Finally back from Russia, and what an adventure it was. First night we went exploring around St. Petersburg and saw some amazing buildings and beautiful snow covered streets. I gotta say, Russia is so much more Russian with snow. I met a real fun trio of architecture students along the way: a Scot, who reminded me of the doctor on SG Atlantis, an eccentric Dutchman who loved Goldmember and went around imitating his very non-Dutch accent the entire trip, and a rather silent yet giggly Austro-Hungarian. I ended up hanging out with them most of the trip because they were more interested in seeing Russian cities rather than drinking 2 dollar bottles of vodka. This proved to be a safer plan since, the same night that we went out sightseeing, another group tried to find a club and ended up in a shady part of town and found a dead body in the street. As unsettling as that is, I'm almost sorry I missed it.

Second day we went to the Hermitage museum, it's the biggest museum I have ever been in by far, there's just so much of everything that even with 5 hours of nonstop exploration I doubt I even scratched the surface of their collection. It was a *damn* impressive museum. After that, we went to a traditional Russian folk dance thing. Very entertaining, and pretty much what you would expect, dancewise, from Russia. They played really rural intruments though; spoons, saws, squeeze boxes and such. I guess they wanted to emphasize the rich culture of the working class or something.

The Czars were really concerned with making their country look Western, so there are a lot of Italian designed buildings that, while associated with Russia, seem out of place. I shouldn't complain though, I love the style far more than some of the works the Russians made. Most of the churches and stuff that we went to were Russian Orthodox and while everyone else is enjoying it, I'm really unimpressed. I find Russain Orthodox religious art to be my least favorite style. They all look totally identical, and the people look all wrong. Baby Jesus shouldn't look like Jack Nicholson. One of the things that the architecture students noticed was that St. Petersburg is really flat and wide. The Czars forbade any buildings to be higher than their palace, they didn't build it very high to start with so the city center doesn't have much of a skyline. Coupled with the fact that the Neva river is incredibly wide, it makes it look like someone stretched out a photo of a normal city.

An observation I had on the tour was that the Russians seem to have taken the opposite mentality to design to the Moors. The Alhambra in Spain from the outside looks like nothing more than a fortress, not particularally flashy compared to a proper palace. But on the inside it's a lush garden with fountains and fantastic artwork. The Moors designed it to look drab so no one would really care to see what was inside. The Russians make beautiful buildings that entice you to see the inside but they won't let you. On several occasions, the guide would say, "And on your left is a fantastic church with a breathtaking collection of icons and the tomb of one of Russia's most famous Czars, but you are not allowed to see it." Why take people on tours of buildings they aren't allowed to see?

Moscow was one of the cities I had on a list of places I had to see in my lifetime. There's a certain magical appeal that Russian cities have, probably because of the lavish and exotic nature of their public works. I became slightly less entraced with Moscow after seeing it, though. This might be because we were only in Moscow for 2 days and didn't have nearly enough time to do all the things I wanted. Namely, see Lenin's tomb. I could either tour the Kremlin or stand in line for an indefinite amount of time to see the mausoleum. I chose the Kremlin, which was rather unimpressive I must say. The guide said that if we wanted to we could go stand in line to see Lenin but she said the line would still be very long, so we stayed with the tour and afterwards we went to try to get in line at the last minute. They wouldn't let us in, which made me mad, but what really pissed me off is that they let the group in front of us go in. So had the old crone not told us that it would be a waste of time I would have been able to see Lenin in all his embalmed glory. The line was especially long that day because it was some Russian holiday and so they let children cut in front of the line. Bastards. They live in Russia! They can see Lenin any time they want, they should let foreigners go first. From each according to his ability to each according to his need, man! Lenin would have wanted it that way!

Returning to why I didn't enjoy Moscow as much as I had hoped, I ended up getting seperated from my group the first night. After waiting for half an hour to be found again I decided to continue on my way. I got lost and wandered around for 2 hours that night, and there's nothing quite like being totally lost and confused in a foreign country. No one speaks English, if they do, they won't try to help you and everything is written in Cyrillic.
Finally after backtracking a hell of a long way and negociating the treacherous streets of Russia (Russians are the worst drivers ever, they actually will try to run you down if you're in the road) I made it back to the hotel. This hotel is one of the "Seven Sisters" of Moscow. Stalin wanted Moscow's skyline to be equally impressive as major American cities so he ordered the construction of these massive buildings. But, in typical commie fashion, rather than design seperate and unique skyscrapers, they designed one and build 7 of them. Makes the biggest buildings in the city utterly useless as landmarks. Their grandiose stature, midcentury design and intent to mimic American buildings make the city look like 1940's New York.
We went to a club after my adventure on the streets of Russia, I had wanted to go to one that was supposed to have, trip hop, acid jazz and that kind of stuff, figuring that if those are crazy in the US they must be unreal in Russia. Unfortunately nobody wanted to go with me so I wound up going to the place where they wanted to go, a place that was described as having "a decadent erotic program." They (and I) assumed that by decadent they meant 'providing unrestrained gratification; self-indulgent' when the guide apparantly meant 'being in a state of decline or decay.'

So that was Moscow, quite underwhelming. I did take a my favorite pic of the entire trip in Moscow though:
I only hope it doesn't come back to haunt me...

We went back to St Petersburg after that and with the architecture trio saw some authentic Russian buildings, i.e. run down pieces of crap that all look exactly the same. The Soviets spent all their money on toys and forgot that you actually need to have a stable infrastructure to be a superpower.

The last city we visited was Helsinki, which has officially redeemed itself. It might not be Stockholm, but it's better than the dull city I originally thought it was. We went to this chocolate store with the most amazing chocolate cake EVER. A work of art, I swear. I also went to a Japanese pop art museum exhibit which was really quite interesting. One of the artists is critical of the monotype Japanese art with the big eyes and mouths, so he makes these paintings that are nothing but eyes and mouths.


Oh, one more awesome thing about Russia: I bought Black and White II, Age of Empires III and Civilization IV for about $10 total. That would run me about $150 back home. Now I won't be able to play those games on my laptop without vaporizing my graphics card, but hey, I can wait till I get back to the US.

So in 1 hour I'll be on my way to Russia. First we'll go on the infamous ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki. Cheap beer and international waters have given it the title "The Love Boat". If only I had been on that one a few years ago....
Anyway we're going to Helsinki briefly (maybe it can redeem itself) then off to St. Petersburg. It should be interesting to see how/if it's changed any. Then we'll go off to MOSCOW!

Ah, daylight saving time, my arch nemesis. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense. OK, I'll buy the reason for it in the US but there's no need for it here. Europe uses a 24 hour clock, so why bother with it? And secondly, when you're this far north the daylight you have isn't worth saving. The world needs to take a lesson from Arizona; it's the 21st century, daylight savings is a thing of the past.

In Europe everyone wears really tight fitting clothes. This is why Europeans seem gay to Americans. My pants are baggy by their standards, they don't know them meaning of the term. If I can't hide a 2 liter bottle of soda in my pants without someone noticing (true story), my pants are not baggy. So maybe tight fitting jeans look better, but they're much less comfortable than American jeans. The air gap between the fabric and my skin makes my legs warmer than with the European pants. Funny, you'd think staying warm would be something the Swedes would appreciate.

My mom had warned me that part of the bicultural experience is a period of disenchantment with the country you're in that happens a month or so into your stay. If you don't get that feeling, then you haven't been fully immersed in the culture. I've been keeping that in the back of my mind since I got here and have been wondering when it would set in, and actually worried that it hasn't yet. Which is just weird being upset that I don't hate Sweden yet. Well, that disenchantment set in just the other day. Sweden is culturally homogeneous. You don't notice it at first since they are all different from you or any American subculture you are familiar with, but once you get past that you realize that the Swedes' love of consensus runs down to the bone. I'll spare you the tirade I had the other day and hope that since I've finally encountered the problem maybe I can adapt and move on, rather than staying mopey for a month, as I was told would happen...

Lately I've been thinking about how much time I've been spending with all the people from V-Dala and how big a part the nation plays in my social life now. I find myself wondering what would have happened if I had joined another nation instead? Would I have met the people I am friends with now? Would the other people I would have met been better or worse than my current friends? My entire social life has been a direct result of my choices. Which made me realize something even more amazing: almost my entire life has been a product of things beyond my control. I wasn't able to choose where I lived, or what schools I went to. I had relatively little control over what classes I would be in, and as a result who I would meet or be friends with. At best my free will was a choice between choosing one predetermined route or another.
The start of college was only slightly better, the nature of being a Theatre Arts major meant that I was still basically following a preset path. It's like Fate, only being consciously aware of it.
It was only when I changed my major that I really felt like I had a say in my own life. Then I chose to go to Uppsala, chose a nation, chose a dojo (or whatever the capoeira equivalent is). I can make life altering decisions now, I mean actually make them, not just pick between doing something or not.
There's supposed to be something scary about the realization that the choices you make are what make your life and not some predetermined course set by Fate. But as I look at it, going to Sweden has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. I find that the destiny I'm making for myself is considerably better than anything Fate ever gave me.

I was at a nation the other night and these two girls walk into the room and are talking to each other in Swedish. One has a normal voice but the other had the most horrific Swedish accent ever. It was like a cross between Dr. Strangelove and the Swedish Chef. All Swedes talk like they're holding a cough drop in the middle of their tongue, but to varying degrees. A Swedish accent can actually be quite soothing, but this was just ridiculous. No matter how drop dead gorgeous a girl might be I could never get with her with a voice like that: Oh Kefeen yuoo meke-a me-a su hut!
Thankfully she looked like Paris Hilton, so no love lost there.

btw, that bit of Swedish is brought to you by the Swedish translator. I find it's especially fun when you put in actual Swedish into it.

