would sink in literally almost a foot, and lingonberry patches although there weren't many nice-looking lingonberries left. We ate a picnic lunch sitting on some rocks looking out at the Baltic Sea.
Some things I learned: There is an archipelago doctor, or probably more than one since there's so many islands (and I guess some of the really big islands must have their own doctors if enough people live there year-round), who takes a boat from island to island to see patients. This would be a very cool job. There are elk who live on some of the islands, and reindeer, and foxes, and snakes. Sometimes - rarely, but sometimes! - the elk SWIM from one island to another. P. saw this once. I would do nearly anything in the world to see elk swimming between islands. Somehow we got on the topic of unusual animals and we talked about muskoxen which I guess are starting to pop up again in Sweden, and I told them about manatees, which they had never heard of. Thinking about the manatees swimming in canals and swamps in Florida just kills me. It was surprisingly hard to describe what they're like - I kept trying to describe them as like big, slow, gentle people who look sort of like whales.
.
The sad news of the weekend is it looks like our Zurich marathon hopes might be dashed. I battled my recurring shin splints successfully but have managed to develop what I believe is peroneal tendonitis in my left foot. There is terrible pain on the outer part of the arch and it hurts even to walk. I'm going to try to see a sports doctor here this week but the marathon is 3 weeks from today and I have not been able to run at all for the past week, and if it is what I think it is it will take weeks to heal. To say that I'm crushed and devastated would be a huge understatement. The only good thing that might come out of this is more time with Jake in Sweden to take day trips to more islands. At the top of the list, based mostly on P.'s recommendations: Finnhamn, Öland (down south actually, not in the archipelago), Utö...
I am pleased that the days here are now longer than they are anywhere in the US, I believe. Dawn began here at 5:38 am, and dusk will end at 8:08. The length of day will increase by approximately six minutes a day for a while. In Berkeley, dawn began at 6:30 and dusk will end at 7:57. The length increases much more slowly, about two or three minutes per day.
One thing I'm disproportionately excited about with moving to Ann Arbor is that since it's on the very edge of the Eastern Time Zone, it stays light until really late in the summer. It's already pretty good right now - dawn doesn't start until 6:52 but dusk ends at 8:28. At the beginning of July it will stay light until nearly 10 pm, compared to New York at the other edge of the time zone where it will only stay light until about 9.
I'm not sure what it is with me and extreme weather/climate/meteorological events. I think it would be safe to say that I don't know anyone else who cares that much about the tiny minutiae of sun path and day length.
.
It was the perfect day for the beginning of summer time. It's been beautiful and sunny all day, in a hazy but glaring kind of way, and even though we had our first real snowfall just over a week ago, the temperature was very mild. And fittingly, I had my first trip to the Stockholm archipelago today. P., her friend A. (who is also a doctor), and I went to Sandhamn. The name means "sand harbor." There are 24,000 islands in the Stockholm archipelago and there are extremely different landscapes/topography throughout. Sandhamn, obviously, is sandy. It's also on the outer Eastern edge of the archipelago so a lot of it looks out onto open sea. You can see where it is on the map here.
I'm pleased to say that I got a lingonberry stain on my sneaker. We walked on big boulders and along the sandy beach and along small roads lined with pine trees and through these fields where the entire ground was covered in really thick, squishy moss so your feet would sink in literally almost a foot, and lingonberry patches although there weren't many nice-looking lingonberries left. We ate a picnic lunch sitting on some rocks looking out at the Baltic Sea.
Some things I learned: There is an archipelago doctor, or probably more than one since there's so many islands (and I guess some of the really big islands must have their own doctors if enough people live there year-round), who takes a boat from island to island to see patients. This would be a very cool job. There are elk who live on some of the islands, and reindeer, and foxes, and snakes. Sometimes - rarely, but sometimes! - the elk SWIM from one island to another. P. saw this once. I would do nearly anything in the world to see elk swimming between islands. Somehow we got on the topic of unusual animals and we talked about muskoxen which I guess are starting to pop up again in Sweden, and I told them about manatees, which they had never heard of. Thinking about the manatees swimming in canals and swamps in Florida just kills me. It was surprisingly hard to describe what they're like - I kept trying to describe them as like big, slow, gentle people who look sort of like whales.
.
The sad news of the weekend is it looks like our Zurich marathon hopes might be dashed. I battled my recurring shin splints successfully but have managed to develop what I believe is peroneal tendonitis in my left foot. There is terrible pain on the outer part of the arch and it hurts even to walk. I'm going to try to see a sports doctor here this week but the marathon is 3 weeks from today and I have not been able to run at all for the past week, and if it is what I think it is it will take weeks to heal. To say that I'm crushed and devastated would be a huge understatement. The only good thing that might come out of this is more time with Jake in Sweden to take day trips to more islands. At the top of the list, based mostly on P.'s recommendations: Finnhamn, Öland (down south actually, not in the archipelago), Utö...
Monday, March 24, 2008
I meant to write a little bit about Ireland, also. The beautiful misty cliffs were all in County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland. The really huge spectacular ones are the Cliffs of Moher.
The highlight of the trip for me, as is probably apparent given which pictures I posted, was the pet cemetary at Powerscourt, a beautiful estate & gardens about an hour outside Dublin. It was right up my alley. Some of the inscriptions are so incredible I could barely believe it.
Other highlights of Dublin included the beautiful department store Brown Thomas, the amazing Irish cheese plate we had, the amazingly creamy Guinness, the heavenly food market Fallon & Byrne, a nice long evening run to the outskirts of town along the ocean, and the scones at Keogh's.
The highlight of the trip for me, as is probably apparent given which pictures I posted, was the pet cemetary at Powerscourt, a beautiful estate & gardens about an hour outside Dublin. It was right up my alley. Some of the inscriptions are so incredible I could barely believe it.
Other highlights of Dublin included the beautiful department store Brown Thomas, the amazing Irish cheese plate we had, the amazingly creamy Guinness, the heavenly food market Fallon & Byrne, a nice long evening run to the outskirts of town along the ocean, and the scones at Keogh's.
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