Picture Update

Thought I'd put some pictures up here that you may not have seen. They're from April 30th (for those of you who haven't already seen them on Facebook, that is).

I would also like to thank the Americans for the nice card they sent me for my 25th birthday. Pulled at my heart strings just a little.

The controlled chaos that is April 30th in Lund. An estimate of 5 000 people come to the park and hang out. This year we had really great weather too.




Some of my fellow friends who also go to Lund university. Lovely people. They actuelly all happened to be in my class in high school in Trelleborg.





Ok, so this might not be my proudest moment, but it was darn fun. I just felt I needed a little rest. When you start drinking at 11 in the morning you really need to take a break now and then.

Happy Birthday to me!

"Celebrate good times, come on!"

Mamma mia

The Economist had a very funny cover the other day, with a big picture of Silvio Berlusconi and the text: "Mamma Mia! Here we go again!". Exactly my feeling. Funny and sad.

I just wanna go home

I'm bored out of my mind. Why do I work here? Why?!

Snow on St. Paddy's...

I hate the weather in this town. It's just weird. This morning, when I home to go to the library, it was warm and sunny. Well, when I say "warm", I don't mean warm, but at least it wasn't cold. Anyway, not a cloud in the sky. So, I dressed accordingly, wearing only a t-shirt and my jacket, no scarf and no gloves. And I didn't bring an umbrella either. So, after spending a few hours deep inside the university library, studying, I get up to leave for a seminar which I was still incredibly unprepared for. And lo and behold, when I step outside, it's freaking snowing! And it was windy too, a bonafide snowstorm! So, a five minute walk later I arrive at the cultural sciences department where I'm currently at, looking like a [very wet] snowman. And of course the temperature had dropped quite a bit, which wasn't very nice, considering my spring-ish attire. After the seminar, the snow was still coming down in force, so I decided to take the bus home. But no, I'd left my bus-pass at home (I'd walked into town back when the sun was still shining). And I didn't have any change on me, so I had to walk. And the snow just kept coming. And still is, at 9:30PM. It's a little funny, since we haven't really had any snow at all during the winter. Of course, it's only logical that it comes now. The weather hasn't really ever made sense here in Lund.

Anywho, I passed my last exam, the first sit-down exam I've had in over two years. Now, I didn't pass with much to spare, but you should know that I really didn't study as much as I should have. For some reason, however, I seem to actually remember what my professors say during the lectures, which is totally weird, and never happened in my Peace & Conflict Studies and Human Rights courses. Oh, I should probably mention what I'm taking this semester, the course is called "History of Science, Learning & Ideas", and is basically the history of philosophy, with some science and learning thrown in. For my last exam we were dogging through ancient Greece, Rome and the Middle Ages. And I tell you, memorizing almost 2000 years of philosophers, theologians, and scientists, is pretty hard. You try to explain the difference between the Greek philosophers Anaximandros, Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras, and we'll talk. Of course, I could do it, but I wouldn't want to bore you. Anywho, now we've moved on to the renaissance, with fewer names, easier names, and easier to organize, as the different people acutally have fundamentally different ideas, instead of changing ONE minor detail of their predecessor's theory (as was the case with alot of the medieval philosophers and theologians).

Let's see, what else is going on? Right, I'm heading to Malmö next week, for a concert. The artist is Stephen Lynch, an American singer/comedian who sings very funny songs. Titles range from "Altar Boy" to... well, that's the only title which is funny to me, the contents of the songs are very funny indeed. Check him out if he ever comes your way.

And there should be a new song or two on Tapet's MySpace page. Check that out too.

Cheers
Mats

Things are a-happening

I'm currently quite busy with school at the moment, just wanted to mention that I'm officially in a band now. Not that the band is very official or anything, but it exists, and we even have some songs, written by my friends Aino and Jonathan, who make up the other 2/3 of the band (as of now).

I'll occasionaly help out with writing lyrics together with Aino, since I don't really know anything about playing an actual instrument. Well, that's not entirely true, I do play a mean tambourine. And my official job is lead (and backing) vocals, together with Aino.

Anywho, the name of the band is Tapet, which is Swedish for "wallpaper", and after figuring out the name we decided that the reason for it would be that our music should function as wallpaper for the empty musical walls in peoples' heads. At least we don't lack ambition, and even as an afterthought, it makes sense.

We even got ourselves a MySpace page on which to feature our music, as it will probably take a while before we can get a record deal. As we're still in a somewhat developmental stage, we only have one song up at the moment, a demo if you will, one of our first attempts at musical greatness, called "Oh my Lord". I'm not really in this one, at least not in the current version. But it is work in progress, and we'll keep fidgeting with it until it's perfect. There will be more songs online as time goes by. And believe it, we do have some pretty good material. Keep a lookout for a little number called "My best friend"...

The address is: http://www.myspace.com/datapet

The page itself is in Swedish, but the music player is in English, and the music starts playing as soon as the page has loaded. Check it out!

Quote for the day: (something I'd try out, not that I post here everyday or anything)
"Lord, make me chaste, but not just yet" - St. Augustine

Bye.

Balance

I thought a status update was due. I must say I am a wee bit intimidated by my intensely talented younger brother, who seems to be perfect for feature writing. Anyway, so, right now I’m doing another course for my masters, this time it’s in Swedish and deals with the media and cosmopolitanism. It’s very interesting, although I don’t know if it’s really preparing me for my professional life. Ah, well, if I had a penny for every time I had that thought since starting college.

The last course was even more theoretic, and concerned theories of science. That is complicated stuff that mostly makes you doubt science and our ability to even find knowledge about anything. I haven’t gotten the grades from that one yet, but I think it went OK.

Outside of school life is pretty much the same. I work about 15 hours a week, which is a bit more that I would really like to since I’m really supposed to be reading for school constantly. But my bosses think we lose out on information if we, the part-timers, don’t come for at least 15 hours a week. I don’t know if they’re right, but I can’t really do anything about it. And anyhow, I do get some more dough than I was planning on, which is always good of course.

Me and the beau are still living in the same apartment, which we love. They renovated the kitchen and shower, so now, other than it looks better, we have two toilets (no more banging on bathroom doors!) and a dishwasher. It’s insane how much difference that makes, not having to do the dishes. It’s like this huge weight lifted off our shoulders. fantastic. I don’t know if I’d be able to live without one now, if I had to.

Many of my friends are turning 25 this year, which I guess isn’t really supposed to be a big deal or a special birthday, but everyone seems to treat it that way anyway. More parties to go to, and they’re bigger, too. It’s a lot of fun, I’ll tell ya. If I could only balance this with school and work, and maybe try to get some exercise, read some more and cleaning up a bit more into the mix, my life would be perfect.

Take care!