On another note, why is it that whenever I leave the country bad things start happening back home? Floods, forest fires, hurricanes, you name it, whenever I go to Europe some catastrophe happens. Can't you people keep it together without me?

Word of the day: trisexual-pertaining to having sex with males, females, and one's self.
Strange that a bi who masturbates then becomes an entirely different classification.

I've started doing capoeira here in Uppsala. It's one of those "I'll try that one day" kind of things, where I had frequently planned on trying it back home but never got around to doing it. Since this whole study abroad thing is the embodiment of doing the things I've always wanted to do, it seemed appropriate. Plus, since it's a non-Asian martial art I get a whole new outlook on it. Which is good because one of the problems I had with my attempt at aikido here was that they did things in a way that it was just different enough to bother me. I doubt I could get very far in my training when I'm silently disagreeing with how aikido "should be". I'm too used to Ko Sho aikido to ever get used to the G-rated stuff they have here.
Capoeira is such a total departure from aikido. The basic philosophies are the most obvious example; aikido is very efficient, you use as little of your own energy as possible, relying on the opponent's energy to power your techniques. Strikes are secondary, joint locks and throws are the primary means of attack. And (ideally) your movements are small, not big sweeping circles. Capoeira relies on your own strength and movement to power your attacks, kicks are the main weapon. You use sweeping motions, feints and ruses to keep the opponent from getting too close.
I find that my years of aikido have created an instinctive stance and movement that is difficult to override, which is bad since these instincts are now antithetical to capoeira. Aikido footwork moves at 45 degree angles, capoeira moves at 90 degree angles. Aikido teaches you to keep both hands in front of you to protect yourself, capoeira has one hand in front of you and one hand out to the side ready to strike. The most difficult difference to overcome is the direction of the foot when the leg is stretched out to the side. In aikido/jujitsu, you have your foot in a sprinting position, but capoeira has the foot flat on the ground. That's something we were explicitly told not to do for various reasons, namely if someone falls on you leg, you knee bends instead of breaks.
I do have to give capoeira props for their unique take on solving the "missing leg" problem. Since we're bipedal we have 2 missing legs, and are not nearly as stable as something quadrupedal. Solution: stay low enough to the ground to be able to catch yourself with your hands if you lose balance and create a stable base when you're attacking. That way you can kick and still have 3 "legs" on the ground instead of one.
And by the end of it I'll finally be able to do cartwheels and walk on my hands.

At the meeting for the Roadtrip to Russia they handed out an extra form to all the American men, and only the American men. The form asked some pretty spooky questions, such as: "Do you have any skills or training including firearms, explosives or nuclear, biological or chemical experience?" and "Have you been in an armed conflict, either as a participant or a victim?" Now, if I say yes to the first one, do they not let me into Russia or do they instantly accept me then kidnap me and lock me in a mountain fortress?
And why aren't Australian nuclear scientists even worth considering? Or female American demolitions experts?
Another reassuring tidbit was, "Every now and then, the Russian police, militia, military, special police or frontier police (armed police) make surprise checks of our buses." Great...

One of the feminist essays we were assigned to read made me wonder if feminists realize how crazy they can sound at times. The essay dealt with sexual imagery being used in the military. I don't mean the Marine Corps, that's a no-brainer, she was insistent that the defense analysts, nuclear strategists and the like were using sexual references to military hardware and tactics. Her examples included the description of a Harrier jet which had "an exceptional thrust to weight ratio" and "vectored thrust capability that makes the...unique rapid response possible." heh heh...they said "thrust." She also claimed that the acronyms for things like submarine-launched cruise missiles, SLCMs, sounded sexual (slick'em, get it?). Ironically, with her fixation on sexual acronyms and references to male genitalia she overlooked the title of one of the people she was studying: SAC commander. If I started snickering anytime someone said 'thrust' or 'missile' when talking about rocket propulsion, people would tell me to grow up, but apparently this essay was taken so seriously it made it into an anthology. 'Made it'(snicker).

I always wondered what the story was with the The Tootsie Pop Indian.

And lastly:
(explaining aikido)
Me: I'd say the best example of why it's important to relax is what happened to my Marine friend.
Feifei: Is he a dolphin or something?

amusing paraphrase and word of the day:
"Poland: the Christ of nations."-Adam Mickiewicz
polonize- to make or become Polish.
So does that mean that when Poland annexed Vilnius it became a polony? Or that in the Middle Ages their goal was polonialism?

To follow up on a previous post, I learned that "jordgubbe" the Swedish word for strawberry has an etymology that makes its literal translation far less disgusting. "Gubbe" used to mean any round, awkward/clumsy thing and was then later used to endearingly refer to an old man. So 'jordgubbe' is an awkward thing from the earth.

Skype. I can finally call home (or anyone at all, really) for an affordable rate. This and several other programs I've downloaded are what make the internet the best thing since the opposable thumb.

Sala (a likely, though unspecified, connection to Uppsala) was fun. An old mining town that provided most of Sweden's silver from the 1600's on. The mine itself was kind of unremarkable, just a massive dark hole in the ground, essentially. I suspect that the guide realized that and tried to impress upon us how incredibly long it took to make all the tunnels and shafts. Still, I was imagining something more visually stunning.
The town itself was gorgeous, the streets and parks were covered in yellow, orange and red leaves. Since it's been unseasonably dry, the leaves don't rot, they stay crisp and fluffy and we were kicking up the big piles on the sidewalks on our way to the mine. The crisp, cool weather combined with the giant trees covered with such brightly colored leaves made it feel like living in a Calvin and Hobbes Sunday comic. Now all I need is a wagon...

The European Union was discussed the other day in my Peoples of the Baltic class, specifically new members and the economic implications. When the idea that Turkey should be allowed to join the EU there was much opposition to the notion, bordering on revulsion. One of the minor reasons was that Turkey is considered part of the Middle East and not Europe. One of the other reasons was that Turks would be a bad influence if they were allowed free passage through Europe, claiming that neighborhoods go downhill whenever Turks move in. Clearly Europeans are not as civilized as they would have everyone believe. The guest speaker explained that Turkey entering the EU would be an economic strain on the other EU members as they would have to invest a large amount of money to bring Turkey to the same level as the rest of Europe. That was the same reason why he said that Russia would not be able to join the EU for a very, very long time; Russian membership would bankrupt the EU.
So, membership in an organization that promotes equal economic footing for all its members has to exclude nations that are substantially poorer. Also, a particularly rich country (Norway) would not want to join such a union if membership would actually reduce their economic strength.
This got me thinking about the economics of the Federation in Star Trek. Since the Federation is largely modeled after unions of nations on Earth, such as the UN and one would presume some of the EU, would the same rules still apply? In Insurrection, they say that they're giving Federation membership to a race that just became warp capable the year before. One must assume that they are nowhere near as economically powerful as, say, Earth. As large as the Federation is, modernizing an entire planet with technology centuries ahead its time and making it economically stable would be financially draining. Would that be where the Prime Directive comes in? Now not just as a rule designed to protect cultures from outside contamination but also relieving the Federation of the obligation to instantly modernize new members, as the EU protects itself from having to equalize economically weaker countries. Would they then create trade barriers with this new member planet to keep the more powerful nations from exploiting it? That doesn't seem like it would ahve happened in this case considering they say that the reason they want the planet to join is because they need all the help they can get to fight a war. Since the race isn't technologically advanced enough to provide military support, the only thing they could really offer are raw materials. So if they can't instantly modernize them and don't have the time to gradually modernize them, the only thing the Federation could do to make use of the planet is to colonize it. That would definitely contaminate their culture , not to mention that colonialism is something Earth supposedly eliminated centuries before. So unless there's another option provided by some alien economic system, this planet and its inhabitants really got screwed.
So, back in real life the EU can't accept Turkey without hurting itself in its obligation to equalize the member nations, it sure as hell can't colonize Turkey, so the only thing that can be done is try to help it improve its economy until it is strong enough to be an EU member. Given that Turkey is roughly the European equivalent of Mexico right now, that might take awhile. And who knows, maybe by that time there won't be as many bigots opposed to Turks in Europe.

Best Dialogue Ever:
Me: Do you know what a fundie is?
Feifei: No, tell me.
Me: Fundamentalist Christian.
Feifei: Ohhh. I thought it meant someone who isn't very intelligent.

Reading Swedish magazines is so much more educational than reading the textbooks, I swear. More interesting, too. I could learn about why Sweden has red houses (it comes from a mine and the color used to be a status symbol) or learn what "godis-bh:n" means (candy bra). Plus with my new vocabulary I can impress, or at least amuse, the locals.

Consensus is very important to the Swedes. If faced with something they don't necessarily agree with they'll simply say "I guess..." I suppose that's to be expected from a country that hasn't been at war since 1814, even when their empire was falling apart they peacefully worked out a solution. That's got to be some kind of record. While it definitely seems to show that the Swedes have a more evolved sensibility than, say, the US, at least when it comes to conflict resolution, they've gotten to the point where they regard any kind of disagreement as something terrible. I had a really minor political disagreement with someone a few weeks ago, just debating semantics really, and the next time I saw her she was kind of closed off. Eventually she asked if we could still be friends after we had an argument. Now, in the US if you stopped being someone's friend because you didn't see exactly eye to eye with their politics you'd lose a lot of friends really quickly. Perhaps Americans are better able to cope with disagreements and live with them rather than just acquiescing.

Surely there's some practical application for a robotic fish.

And if anyone out there uses Firefox, this will make it better. I've noticed that things load anywhere from a few seconds quicker to nigh instantly.

