The Knowledge Project, part 1: Being effective

Being effective and you'll do more. And from that, you can press in some more. But not too much. There has to be a space left for pleasure and doing whatever you like, just to be whoever you are.

I am not putting in full time into my studies. Still I have studied about 143,33 university credit points per year the last 3 years (60 university credit points is full time). It means I have done a little more than 7 years of studies in just 3 years. And now I have passed the desirable line of 500 university credit points.

And I allow myself to be a bit proud of my accomplishment. :-D

But I see people around me struggle just to pass one full time-course. And I think, I probably can help someone by telling what I do. So by this I start this series of The Knowledge Project.

Like A Swede in Carlisle on Facebook, so you won't miss a part of The Knowledge Project. :-)

Message of death gave me reflections

Robin Williams (1951-2014)...

I have seen many of the films he was in, but the one I foremost associate with him i Dead Poets Society. The film was on the cinema at that time, but my class had to go to an private sitting at the cinema in Trollhättan during school day. In class, I know it was talked about this film sounded terribly boring. More action, please.

But the film was okay, as well as I can remember. It is not a film I have seen 111 times, actually I don't like to watch things more than once - done is done. So why do I associate Robin Williams foremost with this film? I was thinking about it and probably it was from this film I "learnt to know" the actor in the first place. If I have a look at the films he did before Dead Poets Society, I can't say I have seen any of them.

Good Morning Vietnamn... all should have seen that one? Mork & Mindy? No, obvisously not me. I was 13 when the former came. I didn't go that much to the cinema at that time. And the film has never got me interested after that. When Mork & Mindy came in 1982, I was 8 years old. I do not remember that one.

So from this message that Robin Williams had died, is that you (at least me apparantly) probably associate actors to the film they first attracted your attention for the first time. I'm going to keep an eye on that specific part of psychology. Interesting observations.

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 14: Laid the foundation to equestrian media

Next article I wrote for Dagens Nyheter was published December 8th 1998 - the day after the article about banks being opened 24 hours a day.  Note that this was in the middle of Christmas shopping, so I guess this was the reason, I was selling my articles.

This time, I compared prices of video films in different Internet shops. This type of journalism is going to be my entrance to the equestrian journalism several years later, but that is another story.

Photograph prohibitions are litter to me

Forbidden to take photos... copyright, things sensitive for camera flashes.

Those world exhibitions coming to Sweden... nice, but you're not allowed to take photos. First, I saw it with Harry Potter and now Titanic. I'm not impressed. But I have seen it before.

When I was in the local museum of Carlisle, Cumbria, Tullie's, I was informed I wasn't allowed to photograph. It went so far, I had to sign a paper to be able to study texts and things in peace and quiet at home. That is how I learn. My brain is too much of a scanner when out among people and I am on pins to stay very long at one object. Hence, I want to photograph signs and things to be able to relive the museum visit all over again - at home. I'm not aiming to publish every single photo I take, so people won't go to the exhibitions or the museums, because they have already seen it on the Internet.

But pictures do have another goal for me. I want to be able to go back and remember those experiences that I have had. Maybe because of subject being in question again, or just because I want to. What did I really learn there? What did I really see?

Maybe I publish one or some pictures on this blog or on Facebook. But somehow, I reckon, it could be seen as marketing for them... something that can make someone else to pay attention to the exhibition, and from that, decide to go there him- or herself. At least, I have being tipped on Facebook about things I later visited. But without that status, I may have missed that exhibition or whatever it is all about.

Maybe I take this to my heart a bit hard, and that is probably because I am a person that take photos of about everything I find interesting. It feels good, somehow, still having pieces from the past, and how funny and interesting I see it in the future, I probably tasted when I found my diary from being 14 to 17 years. These days, I know more about and the world, and from that, I can meet my younger me out of new perspectives.

Prohibitions are not really my thing. And foremost, not those kind of silly ones. But but... Go go go... just, I won't go there, paying expensive entrances if I can't take my photos.

Pee and Poo-book, part 1: The reports

Hmm... I'm going to read those two reports from my book shelf - at last. They were sent to me, one in 2009 and one in 2011, for me being interviewed in the project of neglect that was done by the state of Sweden for a couple of years ago.

Now, when I am writing about my childhood, and especially about my time in a neglecting foster home, I believe this could give something for my own development and for the book I write. Just looking through the first book, it seems like that anyway.

