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

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.

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.

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.