I find that the Swedes, and most of the Europeans really, are never impressed with how hot I tell them Arizona is. I would have expected them to be at least mildly surprised. The only explanations I can think of are they don't think I know the Celsius system and am just spouting out something that sounds right, 45C (113F) doesn't impress them (which I doubt considering they call 85F a heat wave) or they just can't fathom what that temperature actually feels like. They try to regale me with stories about how cold it will get. I'm impressed by sub-zero temperatures (more so in Fahrenheit but Celsius is noteworthy too) but then again cold is fairly exotic to me. Heat just seems more impressive, nothing emphasizes that more than when your breath feels chilly compared to the air.
The wildlife in Arizona, on the other hand, impresses them a great deal. There are potentially dangerous animals, but nothing here is poisonous. There are elk and reindeer way up north, about 100 wolves in the entire country and bears. Sure they're big and intimidating but they're furry and have four legs. And it's not like an elk is going to sneak up on you. I've told people horror stories about the frightening critters you can find in Tucson. Spiders and beetles the size of your hand, scorpions, centipedes (we found one once that was, I swear, a foot long), rattlesnakes, mountain lions with a taste for human flesh, javelinas, Gila monsters. I'm sure I left out something.
The plant life is also worlds apart, walking through the forest you can find all sorts of edible berries, pear trees and if you're into that kind of thing, edible mushrooms. And everything has leaves and bark. In Arizona, the only things that are edible you need to pick the thorns off of first, and everything coming out of the ground is covered in spines. The cactus are easy enough to avoid, except for the sadistic cholla.
One of my hallmates, after asking about nature in Tucson, said "You live in a dangerous place."
I suppose that's true, but it's amazing how quickly you get used to all the pointy plants and animals and all you really mind is the heat.

Oh, and while we're talking about scary things you can't find in Sweden, let's not forget the occasional abandoned nuclear missile silo you can find in the Arizona desert.

School of the Americas by Lesley Gill. Man did this book make me mad. She investigates this training facility for Latin American soldiers in the US and its involvement in human rights violations. The fact that they train soldiers with questionable backgrounds to be more effective soldiers is bad, the fact that the US topples democratic governments to ensure they won't turn communist is bad, but Gill isn't satisfied with this. She goes on to criticize the entire US government, not just the current administration or certain previous administrations but all of American government post WWII. She makes it seem as if communism was something that the US made up as an excuse to interfere in world affairs, forgetting that there actually was a USSR and communist Cuba. Now, how gratuitously anti-American is she? She's so gratuitously anti-American the people in my class from all over Europe thought her criticism of the US was over the top. They said they felt sorry for any American reading it. I found that very refreshing, I expected everyone to think that she was spot on describing the evil American Empire. She had so much to work with in the realm of righteous anger but she just had to accuse all of America of being sadistic Imperialists.

A couple of days ago when I was getting my hair cut the barber asked where I lived. I said Rackarberget (like you'd say it in English), she corrected me, it's "Rackar-berry-et". I've been mispronouncing it for over a month and not a single person has corrected me. Grrr...

Words of the day: mawkish-Excessively and objectionably sentimental. Sickening or insipid in taste.
ombudsman- A man who investigates complaints and mediates fair settlements, especially between aggrieved parties such as consumers or students and an institution or organization. (I'm ashamed to say that a Swede taught me a new English word)

Cultures different from ours: Cambodian society is incredibly hierarchical in nature and there is a great emphasis on acknowledging other's status in relation to you. For example, when sitting with someone of higher level than you, you must roll out a mat for them so they are seated higher than you. The hierarchy is not based on groups like a caste or social class, but rather on an individual level, depending on how much power one has. They believe that power comes from a divine but finite source; that means that the more power you have, the less power someone else has.
Equally astounding is how they do not make social networks among those of equal level to them, but try to make connections with those higher or lower than them. This is because in Cambodia those in power will use that power to further their own means and those of their associates. Our professor pointed out that in Western civilization that is the definition of a corrupt official, but that is simply the accepted order of things in Cambodian society. Also, while Western societies consider it the duty of the powerful to serve the will of the people, it is certainly not the case for Cambodians. The powerful do not need to answer to anybody and can do whatever they please, whenever they please. This is a sign that they have power, because if they can no longer get away with doing what they want, it means they have lost their power. It's the embodiment of Social Darwinism in society, a capitalist utopia of sorts. Given this cultural background, anything more socialized than a representative form of government (and they're still not totally used to that concept either) is doomed to fail.


The Swedish word for strawberry is the least appetizing word for it that I have ever heard: 'jordgubbe.' I had originally based that on just the sound of the word but the literal translation make it far worse. 'jord' means soil and 'gubbe' is an old man. So the word for strawberry means dirty old man. Covered in whipped cream. *shudder*

The Swedish word for 'hiss' is 'fräsa', which is pronounced like the Spanish word for strawberry. Depending on what language you speak, your cat could either be angrily calling you an elevator or a strawberry.

The other day my friend was at the gym and heard Gunther's "Tra la la" song, Nickelback and O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" (better known to Americans as 'Numa Numa') on the radio, one right after the other. What was strange was that people actually listen to Gunther and O-Zone in Europe while they're only appreciated for their comedic value on the internet in the US. What was even stranger was that Nickelback was lumped in with them. At least they're not listening to Zlad, yet.

better without context: "I do most of my killing before breakfast."

Today I went for a hike in the forest outside Uppsala. It was really spectacular. I'd show you pics but I had an Ellen Feiss moment with my camera so I hardly have any pics at all. Kind of...a bummer. Anyway, the way there was also amazing, in the morning there was this mist that covered the town and made everything crisp and cool. The houses all have green lawns and big sheltering trees, the way I imagine a neighborhood should look. I dunno if it's an old memory of living in a place like that or just the fact that it's so different from Tucson, but found the whole thing to be very enchanting.
Getting to the forest was less exciting than I originally hoped, what I thought was a forest is really just a large wooded area surrounded by highways. Once you get into the middle of it it looks great but it kind of ruins the effect when you hear cars in the background. I went around exploring other wooded areas nearby and ended up stumbling into a nice quiet mini forest. I found wild blueberries and raspberries, which was really awesome, I had never seen wild blueberries before.
Then I found this walled garden looking thing, I went inside and looked around, really peaceful, grassy open areas and a place in the middle surrounded by big trees. On my way out I saw some tombstones and a sign that said "kyrkogård", apparently this was a brand new cemetery that didn't have many 'residents' yet. There's got to be some greater meaning to that: the more humans die, the more nature gets destroyed to make room for our dead.
As if to further the oddness, I found an abandoned playground not too far away with a cluster of mushrooms best described as anti-flowers. These I did manage to get pics of; tar black, curled up, crawling with bugs and since it released all its spores the area around it was covered in a greasy black substance. It looked as if these mushrooms were radiating death. That's not quite right, these clearly did not look like dead things, they looked like...anti-living. Like something from a parallel dimension that countered life around it.
The rest of my trek had more classic beauty; I found the river that runs through Uppsala some ways downstream with ducks, fish and water reeds. It was nice to see that the river still looks like a river, especially compared to how artificial it looks downtown.

I think I'll do this more often, and next time have some pics to bring back.

Word of the Day: pulchritudinous-Characterized by or having great physical beauty and appeal. (also the word that sounds the least like what it actually means)

Lars: Urg....
Per: Are you going to vomitate?
Me: You'd better not vomitate!

I finally remembered to post the pics of Sweden online.

It's strange seeing people here that look a lot like people I know back home. I guess with a more homogeneus society that's more likely to happen, but it's still weird. Especially when the person looks so much like the person you know that the only way you know it's not actually them is because of the logical impossibility of it. Then they look up at you and in that split second of eye contact there seems to be a glimmer of recognition, that's when it gets really trippy.

Walking around Uppsala one can't help but notice the enormous amount of baby carriages, child seats on bicycles and little infants everywhere. At first I thought it might just be in my head, but I'm not the only person to notice it. It was then that I remembered a few years ago when I visited Stockholm there were a lot of pregnant women. Admittedly it took longer than it should for me to realize that those two observations were of the same event.

There's a store in town that I pass by rather frequently that claims to be a US fashion store. I finally indulged my curiosity and went in to see how authentic their merchandise really is. And wow, no self respecting American would be caught dead in those clothes. It was more like a caricature of American clothing, taking the idea of in your face and/or amusing slogans like shirts from Abercrombie and Hot Topic and making them pointlessly blunt and not funny at all (unless you can appreciate the irony of it). One of the jackets they had was covered in corporate logos, like you would expect a racecar driver to wear. Now I know Americans have a reputation for being consumer driven, but we don't wear advertisements on quite that level. I don't know what I was expecting to find going in there, maybe pink polo shirts, flippy skirts and ugg boots, (though uggs are quite practcal here) maybe something that would make me step back and realize that how easily definable American fashion is. But nope, they got it all screwed up. On the other hand, there was an American food store in Stockholm that I visited that had it right on the money: peanut butter, root beer, Lucky Charms and Gatorade.

Some of the things that I notice are different I think are more a product of being from the Southwest specifically than simply from being an American. No smoothies or other semifrozen beverages here. Not quite the ideal climate for it, but back home you can enjoy an Eeegee's any time of the year.
No drinking fountains in Uppsala, possibly in all of Sweden. I'm still having trouble fathoming that. That might not be so shocking for someone on the East Coast but for a Tucsonan it's torturous.
As expected, no Mexican food. I asked if there were any Mexican restaurants in town, and I was told there were "one or two." I don't think I've ever been told that with a straight face before. The best I could do was a Mexican pizza, and they couldn't even get that right.
Most everything closes at 10PM here so if you want a late night snack you're out of luck. This comes as a particular shock considering my last days in the US when I went out to Denny's or IHOP at 3AM. Good times.

