First I went with Frida to her parents place on the countryside. We were there for over two weeks and also visited a friend at Gotland, a small island in front of the Swedish coast. Relaxing, reflecting, finally seeing this beautiful Swedish lake with a sunset.. And looking forward; where do we want to be together, and how, and what do we want to do? On Gotland I finally saw some real sea again! The Swedish coasts are nothing compared to the Netherlands, just rocky. Interesting to look at but not that much enjoyable as the Dutch ones. But at Gotland I got to experience it more. Gotland was strange, Sweden in small it is called. Flat in the south, cold in the north. And a lot of rocks :)

Then my brother Tijl came by and we went backpacking into the forests. As we both never did such a thing before we started carefully, but already within 24 hours we came back and repacked our backpacks :) Then it went better, but I now know I’m more a cyclist.. Canoing on the Swedish lakes with Tijl was fantastic. We went for a full day and slept on one of the islands. We also went to Stockholm, which was a bit strange.. and a lot of fun.

When Tijl went back to the Netherlands, the last week for me and Frida physically together started.. That was a lot harder one. With al the plans in our heads, it still wasn’t easy to cope with. I tried with a party on the last day, which helped a lot in making it a happy after-halfyear-party. Nonetheless, saying goodbye was almost horrible.

Then I traveled to Berlin. A nice trip on a train and ferry where I met a Japanese guy with which I later spent a day in Berlin with. Berlin was really nice. A good atmosphere, lots of bio shops and not such a busy center as for example Amsterdam.

After two days of Berlin I went on to France. There was a nice park in Lyon where I ate my lunch. And then the wonderful week in Rancy, France. I was there with a group from Mens en Spirit (Human and spirit) at La Ripe Blance. Also a lot of ‘down to earth’ stuff, which is really necessary for a spiritual heavy week :) I could reflect a lot on the last half year and life in general. I started a new company which I wanted to do already for some time, Frida helped me knowing that, and the France week helped me starting it. When I left there I knew I would just start. More on that later via the website and maybe the blog as well.

And then at last, the travel back to the Netherlands. Seeing the Eiffel tower in the distance as the train came past Paris and via a beautiful station of Antwerp. Having traveled a lot, I could finally write destination Alkmaar in my interrail log..

Luckily, not everything stayed the same. People changed. And that is good – the first lecture in Sweden they already ‘warned’ for coming back and you’ve changed but nobody else did, which leaves you with a complete changed view on the world and nobody understands you. None of that, but the environment didn’t change that much. I can still find everything on the same place (also meaning I have to do some room cleaning, still as I left it). I don’t have to do any thinking or searching, I can just join in the household here and things work the same. A very strange feeling, also because in some way I don’t feel a deep continuous longing for going to Sweden again.

In Sweden we had some 8 different garbage places under the kitchen sink, for the different garbage you have to separate. Just a month before I left there, two more were added. Or, actually, one of them was separated further into 3 different categories. Which was a good thing, but meant more space needed. ‘Here’, in the Netherlands, we maybe had something like 4 (paper, glass, compost and the rest), but only 2 of them (compost and the rest) were under the kitchen sink. Paper was in the hallway and glass in the garden.

Now, apparently some time ago, things changed here as well. Now plastic needs to be separated. So, more place needed under the kitchen sink. But there was none. There is the garden stuff and other cleaning stuff. And of course the olive oil… Ok, logical to replace that right? Enough places come to mind. But no, not possible; “it is good for olive oil to be in a dark place”.

But actually I do. Or, I started, I started having that longing for going ‘back’ again, back to my own place, our place. Stings in this household still go slow now and then. Things don’t happen, they don’t change. No experiments. All new thoughts are going down directly because this or that. There is always some ‘rule’ or ‘knowledge’ that prevents things from changing.

So nothing changes. The olive oil stays in place. The plastic is placed next to the cats, not really nice, but ok.

Oh, and it is not that I’m not playing a part here. It is just the combined atmosphere or behavior in this house. But I don’t want that anymore. I want to initiate new things.

Oh yeah, about the vacation adventures..

On vacation in your own house. “Where are you?.. over..” “At the vacation photos of 1991.. over..”

The last few weeks I’ve noticed that I look differently at the trip to school, at doing shopping, at walking in the city. I finally start to see this as normal. Before it was still my study abroad. Now this way to school has become my way to school, this city became my city. I feel at home, I think.

On the right is a part of that life. On my way to school the air was on fire. Oh, btw, another fire that was part of the life here, was Valborg. The Swedish helgdagar (holiday) on the 30th of April.

From one of the first books about intercultural interactions:

Strangeness is no longer a temporary condition to be overcome, but a way of life.
Harman

The portraits of the international students we’re going to make end up in the Mälardalens högskola first. But after that they will travel through several locations in Västerås and Eskilstuna, like the city hall, museums, science parks and other public places. Some nice small rooms, so the visitor can enter the room with just one portrait in it and fully experience it, like having a intimate fika with the person. Some interesting walls in which you have more space to walk around the portraits. Or some places with interesting light effects where we can play with the light on the paintings.

We also want to attach some physical things to it. Not only a printed portrait but adding drawers, music, booklets, etc. By digging deeper in the persons life, looking into their cd-rack, opening their drawers, listinging to their music, opening their cupboards, you’ll get to know the person more, see more photos of the persons life, etc.

