Chronicles of Personhood: May 2005

Carl Larsson's House and Copper Mine

Just got back from a family car trip to Carl Larsson's house and a copper mine. It was a very interesting trip.
I was completely amazed by the Larsson home. Literally every room is filled with paintings, tapestries, furniture etc. that was designed, painted, woven, or simply personalised by Carl Larsson and his wife. It is amazing to see to what extend he and his family made their house theirs. These days, people put up and move in and out of houses like simple shells. But this house was not only filled with peices of work, but it has grown with the family. Throughout the years, Carl Larsson and his family had rooms built on whenever they had the need and the money for a new one. Thus, each room was furnished and emblazoned with the beauty and personal touches shortly after it was put up.

After the Larsson house, we moved on to a copper mine that was nearby. According to the guide, this mine had been used since viking times. Like the Larsson house, it grew with the times until, with the help of modern mining technology, it came to be 600 meters deep. to put that into perspective, that's REALLY deep. got it? no? ok. in better perspective, that's further down into solid rock as 1.5 empire state buildings(not including the antenna).
I had never been into an underground mine. We were in the mine, for a short time, so it is hard to describe how it felt. Mostly, it was wet and dark enough to create invisible corners. Some shafts are have ceilings low enough for a very short person to have to stoop down, while there are also caverns big enough to fit a small house in.
The mine there was not only used for copper, but for other ores as well. Though the mine has stopped producing ores, They still make red paint for houses. Almost all houses, barns and sheds are painted red using pigment from that one mine. It is cheap, protects the bare wood of houses and, according to the tour guide, makes them look like they are made of brick, which was more expensive than wood.

I go now to practice piano and Spanish verb tenses. The first for a piano concert on Tuesday, and the latter for my Spanish exam sometime this week.
So that's all for now!

Google Suggest

I found this a week or 2 ago, but it just occurred to me that I should put it on my blog...
More proof of the genius of Google. or, then again, maybe they're just crazy.

Nuclear Power Plant Visit

Today, the first day of 'school' this week, my class and the 10th grade went to a nuclear power plant, located 110km outside of Stockholm. we went there by bus. we didn't get to go inside the actual plant, but they showed us around and let us go into the repository where they keep low to medium radioactivity waste.
I was impressed by the amount of security they have set up to prevent a nuclear meltdown. even if a total failure occured and a reactor core melted, all radioactive material would be caught and contained.
I went into this trip believing that nuclear power should be used, and not outlawed as so many countries are trying to do. I came out knowing i had been correct on the way in. A nuclear plant can produce energy much more easily than a coal-powered plant, and the risks aren't any greater to the environment -- a nuclear plant basically gives off only water vapor and noble gases, while a coal plant pollutes the atmosphere severely. it is only the memories of the terror of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters that prevent nuclear power from helping our civilization to flourish.

Back From Oslo

I'm back from the Nordic Network of English Speaking Schools Sports Tournament. I went with a group of kids from my school. the group comprised of 4 teams: 2 girls' basketball teams and 2 boys' soccer teams. I was on the 'big' soccer team, with the other older guys (grades 8 and 9).
We left from Arlanda airport at 5:30 AM on Thursday, and got there 45 minutes later. We flew on a 'no-frills' airline, which means that many of the usual included features are left out, for example meals, assigned seats and built-in entertainment systems.
we took a bus from the Oslo airport straight to Oslo International School (OIS) where we dropped off our bags and entered the tournaments. Our soccer tournament went like this:
-We lose badly against a really good team
-We tie with a team 0-0. we actually scored on them, but it was a hard goal to call and the referee, probably a little biased, gave the other team the benefit of the doubt. I was goalie the whole time.
-we completely clobber another team. We switch out the goalie multiple times, but the other team never gets the ball on our side of the field for more than 30 seconds.
-we beat the last team solidly.
We didn't make it to the finals by one point. we would have gotten in if the ref had been watching more closely on our second game...
oh well.

We slept in the school overnight. There was a disco, but it didn't look very good and I was not in the mood for loud music after the tournament, let alone Sports day at school the day before.
Today we went sightseeing and saw the Oslo ski jump, then went shopping and ate lunch at McDonalds.
then we went back to the airport for our flight back, during which -- I thought i should mention -- nothing wholly remarkable happened.
Now I'm back here, and have things to do.

P.S. I love astroturf.

Nordic Network

no time, I've gotta pack. oh well...

Teachers

today in PE we walked out to the 2.8 km running/walking/biking course that's in a park about 15 minutes away from the school. we ran it, and (don't mean to boast) just like last time I was the first one to finish. then I ran halfway around and back again when some of the others went around a second time. Most people, of course, just stayed at the starting point and sat around. we ended up leaving without two of the students, whom we couldnt find. they had gone walking around a secont time, and didnt come back for a longish time, so we moved to a different spot to look for them. Eventually we had to leave without them. it turned out they had come back a different way and gone back to school without us when they saw that we weren't at the starting point.

After PE, Mr. "I Want To" Ioannou, our technology teacher, wrote a whole lot of words on the board and told us to copy them in our pajamas. i mean PJs(Project Journals). at one point, he wrote something like:

investigating / creating.
anthropometrics ; function / llama.
green papaya / target group !

the words were probably a bit different, but the punctuation was like that. Fabian and I decided it was probably the best paragraph in the history of the universe.

4-day weekend

Sweden has a 4-day weekend this week, starting today. It doesn't feel that bad having wasted almost all of day 1 on the computer. Unfortunately, that means I'll have to do all of my productive stuff tommorow because Saturday and Sunday are gonna be taken up by a swim meet. I'll be swimming 50 meters of each stroke, and 100 free. I'm confident that I'll do pretty well and not win 1st place. It's good to le other people have a chance sometimes (wink). I've been working moderately hard at regaining my swimming ability after years of little or no training. In the US (about 5-8 years ago) I had much higher standings, pretty much always placing in the weekly meets during summer. I guess there are moore hard-core swimmers in the Stockholm meets than in the two-team division 3(was it) NVSL meets. or maybe I was just better as an 8-9er or 9-10er...