I really like it when two or more of my classes intersect subject matter by accident and explore the different facets of the same material. For example, Hans Blix gave a lecture at Uppsala University yesterday and our first assignment for my Peoples of the Baltic class was to attend. Aside from the awesomeness of being able to attend a lecture with such a notable international figure (who grew up in Uppsala and is an alumnus of the University) I found his speech to be enlightening and interesting. He addressed the topic of the various armed conflicts in the world (tying in nicely with my other class) and how the UN works as a peacekeeping force. Pointing out to all those naysayers that presently there are fewer conflicts in the world than there were ten years ago; 25 presently down from about 50. He also explained that the UN works in a similar fashion to an orchestra in that it only works at its best if everyone in it is playing the same song. There is the temptation to think of it as a sovereign entity with executive powers it really is up to the group as to what gets done. So basically, if there's some terrible human rights violation in the world and the UN fails to stop it, it's not the fault of the UN as an organization but rather the fault of its members for not getting off their asses and doing something.
And moving right on to the link between the classes, tonight was a lecture on genocide. Anthropology sure may not be boring but it isn't the most cheerful science either. The lecturer said that he thought that genocide should not be used as a term because it is too specific and too vague at the same time. The UN's definition of genocide is "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such." Seems good enough, but political groups are not listed because they needed the USSR to agree to the definition and Stalin wouldn't sign it if it meant that the 30 million people he killed for political reasons constituted genocide. So now the tricky part is this, since political affiliations are clearly potential targets for genocide (and who will disagree with figures like 30 million?) would any conflict involving the elimination of a political doctrine constitute genocide? Would the French be guilty of it by killing off the Royalists in the French Revolution? Or the Allies for killing Nazis? That doesn't sound quite right, does it? And if the targeting of religious groups for extermination is clearly genocide, then one would have to agree that the US's efforts to destroy the Taliban is genocide. And what about the attack on the Branch Davidians? No one would call that genocide but legally it is. And it's because of legal traps like that that no one intervened with Rwanda. Now there's a supreme irony: the subjective definition of genocide actually allowed the act of genocide to occur.

OK, the next few posts are going to be lighthearted and jolly, or at least not so damn depressing. I promise.

No point to this post this time, just fun and random/interesting bits.
It's so much nicer when it rains, especially in Sweden. I always liked cloudy days and rain is soothing to me. The only bad thing about it is the Tucson variety that comes all at once, uprooting trees and flooding major streets. Here there is a lot more rain but it is so much weaker. Today was really windy and rainy but as hard as it tried it couldn't really match the awesome might of a Tucson rainstorm.

A few weeks ago I was at a department store where I saw a cart full of stuff with a sign on it saying "HISS!" turns out that means 'elevator' but at the time I thought it was a clever way of telling people to leave the cart alone.

There is no Swedish word for jerk; all they have are either insults to one's intelligence or coolness. The only words that define someone as rude and mean are very antiquated and are the equivalent of calling someone a ruffian.
I gather that the high school social class system is different in Sweden as well. The closest word for prep is "fjortis" which refers to anyone, male or female, who acts like the stereotypical teenager. I guess teeny-bopper is pretty close approximation.
Conversely, there are words that exist in Swedish that do not exist in English. One such example is "återställare" the drink one has when one wakes up to dull the pain of a hangover.

There are different dialects in Swedish that are often difficult to get a grasp of. The people from the north of Sweden will pronounce "sj" like "sh" in contrast to the colloquial dialect that pronounces it closer to if you blow out a candle. There's also the Stockholm dialect which sounds close to the colloquial dialect but to the Swedes it sounds snobby. It's impossible for me to convey it in typed words so just try to imagine a Swedish accent with a little bit of valley girl mixed in.

I never really thought about pop up and banner ads being different depending on where you lived. It's really strange seeing banners telling me I've one ten thousand Euros or offers to get me a green card.

What would the world be like if it went Goth? Better and worse at the same time.

Words of the Day: autochthonous- Native to the place inhabited; indigenous.
bivouac- A temporary encampment often in an unsheltered area.

I went to a dojo in town today to get back in the swing of martial arts. Finding these places is really difficult, primarily because I don't read Swedish but also because the numerous flyers I see don't tell you where their dojo is. Anyway, since I originally started with aikido, and later transfered to jujitsu due to aikido's relative unpopularity within Ko Sho, I figured that this would be a good opportunity to go back to my roots. Unfortunately this aikido was a bit too...soft for my taste. It turns out that they don't ever actually want to inflict any amount of physical discomfort on the students, so the techniques are watered down. "Pure" aikido some might call it.
One technique involved pushing the uke's arms back while stepping to their missing leg, this got them off balance but not enough to make them fall, so I kied through. My partner was not pleased by this saying I didn't need to push, how aikido is about not using your own energy and then demonstrated that she could push if she wanted to, in a "How do you like it when I do it to you?" tone (in the process doing the technique more effectively than she had done previously). The same person was correcting my footwork and showed me that the left leg goes directly behind the leg of the uke right before they fall over. "Ah, so you could trip them too." I mused, and she seemed surprised that I would have thought of such a dreadful thing.
Other people I was partnered with seemed confused as to why I was not going down when they tried to take my balance, not in the sense that they didn't know why their technique wasn't working on me, but why I wasn't falling over for them. Maybe I read too much into their expressions, but that's how it seemed, at least.
Another technique that we practiced bore a striking resemblance to a technique I learned back at Ko Sho. The major difference was that at the end they just hold the arm without any joint locks or anything. I *gently* applied pressure to my partner's elbow until he tapped, as would be expected. I didn't know he was bothered by this until he told me, "Where did you learn to learn to do that lock? That's dangerous! You could easily break someone's elbow!"
Fancy that, I could concievably hurt someone with an aikido technique!

Now granted I have gotten accustomed to the rough and tumble nature of the Ko Sho system, especially with the incorporation of karate, jujitsu and who knows how many other myriad martial arts into our aikido program, but I figure no pain no gain is an established fact of learning any martial art. I'm beginning to see why the head instructor back home had such a poor opinion of aikido.

There were some good points to the class though: since the every non black belt wears a white belt it makes practicing with them unpredictable since I have no way of knowing their skill level. Also, I learned an interesting variation on that technique that I recognized from the dojo back home. I'll go back there a few more times and see if it improves, if not I'll shop around for another dojo that's more my taste.

And to end on a high note, martial arts humor!

Shadows of War by Carolyn Nordstrom. This book was unsettling, not just because it shines light on something she believes people don't really want to know about, but also her analysis of the situations was so clear and eloquent it made me wonder why something so obvious hadn't been written a long time ago. Following the best traditions of anthropology by probing deep into the world of war in southern Africa, Nordstrom addresses some very basic questions that are quite difficult to get answers for. Namely how does war function, why does it function that way and, knowing the answers to those questions, how can peace be established? She focuses heavily not just on what war does to the population in terms of the trauma and often horror of war but also on how people live, even thrive, in a warzone. The comparison was made to Catch-22 in terms of how absurd the nature of war really is; enemy leaders often knowingly help each other in order to further their own financial gains. The very people who supposedly want to stop the conflict are the ones who profit tremendously from the increased demand for basic necessities and so they act very slowly to end the fighting, if they act at all. There is a realization that the black and grey markets play a vital role in the legitimate economy. Globally, most of the transactions made are of an extra-legal nature, yet there is nearly no effort put into studying this. When Nordstrom actually confronts economists and others who ought to make it their business to study the black market, they make replies like "fieldwork is too dangerous!" She makes the very salient point that if the US intends to stop Al-Qaeda, an organization that operates entirely in shadows, then a study of the black market is in the interests of national security.
One flaw that was brought up with the book was that Nordstrom collected a large amount of quotes from people living in warzones in Sri Lanka and Angola, she reproduced these block quotes but offered little analysis of them. When I was reading this I didn't notice (and maybe that's why I'm not an English major) but even after it was pointed out I don't think it's really necessary, if her intent is to show us first hand accounts of war then an analysis of those accounts is redundant. Also, I think it would be presumptuous of her to take an account that pretty much speaks for itself and then say "What he was trying to say was..."
The final analysis seems to be that it's nearly impossible to stop the illegal flow of goods and that even if one were to study black market trade it would not offer a completely reliable picture. She does, however, have a solution for war: Since governments have to have the support of the people to wage war, eliminating that support will eliminate their ability to make war. She points out, "Ten thousand soldiers can't control a million people unless people accept the right of the militaries to control the means of violence and the rights to power. Thus, a great deal is invested in maintaining the illusion that governments and their militaries not only have the right to power, but indeed have power. If their millions of citizens simply refuse to recognize their right, and turn to other means of governance, a particular government simply ceases to have authority. It ceases to be. Regimes likewise fade, the way kingly rule was eclipsed by the modern state."
Granted, this is easier said than done, but if people were to collectively realize this (and they've done it before) it would go a long way towards ending war.

I went to the freshman Gasque at V-Dala nation on Friday. That's a formal coat and tie dinner with songs and toasts and a great amount of ceremony. After contemplating the greater meaning of the event for a day, I think it represents many of the Swedes' cultural personality traits. It starts off with all of us marching from our nation to this opera house thingy while we sing our nation's anthem. Once there we listen to an hour's worth of speeches that I'm sure would be very touching and inspirational if I understood any of it. After that we head back to the nation to start the dinner.
The word 'Gasque' comes from the old Viking phrase "Where the hell is my food!?" Advertised as a three course dinner I was expecting to be full, or at least satisfied. In Sweden a three course dinner consists of a half a cup of soup, followed by potatoes about three hours later and then a cup of pudding. To alleviate the boredom, and the hunger, about every five minutes we were prompted to start singing. The Swedish songs we had to learn were really confusing but ultimately fun. And the system of toasting in Sweden really takes some getting used to: you have to toast to the person on your left, then right then across from you (the order also depends on the gender of the people in those seats), drink, then toast to them again in reverse.
The actual amount of alcohol that Swedes drink isn't really so much different than what college students in the US drink, but there's a ceremony to it; a great amount of formality, tradition and custom centered more around camaraderie than getting drunk. Some of them claim that it's just an excuse to drink, but I think there's more to it than that. I dunno, maybe I'm just enamored with the culture and so am making justifications, but there's something about chugging cheap booze from a beer bong until you throw up that just lacks the class of a gasque.

