Monday, 9 February 2015

4 sorts of self problems

Magnus Lindwall tells in his book about self esteem that there are 4 sorts of self problems in modern times:

1. How the individual defines his or her identity
2. What relationship is between individual and society
3. How the individual understands his or her potential and tries to achieve it (self-fulfilment)
4. How well people are aware of themselves and have knowledge about themselves

Nature of self is considered to be something internal in its character - something that is in modern psychology comprehended as a backbone. Nowadays, you believe that every single person is unique, and that there is a value in


Självets natur betraktas som inre till sin karaktär - något som inom modern psykologi uppfattas som en självklar stomme. Man tror numera att varje individ är unik i sin kunskap om sig själv och att det ligger ett värde i att upptäcka och undersöka denna kunskap.


REFERENCE:
Lindwall, Magnus (2011). Självkänsla - bortom populärpsykologi och enkla sanningar. Lund: Studentlitteratur. (Swedish Academic Book about self esteem)

Swedish company won a contract in a British book

A British book on culture that I'm reading for the course English for International Contacts at University of Gävle (in Sweden) mentions Sweden in a positive way.

Authors tell about an American company trying to win a contract with an Argentian customer. They lost the deal though.

The American company made a dishy and well-made presentation to show their, in what they believed, superiour product for a low cost.

The Swedish company made a week available to get to know the custromer. For five days, they talked about everything but the product. At the last day, the product was introduced for the customer. The demonstration was not that attractive as the American was. And the price was a bit higher.

Still, the Swedish company won the deal.

The given reason is that the Swedish company learnt how to make business in individual countries, that it is more than overwhelming the customer with technical details and cool presentations.

I do not know if there is any kind of truth to this story, but I believe it's probably like that... you probably buy more from someone you know, more personally. There are good reasons to networking.

But I do like to read about Sweden in foreign books. :-)


REFERENCE:
Trompenaars, Fons & Hampden-Turner, Charles (2012). Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding Diversity in Global Business. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Sunday, 8 February 2015

Emmerdale

Yesterday, I started the Facebookpage Catscapades, where I can take pictures of all the cats I have under my roof. There has been a need for that for a long time. At last, I can entertain other people with my pictures. Funny, funny! So, click on the link above and like! It's in English, so are you able to read this, you are able to read there. :-)

Today, I've prolonged a pay monthly mobile subscription, got some food home from the store and spent a couple of hours in front of the computer watching Emmerdale. A Sunday as good as any. Sometimes, you just have to do nothing. :-)

That serial, and maybe the signature melody, has something special for me. When I was just a couple of years, my grand mother used to take care of me while my mother worked. She used to watch Emmerdale. I couldn't read the subtitles, couldn't understand what they were saying and for me it was just a boring time when I just had to wait for this serial to stop. I remember the signature melody, the green grounds and I remember a man with sideburns in a pub.

A lot later, I found this serial on the telly, and I have watched it on and off. I am associating this with my grandmother Ida (who died in 2009). Nowadays, however, I do understand what the characters are saying, and if I want text (I watch it at TV4 Play), I can read that too. Nowadays, I find it as a nice little serial, not the deadly boring time I just wished could pass once and for all. Signature is still there, but the green grounds are replaced to house views (I think the old one had more charm, but I do understand they want to renew), man with the sideburns is gone, but the pub is still there (odd... it's England). :-)

Skip the foot problems

Part of  Ge problemen på foten in Må Bra 10/2013
Most of foot problems may be results of bad shoes, foot specialist Thomas Niegerman tells the Swedish magazine Må Bra. He means that body parts we're burden at most are the same body parts we're exercising least. We also delimit function of the foot by using trendy shoes, insoles and rounded shoes, as we believe it'll solve the problems.

Knee-, hip- and backproblems are connected to feet, he says. Oblique, weak or misaligned feet propagate upwards. He tells that foot's impact centre is in the middle of the heel.That's where you're going to encumber, A lot of people are wrong out here, they encumber the back of the heel. It's also important to keep ones spine erected and rotating, at the same time as arms should swing back and forth.

Our feet have looked like they do in 3,5 million years and is made for walking barefoot and to be able to grip the ground. Nature people whose not using shoes do not have problems of hallux valgus, hammer toe and heel spur, says Thomas Niegerman,

Shoes should be flat, soft and wide in front, so that there are room for toes to waggle, Niegerman says. But it is of course okay to use high heels at a party from time to time. It is the every day shoe that influence the foot the most.


