Lectures in English

Hmm... only today, I realized that two of my courses at Swedish universities have their lectures in English. One of them is produced in Sweden, but speaking English at the lectures of some reasons. But for the other one, me and my co-students are to watch our lectures on You Tube, from Yale university in the US. So they didn't manage to do their own lectures... hmm...

But for you, if you are an EU citizen, you may be able to study some classes online at Swedish universities. It's free for EU citizen except for the books. Just a tip. :-)

The Knowledge Project, part 2: Erase, erase, erase... your planning

The picture shows a key role in my studies. Around 14 meter shelves, most often overcrowded from current literature, study literature, magazines and some books/magazines in line for me reading them. And a crossword magazine. At the top of the shelves, I have put two whiteboards on the wall. On those, I write what to be done week for week, 2 weeks at a time.

Each thing done, I rub out, and to rub things out is extremely fun. Or maybe not... but you have to persuade yourself with that. Your brain wants to do more of what it has been rewarded for; the thing is to reward when you do what you planned to do.

But a brain do not demand same sort of rewards as you do. It is easy to fool, and is able to be fooled to think the most fun thing ever is to rubs out things from a whiteboard. Well, you have to eagerly tell yourself that and hence the brain will accept it after awhile.

But the whiteboards aren't the only place I am rubbing things out from. I also have a Google calendar, where I place the long-term planning, and from where I fetch the information I put up on the whiteboards. Also here, I am allowed to rub out things when they are done.

Biology - a new subject in my folder

Yesterday, I was accepted to a new course, Evolutionary Biology. One of the questions of the course: why are we being sick at all?

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.