So what can we learn about the Swedes from the gasque? They are very friendly, warm and inviting, they have many of these gasques throughout the year. They have a great sense of tradition and custom, from the marching color guard to the speeches to the toasting etiquette. They start out reserved and polite, as seen by the first half of the evening, then once they have had a few drinks are lively and social. This explains how they can have a reputation for being both outgoing and reticent. The Swedes are also a patient people, otherwise they wouldn't have put up with the "three course meal" hoax. Then again, that might also explain why they're so thin.

People rarely actually live through their school nightmares. The only example that I can think of is my AP US History teacher who in college had registered for a class he didn't want, so he dropped it. Only at the end of the year did he learn that he had not been dropped and now had to take a final for a class he had not been to all year. I don't remember how this story ended, whether he talked to the administration and explained that he had in fact dropped the class or, more heroically (and equally likely given his superior intellect) he actually crammed for the final and passed.
You know the nightmare where you have to take a big test and you are handed it and you realize it's in a language you don't understand? Yeah, I did that yesterday for my Swedish placement test. It's to see how much Swedish you know and what class to place you in, it has to be standardized and at the same time challenging for those who have advanced knowledge of Swedish. In the nightmare you normally blunder through multiple choice and fill in the blank questions wondering what fast food establishment you will be sentenced to for failing this test, then you get to the end and see an essay question. Right about then you wake up, but not me. I had to answer an essay question in Swedish, now I don't know if you've ever tried to write an essay without using past tense or any words larger than those in a six year old's vocabulary, but it isn't easy.
I did learn a few things though, for example in that situation you learn Swedish in much the same way that an infant learns language; you see a word used in a certain context over and over so you associate that word with that thing. This only gets you so far because "hot" doesn't mean "don't touch" but that's the context for an infant. I also learned that I completely misunderstood the prompt for one of the essays, and ended up writing about NOTHING! How the hell was I supposed to know it said "compare and contrast"!?

I've recently started my class "Culture and Armed Conflicts", which is already shaping out to be one hell of an interesting class. The lecture yesterday dealt with the role of women in warfare, specifically female combatants. The main issue was that they destroy the notion that women are instruments of peace while men are instruments of war. The fact that someone actually said that was a refreshing idea and a punch in the face of all feminazis. The examples of female combatants she presented all had personal reasons for fighting, while the men had political reasons. The lecturer alleged, though admitted she did not have any real evidence, that women in war can act on political motivations. Now, I know for a fact that women do have strong political beliefs, so politics doesn't seem like such an unlikely motive to me.
Supposedly, the men fighting alongside the female soldiers, as well as those who fought them, say that they are more cold-blooded and brutal than the male soldiers. The argument there is that they might be acting just as violently the male soldiers but the dichotomy between the idea of a loving nurturing woman and a merciless fighter makes them seem worse than they actually are. So if the idea of women being able to fight and kill as effectively as any man is so shocking, are phrases like "Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn" meant in jest?
Towards the end of the lesson, the lecturer mentioned that women were not normally placed on the front lines but relegated to guard duty and other such things. One such example also highlighted the demonstrable cruelty that the female combatants were known for. Many of the women, often between the ages of 16 and 20, were in charge of shooting unarmed prisoners. One of the other teachers then asked rhetorically if killing helpless people is really "macho," suggesting it isn't as shocking for a woman to be an executioner as a front line soldier.
Personally, I don't consider female fighters to be so shocking, especially after witnessing and experiencing the swift ass kicking that women at the dojo can administer. As for cruelty, are people shocked by the people who commit the atrocities or the atrocities themselves? Now I suppose if I saw a soccer mom gunning down a row of people I'd be more shocked than if I saw a burly commando doing it, but that has more to do with social roles than gender. If violence and cruelty committed by females is more disturbing than male violence, then are movies like Kill Bill and Sin City banking on that shock for their success? Or is it the violence itself that is the main attraction, not the gender of the perpetrator?

I asked a Swede today if politics is something that one can discuss at any time with anyone or if there are rules of etiquette associated with the topic. She at first had difficulty explaining the parameters of the etiquette, saying it's not the first thing you would ask someone. I'm guessing it's roughly the same as in the US, which means the people I've been running into lately are just jerks. It's really annoying when you're ordering a pizza and the guy behind the counter asks "American eh? So do you like Bush?" Do I not get the pizza if he doesn't like my answer? I'm willing to have political conversations, just not with complete strangers and not when I'm ordering food. Time to bust out the CCCP shirt.

Before I start, let me correct a previous post. It's Östgöta nation, not Ostgota. 'Öst' is east, 'ost' is cheese. Though I've taken to calling them that now ever since I went to their sucky club. I didn't know they had emo kids in Europe, I figured they'd be sophisticated beatniks or something like that.

It's really an odd experience going to an international student corridor party. There are people from everywhere and they all speak the same language. English rocks! Anyway, I have barely met any Americans at all here, which I thought was a little odd. There are tons of Australians here though, and Germans. All the different accents floating around makes for an interesting, diverse experience. The Finns and Swedes take it upon themselves to teach all of us useful phrases such as 'bakfull' (hung over)and memorize drinking songs.

A Finnish girl said that a big difference she saw between American and Swedish culture was dating. In America, she explained, guys will actually be interested in taking a girl out on a date and getting to know her. In Sweden the guys just want to have sex. At first I thought she just had a very good experience in the US (after all how many American girls would ever agree with a statement like that?) but when a Swedish guy imparted dating advice to me later on I realized that Americans must look like the most sensitive bunch of guys in the world. One thing I thought was odd was that the rules that matched American dating rules matched for totally different reasons. For example, in the US after you get a girl's phone number you don't call her right away because you don't want to come off as clingy or needy. In Sweden you don't call right away because you don't want to call her when she's hung over.

Lastly, why can't the Swedes use spaces between words? At first it seems like you don't need them, 'fyrarumslagenhet' for example is "fyra rum lagenhet" (four room apartment). Once you know the language you can see where one word ends and the other begins; they put in an 's' to make it easier. The problem arises later when words that they stick together are difficult to pull apart. "Kungsängsgatan" is a street (gatan=street), now looking at that, it's either "Kungs äng" (king's meadow) or "Kung säng" (king bed). Another one that came up today was "Balderskolan" that's apparantly a daycare center. I didn't have that context when I translated it to "Balders kolan" (Balder's toffee) when it's actually "Balder skolan" (Balder school). Damn Swedes. I'm so gonna set up a candy store right next to that place and call it Balderskolan just to mess with them.

The Swedes really like forming lines, anywhere were it's possible they'll make a line (or queue as they call them here). They have those numbered tickets here to make sure no one cuts, sitting at the bank or migration office is a lot like that waiting room scene in Beetlejuice. There's a nation here called Stockholm, it's one of the bigger, more impressive nations with a real big dance club. Unfortunately they're a tad snooty, so there's a bit of mutual animosity between Stockholm and all the other nations. There was a huge line to get in, they wouldn't let anyone in until 2 hours after they officially opened. What was the purpose of this line? Nothing, save that the Swedes like queues.
Once in, I was confronted with a new problem: I'm probably one of the youngest people at Uppsala University. It seems that students in their 1st or 2nd year either take a break from college or go studying abroad. Consequently roughly 3/4ths of my graduating class is not at Uppsala. The result of this can be summed up in a brief dialogue:

Hot Swedish girl: So how old are you?
Me: ...Almost 20.
Hot Swedish girl: If you're 19 that means I'm 4 years older than you.
Me: *polite smile* (fuck!)

Another thing I've noticed in the clubs so far is that Swedes, the girls especially, can't dance. This sort of makes me feel better cuz I blend right in. Maybe that's because they go right from reserved awkwardness to drunken awkwardness without that graceful period in between. A notable exception to this rule are these real weird students who are in charge of welcoming new students. The different departments at Uppsala (law, computer science, medicine etc.) all have initiation rituals for new students (the 1/4th that's still here?) where they play random games and make the new students wear shower caps or big orange cards (see above photo, the ones in capes are their masters). Anyway, these people, who can best be described as 'nerds', are really good dancers. Now just try to imagine a universe where hot blonde nerds are the best dancers on the floor.

Today I will have finally decided on a nation to join. The nations are student run groups affiliated with Uppsala University which were created back in the 17th century. The nations represent the different provinces of Sweden and were created so that people attending the University could be with their countrymen. Nowadays they function in a similar manner to fraternities, minus the whole stupidity part. I've narrowed it down to Ostgota (OG) or Vastmanlands-Dala (V-Dala). I post links but they're in Swedish so you wouldnt really get much more out of them aside from the name.

The food here is...different. Aside from the aforementioned coaster bread (which is really quite filling) there's lots of diary products. This morning one of the girls in my hall took out a plate and spread what looked like yogurt onto it, then topped it with cereal. She had a dificult time explaining what it was; it smelled like sour cream and I think it was plain yogurt. I'll have to try this concoction sometime. Speaking of breakfast foods, in Sweden honey nut Cheerios are the most delicious food ever. I think it's because they use real honey or something. Whatever the reason it sure beats the US variety.
Sadly the milk situation is not as wonderful, you can only buy it in 1 liter non resealable cartons. It pours badly, expires quickly and you run out really fast. Apparantly this is also true in Australia, I have regaled them with tales of gallon jugs of milk which they cannot fathom. They asked me how much of that we throw away, figuring that if a liter expires in 6 days a gallon (about 3 1/2 times bigger) couldn't make it to the end before going sour. Mind you that if you can close the container the milk lasts a lot longer. I wonder if the gallon vs. liter usage is a result of measurment mentality or convenience. In Sweden everyone is within walking or biking distance of the grocery store so you can always get more if you run out, in the US people have to drive to the grocery store so a larger amount would save them time and gas. On the other hand, what if it's just as simple as providing products in the largest single unit of measurement available?