REFERENCE:
Hilding Hansen, Kersti (2013). Ge problemen foten. Må Bra 10/2013 (Swedish magazine)

Popcorn - the health food

A part of the article Pimpa dina popcorn
in the Swedish magazine Må Bra 10/2013
Popcorn are rich on polyphenols, which is a form of antioxidant (among other things told to be antiinflammatory). They are also rich on roughage (keeps your stomach to work as it should). No salt and oil, and popcorn is sheer health food, the Swedish magazine Må Bra writes. There is not very much water in popcorn; polyphenols are from this more concentrated compared to polyphenols in fruit.

I eat popcorn several days a week. It works perfect for lunch and they are not, as far as my experience tells, making me fat in the same way as crisps do. But still, there are a lot of calories in popcorn, almost as much as in crisps.


REFERENCES:
Alström, Vivvi (2013). Pimpa dina popcorn. Må Bra, 10/2013 (Swedish magazine).

Saturday, 7 February 2015

Castle in the essay

The book I'm reading at the moment...
I'm reading about Carlisle Castle today. My essay about anthropology was at first going to be about British culture, but I realised quite quickly that I can't give a good or fair picture on just 15 pages. Så I reduced the area to just Carlisle and possibly Cumbria. So, here I am, reading about a 1,000 years to be castle.

Quite interesting though. I though, since I've been in both Carlisle and at the castle twice, I had a good knowing of what happened here. Still, I have learnt quite many new details. It gives perspective. Now, I just have to get all the details into an essay, but I have the rest of the school term (until May-June).



Like Catscapades

Well, I know I've been out only for a minute,
but NOW I'm back. Helloooo! Open up! Let
me in! See me!
5 cats live now and then in our house. Personally, I do not have a single one. But I found them entertaining and take a lot of pictures of them. At Catscapades, you'll meet Miller, Mozart, Nami, Luffy and Robin.

Get to www.facebook.com/catscapades and LIKE! :-D

Friday, 6 February 2015

Group works technically more easy these days

At the moment, I am in the middle of the group work in anthropology, deadline today. Everyone in my group is somewhere else in Sweden, but we've all the same books and reading materials. How to do to get to the point where you have a text in common to hand in to the teacher?

I have many group works in my mental luggage, and from that I have many tricks how to do. First I found out about Google Document, was in a group work in work psychology. Then, I learned the colour coding method, i e each and every individual write in a specific colour. The one person in the group who is going to hand the work in unidentify by making the whole text black.

I have never been too keen on group working, but I have to say it is easier these days - technically speaking. Even if I study most of my courses at distance, I've done my group works at Google Docs in local courses too. Same there. Go home. Do waht you should do when you have the time, but before deadline - of course. Write in your colour. One compiles and hand the work in (printing it and hand it in if it is necessary, most often it isn't, most often the teacher wants it handed it at the Internet, regardless if it is a distance course or a local course - at least my experience tells me that).

Goofle Docs is useful also for other groups of people, not only in the academic world. I have used it in work too, or just for myself. I have Google Docs in my mobile phone too. A useful little notebook where I have written both short and long texts as messages to myself or as complete texts, ready to be used as soon as I returns to my computer.

Thursday, 5 February 2015

Bad morning mood from hormones

Bild på del av Revansch för morgontrötta i Må Bra 10/2013
Bad morning mood you may say. But sleep researcher Paul Jennum - in the Danish net magazine Videnskab (= science) - says its wrong. It has nothing to do with being in a bad mood.

Nor does it have to do with going to bed too late or lacking of self control.

Instead, hormones creates the problem. Cortisol levels are lower with these people than others. But a bit of peace and quiet, a walk or a bicyle ride to work increase the cortisol levels, and the day will has the potential to be a nice one again.

So if you wake up somewhat half dead tomorrow morning, you now know, it could be your cortisol being a bit low.


REFERENCE:
Carsall, Anna (2013). Revansch för morgontrötta. Må Bra 10/2013 (Swedish magazine, referring to the Danish net magazine Videskab)

We are not born scientific

Self esteem seems to be, like many other psychological concepts, like a hydra, Magnus Lindwall is writing in his book about self-esteem. It is hard to get to know and if you succeed to cut a head off (answer a question) another two turn up.

