Den sista Bränboll spel

The last burnball game.

At first, you don't think its true, you must of heard wrong, a mistranslation from swedish to english. But its true: for the last two weeks, every day, from five to eight thirty, my student housing building, called the Paratheses, has been playing in a self organized tournament of "burnball", a bastardized version of baseball, each student corridor against the other, obligatory and highly competitive.

People take it serious (and for a good reason...) For the last month, everyday, people have been practising out in the middle ground of the "Parathesis", training their batting arms, catching one handed, and throwing.

My corridor's bats were stolen... sabatoge! A dirty trick in a dirty student tournament. A serious dirty tournament, for at the end of the two weeks, the two losing teams from each division (remember the American League and National Leagues?) play each amidst a hailstorm of week-saved garbage being thrown in inebriated volleys from the balconies of the other non-loser corridors. Trash, old tv's, stinky containters, fish eggs, rotting fermented herring. You name it, they throw. And the grand losers, have to clean it all up in the end.

Then they erect a giant beer tent, and the modest student residence of 300 grows to thousand for the legendary Bränboll fest.

We play under the threat of punishment. My corridor, mostly inert swedish girls, almost lost last year. This year, we managed to avoid being in the final losers game by an opponent team to lose on purpose, with baked cakes, punch and waterpipe.

Our team is called "Kärlek utan granser" ("Love without limits"). Other floors called themselves "Love hurts" "We eat blackeyes for breakfest" "Love for a price" and "Fuck Love, we just want to fuck."

So, lets recap just how rediculous this whole concept is: the tournament is a long tradition, completely self-organized, obligatory, and the whole point is to just avoid losing and thus cleaning up the damn dumpster. Unheard of in more civilized countries like Canada.

We play our final game in a couple minutes: non-serious, enjoyable goofy game as we're under no duress of losing. I'll have a beer in my hand and rubber boots, as the field has become mud after two weeks nonstop play.

Peace,
Rob

Öland roadtrip

Öland is a long narrow island on the Swedish east coast. It’s a last stop for many birds before they leap frog to continental Europe. So, I went on another roadtrip, as a friend wanted to visit her family in nearby historical Kalmar and on the island. The birds weren’t so interesting, as the migration hasn’t started yet, and it was windy and wet. However, I’d like to think that my nerdy and proud love of spotting scopes and the outdoors brought an unexpected joy to my friends, and participated in their self-described rebirth into a healthy lifestyle. i.e., no more cigarettes, sugar and other evils, and hello to almonds and hiking!

Watching seals, climbing lighthouses, mischevious witches and their abodes. We stopped at ruins, old borgs and castles, and large erected rocks in the shape of the phallus (many in Sweden, actually) Öland had plenty to offer our eclectic touring troupe.  Mixed with a some partying, great companions, it was the best trip so far.

 But that’s it for traveling for a while. Time to sublimate mojo and fun into my studies. Kittiwakes and shorebirds from now on.

I should actually congratulate myself in finding the fun in the more “mundane” Sweden. Other Canadian students are flying to the Alps, London, etc., not really enjoying Sweden itself. In fact, I don’t know why many foreigners are here, living a strange apartheid between foreingers and Swedes. Consider this one Spanish girl in who exclaimed in surprise: “You’re Canadian? But… but.. you were talking to the Swedish people!”

Öland roadtrip

View from the Ottenby lighthouse


Early March roadtrip from Lund to Öland, a small island on the east coast

Norrköping roadtrip

I've been acting like a typical "bytes", as they say here, a foreigner who's come to Lund only to be frivolous and to party. I'm usually quite serious, having a lot on my plate at the moment, with ecotoxicology labs, database programming nonsense, assisting a  PhD student on her golden plover habitat modelling, learning swedish, and the constant planning for the summer, all of which I have been terribly negligent after 5 days of  festivities. Slipped by in a high serotonin sprint of extroversion to which I'm not accustomed. 4 swedes and I went on a delightful excursion to Norköping, a pretty post-industrial town on the Baltic, where old water towers and factories are coverted to student residences and bars. It was fun! We hung out with a corridor-mates group of friends, touring some of the sites of the city, like 3000 year old stone carvings, of boats and hunting and bear prints etc, went out to nightclubs, where II realize that night clubs are full of people well below my age, dressing in ways that seem silly.

So, thats it for a while. Contented for the moment with my time away from Lund, and hopefully not going to feel the need to travel around more, like these damned affluent swedes would so casually fly the globe around for their monthly vacations. Me, the spring migration is coming, and the summer sits on the horizon like a warm, glowing orb, full of promise that fills all whose light it touches. I really live an exciting life.

Summer decisions, balanced blood and empty eyes.

The summer is never too far away, not when you have to decide what to study... should I return to Canada to work in the arctic on seabirds, or stay in Sweden to work on shorebirds... For my future, I'm probably going to life the rest of my life in Canada, so, that makes sense, but it sort of feels like a failure, not building stronger connections here... the future is the sum of past, especially with projects like this, so I'm really agonizing over this.

Otherwise, life prattles on as usual. I dazzled my professor with a modelling project on Auks and Seals, he wants me to try to get it published, which is the highest honour for a project. My half brother Jeff is getting married, and will have a daughter in June! Amazing... though, for me, I'll probably never see this niece, as I never see Jeff, have never met his finance, and will likely live in very a different part of the globe. Too bad, Uncles are usually really cool.

And now, some more observations about swedes and north americans: Unlike in Canada, where the signs of a good listener are nodding, showing expressions of interest, and asking relevant questions, the swedes consider this all very excitable and somewhat rude. One should just sit very still and quiet until the speaker is finished. "Dead in the eyes" is how I might characterize them.

But thats okay. I love them anyway. I'm for the most part glad that I came, despite having perhaps the wrong reasons.

I can die a happy man because of 2007

A round of applause for 2007: I did good work at Environment Canada, went to the Haida Gwaii and fell in love with seabirds, worked for the USFWS in Alaska, and started a Masters in Sweden. I also ended a 2 year relationship, had a strange one in the summer, and am otherwise single. Other than the last bit, a great year of professional development and honing my interests.

What now for 2008? I hope to do exciting thesis work in the summer, and other than that, just interesting biology courses, and try to rectify that whole "being single" issue.

I can't seem to sleep.

Red Sea Diving 2007

Went to Hurghada Egypt to do my advanced open water diver certification, over christmas. Christmas hua ekbar!