More to come :)

* Another post not about school.. Indeed, no lectures this week. Last week they were not that interesting I thought, and now comes Easter, so no lectures until next Wednesday..

It was a good introductory lecture about things you already know but are good to now have the words for; stress is not having a lot of things to do; stress is about (not) being in control; stress is about (re)interpreting situations to gain this control. Another one was the thought that positive stress doesn’t exist, as stress is not having control anymore, about going over your taxes, it is always negative. Positive stress is just pressure. Another interesting one for ‘leaders’, if you want to help somebody with stress, don’t do their tasks, rather give them control over these tasks.

An interesting puzzle we’ve been taking as an example for the past lectures is the following:

You’re lying on a railway track. You’re stuck. In the far distance, you hear a whistle blow. What do you think, feel and do?

More after the meeeep..Most reactions varied from “I’m going to die”, “see your life flash before you”, “fear”, and “say goodbye to your loved ones”. Nice examples of giving up life..

But you can also take a more stress reducing – and also way more positive – approuch. Look around, what do you see? Maybe there is a second railway track next to you? Maybe there is a canal with boats (with wistles)? Are you tied stuck or is it just your leg which you can get out of? Are you maybe lying in line with the tracks? Are you actually in the middle of the city and are there a lot of people around to help? After these thoughts, you can start doing something about them :)

All about interpreting the situation. Look at the possibilities this situation gives you. I was thinking that maybe all stress comes from a too rigid interpretation of the situation. You think you won’t be able to handle this, you think you will fail. Based on experiences from previous situations where something went in a certain way, you’ll judge the current situation and think it will be the same. By really looking at the situation you’re in, looking from other perspectives as you learn at any creative study, you should be able to solve the situation.

Depending, of course, on how much you can do about it. Although I think the last step you can always make is change your mind, change the way you feel about something. Your attitude towards a certain situation.

On Tuesday I went to Mestute, an outdoor shop in Eskilstuna. I’ve been there before and met very nice people. So I went again to have a chat about the new stress course.

Hans, one of the owners, told about the two helpers he has on his shoulders. On his left shoulder sits anxiety, on his right curiosity. He has to listen to both, balance his shoulders. People who try to reduce their anxiety also lower their curiosity. Resulting in walking with hanging shoulders :)

We also had this in the first course, anxiety (and uncertainty) are reduced as you get to now people (or situations) better. But in the same way that anxiety shouldn’t grow to high, it also shouldn’t be reduced completely. If there is no anxiety or uncertainty you not doing anything new.

Hmm, interesting trying to explain this. Learning through teaching..

The idea is to make a portrait of a number of international students including photos from their ‘home’ “back home” and the home they created here. Their own portrait – face – as a bridge between these two environments.

Together with Nikki, I was invited to join this project as interaction designer. Yesterday we had the first meeting over a fika in the student restaurant Kåren. Apart from Hubert ans us there were four others, of which one photographer. The rest I hope to get to know better in their roles here (I know some from the hiking); for the next meeting we planned to see what we came up and to devide the (flexible) tasks based on that :)

One of the ideas from this first brainstorm was from beauty product commercials enlarging a wrinkel on a persons skin and displaying facts about that part. The idea is to encircle the wrinkels in the students faces – as experiences in their lives, moments they laughed and cried – and to link these to the photographs around.

I really like the creative mood this whole projects gets me in again. The courses mainly got me in a philosophical mood. I miss the moments with Roy (a classmate from HKU) in which we just tried weird experiments without any direct goal. I got the feeling that these moments came from all the creative projects at HKU.

The example of the Indian word kal was soon resolved after talking to the Indian students, the word always has a clear meaning because the verb in the sentence, like ‘I went to the shop kal‘ or ‘I’m going to the shop kal‘.

Further it interests me as I like to live more without the current thinking of time. I don’t use a watch or phone since long to keep track of time, I removed the hands from a clock I had in my room and I like to think about being somewhere in time but rather take enough time. It was really nice talking to Frida, a girl I met at the diner of the Indians, which had similar ideas about getting rid of this time altogether :)

But it is far from easy. Other people continue to expect you to be somewhere in time. For example the trains here run only once per hour even with a few gaps in that schedule, in the weekends in only goes like 3 to 5 times and not until late. You have to catch it. Especially since the Swedes like to be on time, 6 o’clock ís 6 o’clock, also for informal meetings.

So I found a book about time experience and leadership. What I’ve read until now is about different orientations towards time. Which in turn influences the way you experience time lines, time duration and how you manage groups. People have a time orientation towards the past, the present or the future. You’ll recognize the patterns;

• People creating plans for the future, getting people with them on their idea of what the future should become, but also surprised when problems suddenly arise that they didn’t expected.
• Other people like day-to-day activities, always know what is going on, continuously check what people are doing and fix problems instead of investing in new things.
• And there are people who remember good all the things, acknowledge peoples attributions, but also like to skip planning meetings and fail to see changes in other people.

And then people mix these aspects, but in general (the books says) you more like one than the other. Immediately I noticed that I fit in all tree groups, although that might because you always like to be different from John Doe :)

More to come as I learn more..