But that is how it is with research, I think. Research give birth to new questions in a higher speed than it answers them... and in that way, we'll go forward.

That is, however, not the way self-esteem is treated in everyday life. Our popular culture sees self esteem as something obvious and simple, easy to understand and is able to change, Lindwall writes, and he describes that the difference is between the researcher's view upon self esteem and the public's view on the same thing is big. Everyone seems to know what self esteem is, but only a few can describe what they actually mean by saying: "I have had a bad self esteem all my life" or "my self-confidence is good, but my self-esteem is not". The concept is like air to us, you take it for granted and is content to use it the way others do without really understand what we actually are saying.

In a way I can agree with Lindwall. Definition between researcher and public seem to differ, otherwise Lindwall would not have written this book. But from another perspective, humans do this, both with words and behaviours.

We are born into a culture, where brain starts right away to pick up what is passable in our herd. We learn the language, we learn what to think and do in different situations, we learn knowledges and abilities in school and in leisure time. We are not questioning what word means. We are not born scientific. That is an ability we have to learn in higher studies.

I think most people for sure know what they are saying. People seem to have a thought when they talk. But it is not for sure, science and public speak the same language. Who is most right?

The River is Ready to Reveal its Ancient Secrets

The novel River of Destiny has both Vikings and Anglo-Saxons, both people from the Victorian time and people from today. Three times are united through ship in shadows, ghosts, horse nails and sound from hooves, through a sword and buildings, and love and infidelity.

I have previously read a couple of books by the British author Barbara Erskine, and liked those, so when I found this in the central Tesco in Carlisle in 2013, I thought it was an obvious purchase. But it was for the shelf, until for a couple of months ago, when I finally started to read this book. It didn't make me disappointed.

I do not want to spoil the book by telling you too much, so I just confine myself to recommend it.




Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Culture is an onion

Culture could be described as an onion.

To understand a culture you have to unpeel it, like the onion, layer by layer.

If you come to a place where you have never been before, a place you do know nothing at all, you probably first notice language, food, clothing and architecture. These are concrete things, they are observable.

Values are also culture, but that is further into the onion. To reach this you have to be in contact with this culture for a longer time, more unpeeling, to notice these nuances of culture.

REFERENCE:
Trompenaars, Fons & Hampden-Turner, Charles (2012). Riding the Waves of Culture. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Few alternatives give identity

Choice... In the west world, we have got an extended freedom of choice. From this, young people have gotten a harder time to develop their identities. More and more are uncertain of what they really want in life. That causes people to feel bad.

But also in private life, fewer choice is a way to go. The more choice we have, the higher risk we regret what we have chosen. That means that the fewer choice we have, the more happy we are with the choice we actually did.

From this, you're recommended to offer fewer alternatives for the people around you to feel happy.


REFERENCES:
Gerlofsson, Maria (2013). Nöjd med få val. Hälsa 7/2013 (Swedish magazine).
Gerlofsson, Maria (2013). Vem är jag? Hälsa 7/2013.

Vet visit for Luffy

Today, I've been to the vet with this little man, Luffy. He was called in for his vaccination.

He followed his weigth curve, scar from castration looked good. And he was really suspicioius of the vet. But all went really well.

Now home again, and now back to my study desk. :-)

Tuesday, 3 February 2015

Word's history in grammar

At the moment, I read a book about English grammar. I want to touch up my knowledge of grammar for a bit. This a quite basic book, really distinct and instructive so you understand. Some teachers are not too educative when they teach complicated stuff, which I think grammar is for many people, so I believe this book can be of help.

The English word noun has its origin in Latin "nomen" (= name). In Swedish, noun is "substantiv", which is retrieved from Latin "substantia", which refers to something that exists.

Latin "verbum" has given rise to verb, which is both the English and Swedish word. Plainly that means "word" (ord in Swedish).

English school phrases (are you recognising those):

* A noun's the name of anything,
as school or garden, hoop and swing

* Verbs tell of something being done:
to read, cound, sing, laugh and run


Word "adjective" (adjektiv in Swedish) originates from Latin "adjectum" (= add).

Adverb has its name from Latin "ad verbum", id est "to the verb" or "to the word".

Sacrifice your friends for a hamburger

Marketing campaigns... all this creative.