My thought with this book is to start from my own experience, at the same time as i try to put it into a context and into the psychology. So far, I have written almost a 100 pages. Mostly, extracts from journals and diary, commented by me as an adult. It feels good. :-)

The book has some peculiar work title: How much pee and poo do the society (you) really handle? However, this is one of the main questions for this book.

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 13: Do you remember the millennium crash that never came?

Nowadays, you can pay your bills in the middle of the night if it suits you, at least in Sweden. Just log on to your bank and fix your bank errands. Another sort of service is the one that we had before, when you just had your bank office to go to, with opening hours only when you worked yourself.

It is possible to write kind of much about these small stuff. The success of the technique gives other options. And all of a sudden, tight-fisted opening hours is opened around the clock. And queues are gone. This article also got a puff on the first page of the newspaper. :-)

But I found more in this article. Also, I had written about the turn of the millennium, that was supposed to be happening about a year after the publishing of the article. Some quotation from the article:

"There are customers who is thinking about emptying there bank accounts so that money won't disappear if computers would crash."

"Handelsbanken has analyzed, prevented and taken measures against problems in connection with the turn of the millennium - for years. This includes all parts of the bank. No money will disappear."

Skandiabanken: "Our bank was founded in 1994, so our computer assists are new and well prepared for year 2000. Still, extensive tests and controls are carried through." "It is important that we, as far as possible, are prepared for problems that could break out if communicating computers at other banks are hit by problems followed by the turn of the millennium. To empty ones account is totally pointless and could put one at risks. A worried person could order a statement of account before the turn of the millennium."

What a thing this was, 1999 would be 2000. And in the end, after all worrying, and all the work, absolutely nothing happened. And probably it wouldn't have without any of that job and well prepared computer systems. After all, it is kind of obvious, but at that time, when everyone incited everyone, you didn't know. Maybe it wasn't that strange after all customers were worried and banks did what they could to reassure their customer that nothing would actually happened, at the same time as they picked some points from each other through put themselves as the most secure bank. That was the time.

Flat shoes for me with high arches

Not that I am going to start running - I've not come to that crisis just yet despite I'm now is 40. But I thought I needed a more of flat shoes than those heelshoes I use to walk around in during days. Last time I bought a pair of flat shoes, I had a pair that tore the skin of my heels away. They didn't fit really well, I guess... even if they seemingly should have done just that. It was beyond chafe.

Now, I bought those from English www.sportsdirect.com. First time I was in Carlisle, I saw it as a pure sport store... that is boooring - if I sa the store at all. Next time, I was in Carlisle, my swimming goggles went broken when I took some turns in the Pool's pool. And a sport store should be a good shop for finding a new pair of googles. Hence, I found Sports Direct.

Sure, some sport-bras followed me back home (never use underwired bras anyway, because I think they chafe) as well as the mentioned swimming goggles. But also a pair of jeans and a belt (which I had for free because it wasn't price tagged and staff didn't come to the cash desk in time - English politeness... but the belt should cost 50 p according to a sign... not much, but did the cashier knew that), some clothings and toys for the kids. Sports Direct was more than a typical sports store. So that was a store I had to visit next time I come to England.

But it went faster than that. English Internacionale, where I used to order clothings, seems to have got into administration. So I checked around on the net, and found Sports Direct. And just £3 for transporting all the way to Sweden.

For me, I bought a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes with high arches (I have never seen one of those in Sweden and as I has that kind of problem, I wanted to try them out). High arch means I can't use boots if they aren't zipped all the way down to the foot sole, and I get a bad pain out of walking much, as the press from the arches is pressed forward towards the toes. So if there are shoes for people with like foots like me, I wanted them.

£17 was the price. So now I'm going to walk.

Jeans... well, they were too small. The jeans size I learnt I have in Britain, 10, didn't fit one bit. Daughter, that is much thinner, got a new pair of jeans though. But shoes anyway.

Ethical animals... or ethics about harness racing

Well, yesterday, I hopefully ended this university course I have been doing this summer. Just have to wait for the result on my last assignment.

But yesterday, I had this //seminarium//, where I was an opponent on someone else's assignment, and someone else (not the same person) was opponent on mine. I think it went quite well, could have written more on the theory part though, but well... You can probably always do better.

My assignment was about the ethical part on harness racing, and the course itself was about the ethics and morals of animals. I have learnt a lot from that course, really. So just waiting for my marks for that course now.