Sofa pic

Wen arrives in Sweden!

Yesterday night I went to pick up Wen at the bus-station. She arrived 3.20 am after flying Ryan Air from Brussels to Stockholm. Today we've toured our great city of 500 people and seen all the essential sights!

More pictures on Wen's blog.

Dealing with it.

There is more than one way to deal with post-exam related stress.


高尔夫 [gāo'ěrfū] golf


Jakob, Johanna, Frank and me enjoying a sunny day with some really bad golfing.

Ouch... Bad exam

I got up yesterday at 4.45am, drove with my sister to Göteborg, and by 8.30am I was writing my math exam. I thought I was well prepared and expected to do well, but it turns out that I didn’t do well at all. Not sure if I failed, but if I passed it was close. Not at all what I wanted. Now I have to wait for the results and plan for making a second attempt. Sucks. I really only went fishing twice!

This is a pretty big setback for me. With one final exam left I would be able to start moving on, since it would be possible for me to ask responsible professor to give me the last exam at any time. They could even send that exam to the embassy in Beijing and let me do it there! I came back to Sweden to do this, spend the last 4 weeks reading for it, and then I’m not sure if I passed. Disappointing. Nothing to do but keeping up the faith and get on with the reading. I want to get this over with and move on. The good news is that I will probably have a new chance to write that exam in just about 8 weeks.

I will start reading on that other exam, start planning for my thesis, and start looking forward to Wen’s arrival in a week or so.

Meatball Hotpot

Me, Tina, and Liu RongZhi

Johanna's friend LiuRongZhi came to visit us and brought with her some stuff to cook hotpot. Liu RongZhi is studying her second year at Växjö University. Johanna was her mentor when she arrived. She was really sweet and brought us all small gifts from China. She came back from her hometown in Hunan just two days ago.


Hotpot is great since it is easy, tasty, and you can basically put in anything in it. In this case it was Chinese-Swedish fusion food, "meatball-hotpot". Sad we didn't have any majiang sauce.

What do I do?

With my exams just some weeks away and I'm well behind my study plan... what do I do?


I go fishing.

Heartbroken...

I was checking out a couple of blogs when something caught my attention... someone had misspelled the word God as "Ghod"... I felt a cold shiver... like a cold hand had taken a hold of my heart... I kept on reading... and then I saw it... "white Christian haters"... it was him... and he was with someone else...

I thought I was special... that he was only coming to my blog... but it turns out he was all over... sucha bastard.. men are such pigs... how could he... I'm heartbroken...

This was found on imagethief.com:

An Open Letter to "Really", the Troll on my Blog

For the past month you have commented on posts on my blog. Often your rebuttals have centered around the theme of “white Christian haters” (meaning Christians who hate others, not people who hate Christians). They have only occasionally been relevant to the posts at hand. They have become increasingly tiresome and offensive.

[]

But with your most recent comment, asking how much a blow job from my (ethnically Chinese) wife would cost, you cross the line. Probably not with her; she is more likely to be amused than offended. And I have no doubt she would eat you alive were your paths ever to cross. But you definitely went over the line with me, and with several of my readers, who have e-mailed me to complain.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out the comments. Or don't.
Parents article about China trip
The ultimate ignorant

Tina back home

My sister Tina came back from the States today after having spend a year there as au pair. Her boyfriend Lars picked her up in Stockholm and we had a little welcome party for her when arriving in Åminne. Tina has a blog too.

Exams

This is the view that I will have the coming weeks.

One exam the 17th of August (Complex analysis) and possible a second one the 25th (Fourier analysis). My last two exams. Wish me luck.

I study for an M.Sc in Physics Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology.

That's what I did before I started working and studying Chinese. Now I want that degree before I move on doing other things.

Plättar

Mum making "plättar". Tiny pancakes put in a little pile.

Fish for lunch

My dad's hobby, our lunch.

Playing games

Family, including grandparents, cousins, and "extensions" visiting this last weekend.


Playing quiz games. We are doing this quite often during our family get-together. I mean, we are all quite different from each other and we have to do something. Playing games like this is a good distraction.

I was dead tired from working 2 weeks in a row with 2 days off. Got me into a shouting row with my sister who thought I wasn't cheerful enough for her. I've been quite worried about the coming exams and I really have to get down to it to make it. Them math exams are pretty tricky. Sigh.

The only survivor

I have finished the work at the old folks howm. Worked here a couple of weeks, something I did last summer as well. This is where my dad works.


A candle is lit next to this clock when someone has passed away. From last year about 1/5 of them have. The clock has stopped, representing the ending of a life.

The sky is the limit

Scott just sent me following:

I've enjoyed seeing pictures of your life in sweden. I recently went home myself, to virginia, and it was more beautiful than it has ever been before. I've been in cities for a long time now. Standing in a forest, swimming in a natural clean pool of water; I never appreciated these things so much in my whole life. Anyway, judging from your blog pictures, I'm guessing you might be having the same thoughts.