2009 came Whopper Sacrifice from Burger King.

You like your friends, but you love the Whopper.

What would you do for a free Whopper?


Would you sacrifice 10 of your Facebook-friends for a Whopper? In public? In ordinary case, you would remove a friend you do not wish to have in your friendlist anonymous. But through Burger King's application, you told, not only the person you removed that he or she was sacrificed for a tenth of Whopper, but also all your friends, but probably all that person's friends too. And that was the reason for that application to spread like a virus through Facebook.

Facewook was not happy about this application. It violated the integrity with them removing their friends. Facebook shut it down.

According to Burger King 232,566 Facebook-friends were sacrificed for a Whopper before the application was shut down.


KÄLLOR:
Anderson, Chris (2010). Free - radikalt pris - ny ekonomisk modell. Pocketförlaget.
Miller, Tracy (2009). Facebook shuts down Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice application. 2009-01-15
Whopper Sacrifice: Burger King's Viral Widget. 2009-01-12





Better, but not the best

Part of Crawla lugnt in Hälsa 7/2013
For a couple of years ago, in 2012, I started to swim. I have always considered med as a slow simmer and mosly I liked to do the backstroke, which was fine in the summer lakes, but in the public swimming pool, where people were about everywhere, it had to be breaststroke.

I swam and I swam, and I looked at all the skilled swimmers at the other side of the line, crawling length after length. Hmm... for me crawl had been a swimming style boys used in school when teacher didn't see or when we were able to play in the water. But for school, we only learnt breaststroke and backstroke.

But the more I saw these skilled women and men, I got used to the idea of testing crawl myself. I listened when trainers explained and watched when trainers showed. And I tested whatever I heard and saw. At last, I found my tact in my own crawling and today, I am not consider myself as a slow swimmer, but if I am exposed to a skilled competitive swimmer... I rest my case.

In the Swedish magazine I read that breaststroke has been the style, schools taught, but it gets more ordinary that children learn to crawl in school.

To master crawl make you feel safer in the water, and if there is an accident, you'll easier and faster be able to move yourself into safety. But the swimming style is also an effective and kind workout which is not being a strain on knees and joints. Furthermore, crawling, and skiing, are the most calorie burning sports, magazine Hälsa means.


REFERENCE:
Müller, Kristina (2013). Crawla lugnt. Hälsa 7/2013.

Monday, 2 February 2015

The Vikings were from Shetland?

From visit.shetland.org.
”Shetland is where Scotland meets Scandinavia, it’s where the North Sea meats the Atlantic Ocean.” “This is where Shetland Ponies come from; and the Sweaters, and the Vikings.”

These lines met me at a tourist site on the Internet for Shetlands islands, a site I look at for an assignment of ethnology.

Interesting perspective. All other sources I've seen consider Scandinavia as the place where the Vikings came from. But this source says that they come from Shetland.

Shetland islands were indeed, just like Orkney island, a part of Scandinavia, emphasising the word *were*. Shetland islands stopped being a part of Scandinavia in 1471, instead the islands became a part of Scotland. Reason was that Scandinavia couldn't pay when Danish princess Margret was marrying the Scottish king James III. Scandinavia had to pa with the islands.

But okay, descendants of Scandinavians have been brought up there for generations, but still, it is a bit too much to claim that the Vikings came from Shetland. Almost laughable.

A fire in my area - again

This time no person seems to have set fire to the garage that was destroyed in the fire today. Once again, there was a fire here at Lextorp.

When i was in Carlisle in October 2013, I saw on Facebook that a garage was on fire at my street back home in Sweden. The garage and some cars were destroyed.

Five months later, I woke up in the night. The whole bedroom flashed in blue. The reason was a fire brigade. A terraced house, about 50-75 metres from my house, was gone. Another one was about to do the same. In the end, it did. Seven families lost their homes that night.

Today, there was a fire in my district of Trollhättan. This time it wasn't at my street, in an area at the other side of the road. Another garage and more cars destroyed, but this time, it wasn't any human who set fire to the building, it seems to be an electrical defect.

At this link, you can find pictures from the fire.


REFERENCE
Dahl, Anna Sofia (2015). Bilar i garagelänga förstörda i brand. Ttela, 2015-02-02

Whole car smelled lemon

Aromatherapy and herb medicine have a long history, I read in the Swedish magazine Nära.