Swede: Francais?
Guy: No, he’s American.
Swede: Oh shit.
*laughter*
Me: I was waiting for that.

The nations at Uppsala are all basically centered around drinking. That’s not as bad as it sounds in itself since there are plenty of people who drink with moderation and the pub scene is the primary way to meet people. I just met a bunch of Swedes who were into the more American style of drink ‘til you drop, don’t remember anything and can’t taste the difference between water and vodka kinda partiers. In addition to that, they were listening to all of the weird stuff on the Internet like Gunther or Numa Numa, which I thought was strange since that’s over the web because of people making fun of Europeans. One guy was particularly interested in the goings-on of American dorm life, which he had created an image of based on collegehumor.com and Girls Gone Wild. The concept of spring break was one he was also curious about, from what I gather there’s no equivalent in Sweden. I guess the moral of that story is that Americans and Swedes are more in common than I previously thought, or hoped, really.

I have also been amazing all sorts of people with my ability to eat spicy food with reckless abandon. Truly, as my brother said, this is the land of bland. The international students are caught off guard too; my Iranian hallmate was surprised to see me eat one of his very spicy peppers without reaching for my drink. So thanks Tucson for toughening me up enough to eat stuff that’s considered hot even in Iran.

Things are really starting to pick up now, I got good, sensibly priced bed sheets, my luggage finally came in (you don’t know how good a change of clothes really feels until you’ve lived in one set for 4 days in a row) and there are all these fun shindigs they have all the new students do. I bought a bike today, which makes getting around a lot easier, still have to break it in though. Uppsala slopes down one side and I’m living on the up side, which makes going into town a breeze. First gear downhill you can get there in about a minute flat, but you’re going so fast you die if you hit anything. Going back to my dorm/apartment on the other hand is pretty rough. But hey it could be worse, I could be living in Flogsta, which as I say it I realize that means nothing to you, it’s really far away from classes and the main city center.
Oh, and the place where I got my bed sheets is also real far away, like halfway between Stockholm and Uppsala, no joke. It’s like Super K-Mart or one of those big places that squashes the ma and pa stores in the US. The Swedes have figured out how to fix this, they put the thing out in the middle of nowhere so you only go there if you really need to. Good idea in theory, but the prospect of taking a 20-minute bus ride to get bed sheets under $200 really makes you miss Target.
Yesterday I made my first cultural screw up. OK, so in Sweden there’s this round flat bread that is really hard and crunchy, somewhere between balsa wood and cardboard. This one café had the stuff on a metal pipe just hanging from the ceiling; confused I asked why they just had the stuff sitting out. The woman explained that the stuff never really goes bad so you can leave it out. Makes sense, it’s too dry to mold and too hard to know if it went stale. So I thought this was a common Swedish thing, just have this bread sitting out in a kitchen or wherever. I get back to my dorm/apartment and in the kitchen notice these round things just sitting out, so I ask one if the guys in my hall about them. I said I understood the stuff never goes stale but wouldn’t leaving them out all the time get them dusty after awhile? Confused, he explained that it doesn’t matter if those get stale or dusty you just use them to put under your coffee cup.

I’m up at 3am writing this because my bed isn’t very comfortable, since it’s just a mattress, I don’t even have a pillow. The place to buy the stuff is way the hell on the other side of town; so far away it’s not even on the map. I think they said a 20-minute bus ride to get there. They said that it’s a 30-minute bus ride from Stockholm to Uppsala so when I say it’s way the hell out there I mean it. No luggage either. So that’s gonna be 4 consecutive days with the same clothes. I wish I had a spare set of clothes but all the room went to stuff I didn’t want to part with, like books and CDs and such and the stuff that would explode in an unpressurized cabin, like shampoo and hair gel. Nonetheless I am enjoying Uppsala, the people are friendly, and hot. They all speak English, which is good since I don’t know how to say all the stuff I need to in Swedish. I can order food, talk about myself and ask directions and that’s about it. I like to practice whenever I do that but everyone ends up speaking English to me, which is then frustrating. I am really hungry, at night everything is closed. Back in Tucson and especially at the U of A you could always find some place that was open. Damn. I passed through a store today and found a bunch of weird stuff, the kind of things only a European can eat. Figs in cognac for example. There are a bunch of sodas that have the weirdest names ever, like the Marx Brothers’ estranged siblings. Oh, and they have peanut butter and root beer here. I bought the root beer and I gotta say if that’s all they have then it’s no wonder they don’t drink the stuff. It tasted like root beer in much the same way that a lemon starburst tastes like a lemon. Another thing, I’m typing this now, but since I won’t get internet at my dorm until next week you might not be reading this anytime soon. If I’m very silent online now you know why.

Before I start, let me just thank all of my friends for being just so damn awesome. Not everyone has pals who will hang out with you all day everyday for two weeks straight. Plus, I think staying out until 2 am has helped me to adjust to the time zone change much quicker.

Note: all of this was written from my laptop and has now only recently been added, but I fiddled with the posting dates for greater continuity.

As of this writing I am in Newark airport, bored and tired, a victim of Tucson’s weather. Perhaps its last act of spite against me as I leave. Whatever the reason I am left with lots of free time and have been listening to audio tapes analyzing Nietzsche. The lectures are long and as one might imagine full of ideas that one needs to sit and chew on afterwards. So, extending that metaphor, I’ll chew with my mouth open on the blog. Nietzsche’s idea that compassion is a form of domination and altruism is a form of selfishness annoys the hell out of me. It’s along the same lines as the rhetorical question posed in one of my classes “Isn’t a lack of culture a culture in itself?” I ridiculed this paradox and invented silly ones of similar structure, so I’m bothered when I come to such things in the works of a great philosopher. I of course know that sometimes that such paradoxes do occur and that mutually exclusive ideas often have some common ground, but I am wary of them nonetheless. Maybe it’s my own ego that keeps me from accepting that acts of selflessness on my part are actually selfish. Do I have to hate my action and derive absolutely no satisfaction from it for it to be truly selfless? Applying Eastern philosophy to this quandary, Zen koans contain paradoxes, illogical statements and nonsensical parables. These koans are not meant to be taken at face value but to point at some concept greater than the ideas put forth in the sayings. Perhaps the selflessness is selfishness paradox isn’t to be taken at face value but to be used as a starting point for some greater philosophical question. Maybe I’m just talking nonsense. But then again, isn’t nonsense the most sensible thing of all?

OK, I’m on the plane now on my way to Freedom. And by Freedom I mean France. Anyway, I was thinking some more and the idea that the same trait, in this case selfishness can be used to produce two different results, namely greed and charity. Nietzsche had mentioned something to that effect, using philosophy as a hammer to both destroy obsolete ideas and to allow the creation of new and more helpful ones. One of the things in Behemoth that was mentioned was that the same regions of the brain are used in fighting as in sex. Again, a trait in all humans is used in both to create life and to destroy it. Hmmm… maybe it isn’t so much of a paradox as a double-edged sword.

Moving on, he also said that in order to completely get rid of God we had to get rid of grammar, claiming that the subject/object nature of our language reflected our deep-rooted mindset that a deity presided over all living beings. I dunno about that, I mean I don’t know much about the structure of non-Western languages but wouldn’t an atheist society need to have subjects and objects in their grammar too?
I completely agree with his take on the Seven Deadly Sins and how none of them are really serious enough to be sinful as traits by themselves. They’re basically made to control people. Make them perpetually happy, content, productive and meek. The perfect slaves. I once had a discussion about Christianity with a devout Christian; she explained some real interesting points about the way sins were supposed to work. Apparently, God is prideful but that’s not a sin because He actually is perfect. And since Adam and Eve were perfect it would not be a sin for them to be prideful either (the idea that two perfect beings can make a mistake is something I’ll have to ask about, after all God is perfect too…). So then it’s not so much a sin to be prideful so much as it is to think you’re better than someone you’re not.

The whole getting to Uppsala thing was a real joy. The storm in Tucson made me miss all my connections so I spent hours and hours in Newark and Paris. When I finally got to Stockholm I learned that my luggage hadn't arrived, I had no choice but to go to Uppsala without it. When I got there the office where I would get my room keys was closed so with no luggage and no place to stay I wound up in a hotel.

On a lighter note, since I'm in a foreign country making a fresh start for myself I've decided to change my post name. A nice internet pseudonym, a la Jinn and Bickbyro, whoever they are...


Freyr is the god of sun and rain, and the patron of bountiful harvests. He is both a god of peace and a brave warrior. He is also the ruler of the elves. Freyr is the most prominent and most beautiful of the male members of the Vanir, and is called 'God of the World'. After the merging of the Aesir and the Vanir, Freyr was called 'Lord of the Aesir'. Freyr was also called upon to grant a fertile marriage. The center of his cult was in Uppsala, Sweden.

