4th of July outta USA!

Its the fourth of July and I'm getting out of the States! Not that I can't enjoy the ultra-nationalism, parades and flag waving (in an ironic way), but two months doing point counts in Oregon was enough. It was no easy job, crawling through the "japanese prison" of wine maple and rhododendrons, stumpling down slopes of slippery debris, and bearing the brunt of a ultra-stressed Ph.D student. A steady diet of demoralization, getting banged up, bruised, waking at 3:30 am to count the old growth passerines in the HJ Andrews Experimental forest. It just goes to show you that not all field biologist jobs are a dream job. It had to happen sooner or later I suppose, as I've been lucky with amazing employers and amazing co-workers before. Some hot springs, treks to the coast weren't so bad though.

But wow, two months to really examine what it is to be an American vs. a Canadian. I had sort of idealized Americans, having lived in Sweden, where they were a delightfully chatty and interesting bunch, in comparison to the more humble Swedes. I had forgotton the otherside of the coin, that with the fanciful ambitions and mental plasticity comes those with mad individualism, unchecked and inconsiderate of others. Not everyone, of course, not by far, but there are definitely a high proportion to steer clear off and not work for (ask for references). In a slight but noticeable contrast, I'd say Canadians at least have politeness and humility as values, even aspects of "national character". You just can't get away with somethings.

On the other hand, I've been seeing a wonderful Californian girl. California, I'm been lectured, is another story unto itself, and why not, given its the population nearly of Canada and certainly more wealthy, productive and creative. Buts thats for another blog; now, its back up to the Arctic!

A brief stop through California…

California is one of those places you can’t help but have prejudices and expectations, especially for a self styled Green, and especially for the Bay Area: from the Berkeley bicycle-friendly avenues adorned with “organic” shops, to the sight of a wild sea otter anchored in the mats of giant kelp, acres of artichokes interspersed with fresh Tomales stands, and the immense scale of vaporous waterfalls drifting down the many faces of Yosemite. so far so good!

There’s a lot happening here, good and bad. Good in the sense of a coastal culture proudly engaged in their wildlands and progressive legislation, bad in that it’s entirely unsustainable. I’ve just passed through, hanging out with a friend in a vegetarian coop, mostly doing ridiculous certification and work permits stuff, and otherwise weekend tripping. At Ana Nuevo State park, I was privileged to get within metres of Elephant Seals! All the magnificent males (upto 6 m long) had left, having fought and fornicated and leaving the females to tend to the pups. Some of the subadult 5 year old males started to have that characteristic floppy snout and head-banding fighting disposition. We even spotted one with a time-depth recorder. At the park, the officials had measured dives down to 2 km, a depth which beats the record of any air-breathing animal, from whales to penguins.

Now, I’m off to Vancouver and back down to Oregon. It’s a border run to get a firearms license and a TN1 Status work permit. It’s ridiculous what I have to do to work in the USA. Considering how easy it is people like Poles and a Swedes, whose differences rank among the most extreme on the planet, can work in each other’s country without any formalities, and yet I’m terrified by what harassment I’ll get at our border….

 

Carry on 2009

Its been a while since I added to this blog...having been a tumultuous month, another new year. We had a wonderful time celebrating new years in Paris. Countdown at the Eiffel tower. Never have I seen so many people converged to one place at one time. My previous record was 80000 people in a Toronto peace demonstration leading up to the Iraq war.

Paris was paris. Wine, cheese, art galleries, c'est la vie! We did a mad tourist dash, not wanting to sit still and think about the future. The highlight was our fortune to couch surf with a wonderful gabonese women who gave us her entire apartment to our selves, and showed us around the city a bit, came out in the evenings. I even got to see my brother en route to Morocco, a delightful coincidence, once in four years. Sadly, it was also the last time I got to see a really good friend from Lund, heading back to the States. Strange thinking she is resuming her "normal" life back in California, that Lund is a bit of a fantasy-land to exchange students. Such is the scourge of international students, so many friends come and go so quickly. Throughout January, it was one after another, a piece of my heart stolen away every which destination they return to, and me carrying on in Lund.

I remember a moment like this, last year, reflecting on 2007. I wrote "I can die a happy man because of 2007", and I think 2008 (minus the broken jaw incident) was even better! The year stretches impossibly back into the stuff of legend, but I recall, as if it were last month, sitting just down the hall, marvelling about the dawn of 2008 and what it would bring. My californian friend reminds me of something I wrote last year: "A heart stretched too thin across the globe, memories too grandiose to believe, mistakes too plentiful to be sad, a future too beautiful to name." And go it goes...