In Egyptian hieroglyph-documents, there are descriptions of how to use essential oils and scent substances from the plant kingdom as medicine, for embalming, for beauty care and for religious rituals. Also Bible refers to fragrant medical plants.

The French chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé (1881-1950) brought a burn on himself in the perfume laboratory, and from some reason his burn came into contact with lavender oil. Gattefossé realised that the lavender oil both relieved and hasted the healing.

Essential oils contains efficacious substances of plants in form of  aromatic, volatile and liposoluble liquids extracted from different parts of plants, for example flower petals, leaves, wood, roots and seeds, mainly by steam distillation. It demands huge amounts of plant materials to produce a small amount of essential oil. For only 1 kilo rose oil demands 2,5 tons of rose petals.

Magazine Nära means that the essential oil are able to influence sensations through the olfaction. It can work at tissues of body, for example blood circulation, get tauted muscles to relax, relieve pain and inflammations as well as reduce infections.

I tested aromatherapy out a bit half-hearted for about 12 years ago. Lemon scent was suppose to make one more alert, and in my awareness people had died of falling asleep when they were driving. From this, I got this scent into my car, scared that would happen to me. I didn't fall asleep, but on the other hand, I hadn't do that before, and I haven't done that after. The onlything is that my whole car smelled lemon. But sure, there might have been some undetectable effect at cell level... I don't know.

That is, however, my only experience from aromatherapy. From that, I cannot tell a thing of how well it works. But it is always good to know something about alternative medicine - as I see it.


REFERENCE:
Trägårdh, Eva (2013). Naturens väldoft talar hjärtats och själens språk. Nära 6/2013. (Swedish magazine)



Sunday, 1 February 2015

Superficially drunk, sober when deeper

The British author Alexander Pope (1688-1744) once wrote a poem:

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sober us again.

What did Pope mean by that, Magnus Lindwall wonders in his Swedish book about self esteem. He answers his own question by telling that Pope might have mean that it is easy to become unaware of speed, believing you know more than you actually do, overestimate your ability and knowledge when you just sipped at the water from spring of knowledge (for example completed a shorter education of human behaviour or read a book).

Further more he means that if you just sipped the water from spring of knowledge, you just tasted superficial knowledge and risk getting your brain drunk, like the humbleness of actually not knowing.

But the more you drink from spring of knowledge, the more sober you'll be. All of a sudden, things do not seem that easy as it first seemed. Appearances are deceptive, Lindwall writes.

And the more education I have completed, the less I know... Well, of I learn more stuff all the time, but the more I drink, the bigger this spring seems to be. An amazing feeling.


REFERENCE:
Lindwall, Magnus (2011). Självkänsla - Bortom populärpsykologi och enkla sanningar. Studentlitteratur.

Déjà vu in course book

Today, I started to read a new book, a course book for the course English for International Contacts at University of Gävle in Sweden. Noticed a bit different proofreading error already when I came to Acknowledgment, right after I read Foreword Déjà vu. Both Foreword and Acknowledgment started exactly the same, identically:

"Since the first edition of this book in 1993"...

After this, the similarities stop. As a proofreader I know, these details, tell that it is the same writer. In this book only Foreword is signed. People has different preferences, different ways to write and express oneself, different ways to think. Proofreader, if one has been used for this book, did probably get the texts of the book separately, but did not compared them to each other. Authors did probably not write the texts of the book in chronological order, and from this they did not survey. Well, this could happen.

Book is called Riding the Waves of Culture och är skriven av Fons Trompenaars och Charles Hampden-Turner.



Exercise without thinking about it with longboard


Picture of the article Full rulle för formen in Må Bra 10/2013
Swedish magazine Må Bra usually report about people exercising in a bit more different way. In this issue, 10/2013, longboard was the thing.

Moa Brannäs is the longboarder in this article. She tells that longboard is a way of giving her a real energy kick. Both balance and strength are getting better, especially the core muscles. And the fitness of course. It makes her for sure sweaty.

Brannäs means that this is a social sport since she almost longboarding with her friends in parks and promenades, especially where you can find some nice downhills.

Further more, says Brannäs, longboard is an alternative conveyance; you don't even think about exercising even if it is what you do. Physical activity and function in combination.



KÄLLA
Brannäs, Monika (2013). Full rulle för formen. Må Bra 10/2013