I quit work yesterday. Finally free of incompetent managers, even more incompetent coworkers and the truly stupid customers. OK, maybe it wasn't as bad as I just made it sound but you all know how work is. Anyway, now that my first job is finally over with a year and a half later I've had my view of the world altered (corrected you might say). For example:
-If people can read, they sure don't show it. A sign that says "CLOSED" in six inch neon orange letters might deter some people from entering the restroom, but many are not so easily swayed. Even barricading the door with wet floor signs won't stop the truly stupid from entering.
-One in a thousand plastic bags is defective and yet some people think that this means that EVERY bag is incapable of holding so much as a head of lettuce. I've triple bagged a single package of marshmallows for someone once. People always tell me " Oh I'm going up stairs so double bag everything" Folks, I've carried a gallon of milk in one of the plastic Sunflower bags across two blocks and up four flights of stairs many a time, I assure you they will hold your strawberries.
-Sunflower Market is geared towards the health-conscious, all natural liberal crowd and yet they attract a fairly large number of right wing fundamentalists as well. Probably because of kosher foods or other such dietary restrictions. It's amazing to me that such diametrically opposed people can be in the same building without killing each other.
-After observing customer food selections, noting the purchases of different ethnic groups I have arrived at some odd conclusions. Eastern Europeans buy several weeks worth of food every time they're in the store, either that or enough food to feed a huge family for a few days. Asians are very big on leafy vegetables and they want them bagged exactly right. God help you if you screw that up. Also, Asians love watermelons, forget the stereotype of blacks and watermelons it's the Asians more than any other group. Crazy. Actually, the fried chicken and grape juice thing with blacks isn't true either. Where do things like that come from? People on the Atkins diet with buy twenty boxes of Atkins shakes and a sack of potatoes. Idiots.
-I used to think that hobos were a victim of society; sad example of hardass landlords, cruel employers and plain bad luck. Now I realize a lot of them are homeless because they're crazy, lazy, violent or otherwise completely unemployable. It's their own damn fault.
-The big thing that I realized that I found the most disturbing in terms of how I had become jaded to the world was pregnancy. Sunflower's cashiers are almost entirely female, some of them are older and are just cashiering as a secondary job. But many of them are young, like my age or younger, single mothers who are supporting one or more kids on a $7 an hour salary. That alone is pretty sad, but it's the fact that they do it to themselves that gets me. Dropping out of high school freshman year and getting knocked up, you can say it's the guy's fault too but only up to a point. There was a point when all of the young cashiers were either pregnant or had kids already. When one of them learned that they were pregnant my mental reaction was the same as if they had said they got an STD. It was only when a married 26 year old college graduate in her dream job told me she was expecting and I had the same reaction did I realize that my job had seriously skewed my view on that subject. "Congratulations!" should be the initial response to news like that not "Oh..."

Well, I'm done with all that, so now my rehabilitation can begin.

Word of the Day: syncretism- Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.

ߟehemoth: Seppuku by Peter Watts. In retrospect it probably would have been better to review both books as one as that was the author'soriginall intent, but too late now. First off, if the sadism was a recurring theme in the first half, it's teeming with it in this one. Yeesh. That aside, this half was much more entertaining than the first, both in it's new world and in that Watts brought back arcane little bits from the first book that give you that pleasant nostalgia. The notes at the end were also quite informative, including a site that demonstrates the relative ease with which one could make an EMP generator. Also on that site is a big f*ing Tesla coil that looks like it's straight out of Red Alert 2.
One of the other things that's big in the novel is the idea that the human consciousness and everything we feel and think is simply a matter of synapses firing, endorphins being released and other such things. Chemicals affecting the brain isn't anything new, but the idea that you can chemically suppress (or magnify) guilt is kind of unsettling. That means you can alter your conscience and morality with chemicals; goodness of heart and all of the things that are supposed to be reflected in your soul are reduced to interactions between neurons. Hmm...
Going back to that baby article I discussed the other day, I wonder if born sociopaths, ones who aren't a product of upbringing but of intrinsic faulty wiring in their heads, exhibit sociopathic tendencies as an infant. Would they not be empathic as other infants, or does the brain chemistry of an infant prevent them from expressing sociopathic behavior? Maybe I should just become a psych minor...

Handy Latin phrases. I think it's especially odd that they translated orgasmic moans into Latin too.

This new study on babies apparently changes all the previously established ideas on how human infants learn and develop. The lingual abilities demonstrated by infants isn't really new but still amazing. The study only mentioned that the babies could learn two very different languages with the same ease. I wonder if two is the maximum number of languages an infant's brain can process, so they can understand their mother and father if they speak different languages, or if the study just stopped at two. The emotional properties of babies I found to be especially interesting, particularly the fact that the babies are highly empathic and care about the happiness and well-being of other babies. If humans innately care for one another then it's hatred and intolerance that is learned and kindness is true human nature.

Normally I'd be against schools teaching Creationism but in this case I have to make an exception. The Cistine Chapel drawing is one of the funniest thing I've ever seen.

My roommate and I used to decide who or what would win in a fight by writing their names on quarters. Pirates vs. ninjas is a good example. Now it can be done over computer. I give you Googlefight.

ßehemoth: ß-max by Peter Watts. I couldn't wait indefinitely for the book(s) to come in paperback so I went ahead and got the hardcover. Oh well, more money for Watts. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, expecting it to be one of those sequels that can't live up to its predecessor. Watts goes back to the roots, which is good because while Maelstrom was good it wasn't as good as Starfish. One thing I am left wondering though is what is inside Peter Watts' mind? They say that good writers write what they know (though that rule might be waived somewhat for sci-fi and fantasy authors) and he certainly is a good writer, so is there some dark secret that Watts has? I mean he's a marine biologist that wrote a great novel that takes place on the bottom of the ocean, so clearly he's drawing from some personal knowledge. But why might all of his main characters be sadists and/or masochists? Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, troubled characters are more interesting after all, but I dunno, the detail he goes into seems a bit too much for mere character research.

American Beauty, with Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch. I'll be honest, I rented this movie solely because of Thora Birch, but the filler in between wasn't half bad either. Normally I'd be wary of a film with an explicit moral to the story, but I have to make an exception in this case. The movie seemed like a darker twist on 'Office Space' with regard to escaping the soul crushing monotony of one's job. All of the characters were pretty stereotypical, which I guess was the point, but they pulled it off as believeable, reflecting the origins of the stereotypes themselves rather than some cliche. Except Mena Suvari's character. Seeing 'Not Another Teen Movie' before I saw this also helped tone down what might have been a real gloomy film. Oh, I don't care what a tortured soul that kid with the camera is, he's so creepy!

Weeds in Bloom by Robert Newton Peck. A very pleasant quick read. Has that sort of simple joy like fresh baked blueberry muffins. This guy has had an interesting life, or at least ran into his fair share of interesting people. The lack of a plot is rather refreshing, like if your friend was just telling you a series of anecdotes. One particular story got me thinking though: is the feeling of guilt the reason for people to adhere to a specific moral code? To be more specific, when you are confronted with an opportunity to act counter to what your beliefs tell you is a morally right decision, is it a remembered feeling of guilt from a previous breaking of your moral code that keeps you from doing it? In the book, Peck and his friend try to cheat money from a store owner. Peck knows that this is wrong but through coaxing of his friend goes through with it anyway. Afterwards both are faced with the tremendous guilt at their attempt at deception and are unable to take the money. So did he do it because of the simple weak will of a little kid or because he had never really experienced guilt before?

Apparantly this blind kid is an expert at video games. Sort of a modern day Pinball Wizard. Keith and Jenn suspect there's more to this story, after all sound effects aren't enough to play a game like Tetris. Perhaps there's some sort of 'House of Flying Daggers' twist...?

I despise math, mainly because I'm not too good at it but also because of the mentality it represents. Admittedly, any reason I have for not liking math was probably constructed after I realized I wasn't good at it for want of a more substantial reason for avoiding it. Whatever. The cut and dry nature of it goes against how I think. The equation is either right or wrong and no amount of arguing can change it. People who love math say they find the simplicity of the right/wrong system to be comforting. I like to argue and debate, be it politics, religion or completely stupid things like whether or not England is an actual place or a state of mind. I find shades of grey more comforting than black and white and the idea that there can be more than one right answer.
I eventually learned to do just as much math as needed to get by and leave the black and white thinking to the mathematicians, but it always bugged me that when it came to physics and all the cool science stuff, it all came back to math and that right/wrong doctrine. Following up on that periodic table article I posted recently, they've discovered that atoms of the same element can be grouped together and exhibit properties of elements nowhere near them on the periodic table. So that means there's more than one way to make elements behave. Way to beat the system! I feel vindicated at last.

Star Control: Interbellum by W.T. Quick. Okay, so a novel based on a DOS video game isn't exactly blessed from the get-go, but I had high hopes for this book, I really did. There is a definite feeling that the author knew nothing of the game when he wrote the story and had only a rough idea of what the aliens were supposed to look like. Star Control II is probably the greatest computer game ever, due in no small part to the rich story environment, the personalities of the aliens and the delightfully convoluded history of the galaxy. I figured the author was one of the nerds who loved the game so much he was going to make a fanfic epic, but this guy had no idea what he was doing. I won't go into the specific inconsistencies between the aliens' depictions in the game versus the book but the author tries to do too much too soon in too small a book. It looks like he was going to build a romance thread, but no. It looks like there's going to be a big battle, but no. It looks like there's going to be some big revelation as to why the humble main character was selected to go on this super important mission (seeing as that's the main storyline) but the author doesn't even give you a reason for that! The ending made no sense at all, even if the story is crap I won't spoil it, suffice it to say it's very hard to make sci-fi and fantasy/supernatural go together, and this fails miserably.

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Very insightful look into Arabic and specifically Afghani society. The first-person childhood accounts reminded me a lot of Kaffir Boy, the major difference being Kite Runner is fictional, though I hadn't known that when I started reading it. That made me realize how much better the story actually was, it's fiction but it was believable enough to be a true story. There were some interesting views into Afghani culture and I realized that some of the cultural practices are misinterpreted by people today. Specifically, there was a woman in an interview on TV a few months ago who was talking about her experiences being a female journalist in Afghanistan, remarking on how they regard women. She said that when she went to greet them the men slapped their hand across their chest as if to say "don't touch me!" In the book, though, the narrator explains that this gesture is a common greeting. In retrospect, shouldn't a journalist sent to Afghanistan have had at least a crash course on greetings and etiquette?