So far 2009 is serious: emotions and missings sublimated into analyzes and script writing. I buy an extra fan for my computer, defragment, optimize and send it humming into hours of computations of theoretical birds in the Swedish alpine. Hopefully, I'll be able to write my masters this semester. It won't be fun, but I've had my kicks in Sweden. I'm already applying for jobs for the summer....

Eurotripping

In scotland on a Marine Biology trip, visiting especially Aberdeen and Oban

I support a Coalition NDP-Liberal government

What do I return to when I land back into the mundane: I never thought I’d live to see this day! A Coalition government in Canada between the Liberals, social democratic NDP, with support from the Bloc Quebec! The conservative would-be Prime-Minister in minority went absolutely crazy, trying to ban collective bargaining, using the financial crisis as a scapegoat. Not having a majority of seats in Parliament, and not having the support of the other parties, he will be toppled!

A liberal-NDP coalition may be a step towards what I see as the most pressing issue of all: reforming our archaic British first-passed-the-post election sham process to a democratic proportional representation, or, what I like to call “one person, one vote” democracy (unlike now).

Despite the high I felt of a united Centre-Left, it was shortlived when I started reading angered comments of (perhaps biased sampling of angered conservatives) Canadians on the CBC. “Coup d’etat,” “Power grab” etc. Many even had the pretension to say we’d look like an international joke when an “elected” prime-minister can be toppled only two months after an election-- unaware that most democracies in the World are made up of coalitions. E.g., where I am now, Sweden has never had a majority government. Rather, I’d say our election system looks like an international joke when a party that the majority of Canadians don’t want (i.e., 60% of Canadians didn’t want the conservatives to win) rules without compromise or negotiations. Most countries have governments where many parties have to come together, compromise and negotiate, while respecting the varied principles of each other and the citizens. This demonstrates a maturity and pragmatism that Harper never had, and its time Canada grew up.

I just came back from Scotland.

The Rankin’s were apparently hereditary pipers for the Maclean Clan, in North-Western Scotland, round the island of Mull. I was fortunate enough to visit these coasts and highlands, being in the town of Oban for a Marine Biology excursion for a week. I can’t say I feel any of what many Eastern Canadian authors of embellished of “returning” to Scotland / Ireland, a sense of ancient belonging. Nonetheless, I did feel I could live there, if need be, more culturally similar than Sweden. I liked their friendly manners and happy disposition. I like not being around tall, handsome, well-dressed people all the time. Seeing the capital B Brats in the Gothenburg airport, well gelled hair, tight clothes, meek and giant… I’m anglo through and through!

Mysteries of Fall 2008

Catch in trawl. Part of the Marine Faunistics Course trip to Croatia, Marine Biology Masters program in Helsingborg, Lund University, Sweden

Animal photos on a course in Croatia, Halloween, Arx and Nimis, X-rays of my Jaw, and other strange things

Cheap is sexy again

My oh so stylish Swedish friend blogs about the mainstream ascension of dumpster diving and freeganism. Unemployment sores. Credit disappears. The nerve of the nation is frugality, again, as it was during the Great Depression. Den gröna vågen gör intåg i hus och stuga...

If so, I’m on the cusp of cool! The air of scorn for flashy bling, a pocket of saved fastfood napkins, and a shirt I found in the laundry room, all suddenly the mark the with-it.

A Spanish friend and dumpster-diving mentor calls it “buscar vidas”, searching to live (she found the sweets in the picture). To her, and many impoverished others, its primarily for survival. To me, its longterm survival: planetary, ecosystem survival. Gaia gives us 2 degrees to warm, about 500 ppm Carbon Dioxide equivalent, until the planetary system is perturbed to an entirely new homeostasis. One without ice-caps, without the Amazon, without the tundra—an Earth unseen in 3 million years. Its not something that “heals” itself, it sits happily and steady within its new nightmarish balance.

There is a bright side to economic slowdowns. An economic contraction, reduction in material standards of living, slows the rate of climate disruption. And I write that recalling the sting of the early 90’s recession--- and how government marine “biologists” faced numerous bomb threats from fisherman during those years.

In the new tradition of frugality, today a friend and I used construction boxes as sleds to slide down Lund’s only hill of note. Its snowy here. Its quite beautiful. There is a sensual nostalgia to the bitting cool of snow: warm smoking stoves, drafts, the laziness of Christmas, swaying craggy trees silhouetted against ghostly snowscapes. I love it! With it too do the Swedes really shine—they just sort of make sense when it snows.

But with the snow also comes a sense of foreboding. Mostly all of my new friends are leaving in January. Oh well, time to get serious with my thesis.