I do.

Most of all I enjoy being able to see the sky everyday and that the water from the tap tastes like spring water.

I rented an apartment together with Scott, WuZheJian, WenYa, Mr.Evil and some other Chinese friends during most of my year at Peking University.

Summer time, and the living is easy

Tonight we played volleyball and swam in the lake that is just 100 meters away from our house.
28 C in the air, probably around 23 C in the water. It has so far been a great summer. From the left is Jakob and Johanna, Cissi with two friends, my mum, Lasse (Cissi's boyfriend), and my dad.


Jakob, Johanna's boyfriend and my tennis partner, flying off.


The Åminne viking-ship.

The village has a club that organises activities and festivals. Among them they maintain a museum and a viking ship. There is just a couple of hundred people living here in Åminne, and people from far away as Germany come to check out the museum. I haven't been on the boat nor checked out the museum. I've checked out almost all museums in Beijing and all major ones in Europe, still haven't checked out what is just around the corner. Wen, wanna go for a boat ride when you get here?

My high school

This is my high school, Finnvedens kunskapscentrum. Here I attended school from grade 10th to 12th from 91-93, then I went to the States as an exchange student, then came back for my final 3rd year 94/95. To the left you see the café, where we spend quite a lot of time. I took the picture since I was playing tennis there the other day.

Summer time reading - 哆啦A梦

Nice to have when taking a break or sitting in the garden sun-tanning. It is for kids, so it suits me just fine :)

Doreamon (机 器猫 or 哆啦A梦), a Japanese children's' cartoon first published in 1974. Japanese cartoons are quite popular in China and this copy is a translation into Chinese.

Doreamon is a robot cat that has come from the future to help a Japanese boy. This boy hates to do school-work and always finds excuses not to study. Something I can relate to. Unfortunately I don't have a robot-cat from the future to pull out some machines from his front-pocket to help me out.


The boy is called 大雄, he's not always that bright. Something I can relate to as well.

The ultimate ignorant

Comment on the Parents article about China trip post.

I do not understand why the west must impose their violent religion (i.e the stupid imagined jesus and his mother) on to the Chinese?

It is laughable to watch all these brain-dead Christians worshiping their childhood indoctrination all their lives.

At least China does not have the Christain biogots and racists.

Darwin bless you,
LEAVE US ALONE!

After that it only gets better. Some highlights.

[] Your website demonstrates the ancient feelings of Christians in the west. []
(I'm not a Christian)

[] BTW, the proud Sweden White Christian: do you speak any Chinese at all? It is shocking for some total ignorant like you to say the Chinese are ignorant. You don’t even speak their language. You are the ultimate ignorant! []
(I do speak Chinese)

[] you will be forced to say "one nation under God" everyday in public schools in the west? In private religious schoold, you will be punished for not believing in God. []
(Not around here you don't)

It goes on. Check the comment on the post for the latest accusations and insults. I should probably ignore it, but I don't have much to write about at the moment. This discussion reminds me of other "discussions" I had in China before I learned to avoid them. Never discuss anything "sensitive" with people you don't know, or the discussion would go down the toilet in a kind of 'wicked foreigner' vs. China kind-of-way. Not a discussion where anyone listens.

Anyone is free to read this blog, comment and critizise my writing. I would appreciate if comments made where somewhat constructive and informative. Or atleast not so damn liberated from humor.

I might be ignorant, but I'm clearly not the only one.

What am I up to this summer?

After returning home I have been working in a service home for old people. That’s what I did last summer, though this summer I will just work for four weeks. Next week will be the last week. If anyone wants to call me, this is the hours (Swedish time). Coming weeks work schedule (from 11th June):

Mon 15:00-21:30
Tue 7:00-14:00
Wed 15:00-21:00
Thu 16:00-21:00
Fri 14:00-21:30

Update(!):
Sat 7:00-17:00
Sun 12:00-21:00

After finishing working I will have to pull myself together and study hard for a month to finish a math exam in the middle of August. Got two exams before I get my M.Sc. I’m a little bit worried about the exam, since the weather here is really nice, my motivation to study that course is very low, and all my sisters will be around.

What happens after the exam is a little unclear. I think I will go for the second exam ten days later, then either receive Wen here at home, or go traveling with her. By then I should also make up my mind on where to write my thesis during the fall.

Parents article about China trip

My parents came to see me in Beijing this last April. When they returned home they wrote an article that got published in their church magazine! (Churches around here are way organized) Clicking on the picture should enlarge it enough for the text to be readable. Only in Swedish I'm afraid.


Det glada budskapet, nummer 2, 2005, p 14

The editor of the magazine has added following text under the picture: "Göran and Mari-Anne with their son Johan in front of Mao's Mausoleum". We are obviously NOT standing in front of the mausoleum, though we went to see the plastic doll earlier that day.


p 15

Update: Check out the comments to this post. Gives you perhaps one Chinese perspective you didn't have, or possible have had too many of (my case).