They've redesigned the periodic table. I have to admit, when I was in chemistry I sat looking at the giant periodic table poster and wondering if that was really the only logical way to organize it. Well, now I know. It is. This new thing sure is pretty, and it has Neutronium on the table, (the element I didn't know actually existed) but it's really not as functional. Maybe it's just my lack of understanding of chemistry, but why can't they make a table where the lanthanides and actinides are shown with the rest of the elements? I also really disagree with their claim that curves are more pleasing to the eye. Well, when it comes to charts anyway...

I just saw this car insurance commercial where they talk about "your baby in a chopshop" and of course by 'baby' they mean car. That really threw me the first time that commercial was on because I wasn't actually looking at the TV.

The King Tut exhibit in L.A. Great stuff. Very nicely set up, at the start they put you in a dark room then light up a statue in the next room, gives you that "I discovered it" feeling. They went through a lot of stuff from people around and before Tut's time, including my favorite: Akhenaten. The meticulous care and attention to detail that the artisans had is really outstanding. I gotta say when you look at a silver trumpet with tiny inscriptions written all over the outside and on the inside, (and remember that this was made with the idea that it would never be seen by mortal eyes again) you gotta question the quality of artists now. We've fallen a long way if you can throw a bucket of paint on a canvas and dare call it a work of art.
One thing I learned about Tut and Egyptian art was that the rather reddish color that he and his wife have in a golden chair is probably their actual skin tone. I thought it was an unlikely color for ancient Egyptians to have, but after walking around in LA without sunblock on I realized if you're already tan and you're in the sun you will in fact turn that color.

I was sorely disappointed at the sights at the beach though. I know there is a certain glorified view of California beaches, but it shouldn't be competely untrue. Hit the gyms people! You have a stereotype to live up to!

Word of the day: anhedonic- The absence of pleasure or the ability to experience it.

And finally, my brother's recipe for seriously tasty hamburgers:
1 to 1 1/3 lbs high-quality, high-fat (no less than 10%) ground beef
1/4 cup Worcestershire plus a bit extra to taste (but if you add too much
the hamburgers will not stick together well)
1 Tbsp mustard powder
1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs of your choice (i used flat parsley, sage,
rosemary, and thyme in about equal portions)
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots (they sell these in a small bag at
albertson's; use most of the bag)
2 Tbsp finely chopped garlic
2 Tbsp butter

Mix ground beef, Worcestershire, and mustard powder; let marinate while you
chop everything else up. Fry shallots and garlic in butter over medium-high
heat, stirring frequently until just a bit brown. Reduce heat somewhat and
stir herbs into pan for a minute or so. Collect mixture and add to ground
beef (the meat should cool down the mixture pretty quickly). Mix thoroughly,
form into 4 burgers, and fry in same pan over medium-high heat. Burgers
should be flipped at least 4 times to cook well without serious charring.

That is a tasty burger!

Fantastic Four, with Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba. Basically the only reason to watch this is because of Jessica Alba. Special effects are great, but overdone. Not much way to avoid that given the nature of their powers, but still. The characters were rather 2 dimensional, the only real depth was with the Thing, everyone else just bugged me. The bad guy's name is Von Doom, how did they not see his turning evil coming a mile away? Silly names aside, one thing that really stuck in my craw was how the movie was just one giant commercial for name brand products. Shameless plugs. Oh well...

New Jesus fish. Still no Stalin fish, but that one is pretty cool.

Something that occurred to me recently: at our dojo the vast majority of the students are nerds, either band nerds or Trekkies. Martial arts and nerds seem like a very unlikely combination, but sure enough they work splendidly together. But why is it that specific demographic that seems more interested in martial arts than say preps or frat boys? Perhaps a subconscious instinct to learn how to avoid being shoved into lockers? I think it may have to do with dedication; the hallmark of any good nerd is a fanatic devotion to a particular field, be it musical instruments, TV shows or computers. Your typical frat boy, on the other hand, is rather fickle and not normally committed to a single endeavor. Since martial arts requires devotion and dedication, it would only seriously attract those with said qualities. Martial arts also teach self-improvement, something that nerds, being a lower caste in social circles, would be naturally drawn to. Preps and the like generally believe they are better than everyone already, so they would consider self-improvement a waste of time. Whatever the reason, nerds kick ass.

Swedish is an interesting language. On one hand it's easier than English because all of the verbs have a single conjugation, no 'am,' 'are,' or 'is', just a single conjugation for all persons. Also, the present tense covers the continuous tense, so there is no 'ing' form of a verb. This should make the language simpler than English BUT it's still a Germanic language which means it's still prone to the whimsical rules and exceptions that English is. There are two genders, common and neuter. Sort of like the masculine and feminine in Romance languages, but while they have identifiers in the words to tell which is which, Swedish does not, you have to remember what goes to what on a case by case basis.

So far, the most challenging part of the language is the pronounciation. There are 9 vowels in Swedish and they're sometimes too subtle to tell the difference between them. Ö is a tricky one, somewhere between an O and a U but with your lips protruded out more and your tongue where it would be to pronounce the letter E. J and sometimes G are pronounced like a Y, 'Sj' is pronounced like you were blowing out a candle (does that make it a vowel?).
The trickiest thing though is the tones. Like Chinese (thankfully not as bad) Swedish is a tonal language and there are plenty of opportunities for a foreigner to make an ass of himself. 'Anden' depending on the tone, can either be "the duck" or "the spirit/ghost". There are more embarrassing ones out there, I can feel it. I just hope I find them before I say one in front of a crowd of people...

The Seven Forms of Lightsaber Combat. Quite a detailed list of fictitious fighting styles. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I think it's pretty cool. Interesting to note the different philosophies behind each of the forms and how they mirror actual martial arts. The strengths and flaws they mention in the theoretical techniques are quite similar to real life styles. Form IV seems similar to capoeira, for example, and Form III like aikido. I suppose there are only so many possible combinations of movements in melee combat, Jedi or not.

Darth Vader's blog. This guy certainly put a lot of effort into this. A combination of genuine fanfic darkness, lke the part about his childhood, and humor, like the part about Ozzel. There's just so much written down this guy must never leave the computer.

Store Wars. Like the Meatrix, if you've seen it, but better. Normally I'd feel the guilt trip but I work at an organic grocery store, so nyah!
Speaking of which, I recently noticed that the old fashioned peanut butter we sell at Sunflower Market isn't nearly as tasty as Laura Scudder's peanut butter (the tastiet to date) despite the fact that they both contain the same ingredients; peanuts and salt. How can you come up with such different tasting products if they consist of only two ingredients? I guess the peanuts make all the difference.

Movie time.
Series 7: The Contenders, with Brooke Smith and Glenn Fitzgerald. What a disturbing film. I can see this actually happening in the not too distant future. Certainly the concept has been done before, (Running Man and Battle Royale) but this was different in that it was shot in the style of a reality TV show. The acting was quite believable, I gotta give them props for creating deep and believable characters, if it weren't for that the film wouldn't have had 1/10th the impact. Like my brother pointed out, it would've been so much cooler if the director had been able to make it an actual series. If they did do that I'm guessing they would try to make people think it was an actual reality show and end up tricking the audience like they've been known to do. It would be interesting to see if the public's moral outrage would outweigh their thirst for blood. I'm guessing not.

Never Say Never Again, with Sean Connery and Kim Basinger. Man, the Bond films ain't what they used to be. You need big scary superpowers and nuclear weapons to make a good secret agent flick, which is why the old James Bond movies are so good. Sean Connery is the best Bond. Period. Anyway, the thing that may make this movie so good is the moderation in the things that the franchise is (in)famous for. The gadgetry is kept to a minimum, the one-liners are appropriately spaced and the 007 charm is believable. Contrast with, say, Die Another Day which seemed to be more like Austin Powers than Austin Powers. The only thing I found fault with was a scene where Bond gets the crap kicked out of him by this giant henchman and doesn't get so much as a scratch. Especially when the doctor mentions earlier that he has "more scar tissue than an entire regiment."
Fun fact: Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr. Bean) is also in this movie and also in the James Bond spoof Johnny English.

Pane e Tulipani, with Licia Maglietta and Bruno Ganz. A nice, lighthearted movie. A house wife is left behind on a tour and decide to finish her vacation and continue it indefinitely. While she is away from home she discovers the joys of having a life outside of being a stay at home mom.
It's quite European, what with the visions that this perfectly sane woman has out of nowhere. I guess they needed a way to convey her inner thoughts clearly and a simple dream wasn't good enough. The characters in the story are really zany, at first I attributed this again to the fact that it's a European film but as I think about it, I've met some pretty weird people in Europe. I thought it was funny that there was a hyperemotional, easily angered Italian stereotype in an Italian movie. The ending kind of threw me, but I was expecting a different reaction from the family.

Since I'm still new at this blog thing, I'm not sure what form it should take, so I'm borrowing concepts from other people.
The Jacket, with Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley. Interesting idea. I'd be able to enjoy it more if there hadn't been more movies with the same plot. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy realizes he can time travel with his mind and tries to change the past. Same EXACT concept as Donnie Darko and The Butterfly Effect: Time travel/changing the past/insanity. It was cool the first time around, now it's pretty clear the movie-makers are struggling to keep things fresh.
Here's my theory on the future of film making: either this trend of unoriginality will continue until people start remaking movies that came out the summer before, OR (I'm looking at you, film majors!) the young people who are just about to enter the industry will be so sick of all the recycled ideas they've seen and will have a list in their heads of everything they would like to see in movies so when they are the ones directing and producing films, it will be a cinema renaissance. That's my hope, so get crackin'.