2002-05-08 Onsdag

Our party was amazing.

Things started to improve on Wednesday morning when the stereo equipment came. A "ljud och ljus" (sound and light) company delivered these big black crates to the korridor. Martin and I were the only ones home so it was up to us to lug the stuff up into the korridor.

When it was all set up and some korridor-mates got home, they looked at our newfound stereo equipment with eyes full of wonder. Rikard ran and got some CD's, and we sat there in the kitchen studying and enjoying the wonder of amplified sound. We opened the balcony door to project the sound out into the courtyard.

Then I ran off to take the exam for SAS 106. My studying had amounted to reading some articles about the EU, including some very interesting views of Swedish national character. My heart really wasn't into it, though, so my studying didn't amount to much. I didn't expect the exam to be very difficult, and, indeed, it wasn't. We were all releived to see three relatively familiar questions, from which we could choose two to answer. For completeness I include the questions here:

1. The most characteristic trait of the Swedish welfare state up till the 1950s was its universality. Discuss what this concept means, on which solical political fields a universal welfare was accomplished, and the reasons why Sweden entered on the path of universal benefits.

2. In the literature on welfare state research, Swedn often comes out as a model for gender equality. Describe on which parameters researchers claim that Sweden is more gender equal than most other countries, and evaluate the explanations on why Sweden developed into a model for gender equality.

3. Until WWII Sweden was rather homogenous in its ethnical composition. This changed after the war because of immigration. Describe the different stages of immigration into Sweden after WWII and why they occurred. Try also to evaluate the effects of large scfale immigration on the inherited welfare state.

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``The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.'' Cameron Crowe, Almost Famous

If I had to decide right now my plans for the rest of the year, I'd go home. I mean, in August. Leave Sweden behind. Go back to Berkeley and finish. Live in a co-op. Meet people. Finish.

I'm annoyed at my korridor. We're having a huge party tomorrow (today) and it was supposed to include a sittning, an organised three-course dinner with all of us korridor-mates and our friends. But our korridor totally flaked out. People didn't sign up, because there were too few people signed up. There's a self-fulfilling prophesy if there ever was one. Then they began jumping ship and signing up for the sittnings in other korridors.

I'm giving up too. I think I'm going to go to the karnival workers' party at Krischansta instead. Out of disgust really. Normally I'll hang on to the very end, doing my part to help organised endeavors succeed. Jessica says I'm a "trooper". Usually, yes. I try. But there's a time to throw in the towel.

Since I've already launched this gripe, I'd like to additionally complain that our korridor has more than three times as many guys as girls.

I'm ready to move to Israel. I'm ready for a new group of people, excited and eager. A new group of people to impress, people who might find me interesting. I'm going to have a roommate. We're going to get a stereo. I'm going to institute some Swedish traditions. We're going to fika on Sundays. Bake things on Tuesdays. Or something. Put up posters of Göran Persson. Swedish traditions we didn't do in Sweden.

Tonight I was over at Rose's with her mom and brother who are visiting. We looked through Rose's pictures from the summertime. I looked so happy and excited in the pictures. Even younger. It seems like the last semester has been somewhat superfluous. Of course it hasn't been, but most of the outright excitement occurred during the summer. I spend a disturbing amount of time in my room. I have no strong Swedish friends. Or of any other nationality for that matter.

Why have I planned to stay here longer? The reasons aren't good ones. I'm trying to prove something, but I don't know what. I'm trying to finish something, but I'm not sure sure what that is either. I'm trying to run away and learn something about myself, and I don't want to return until I learn it. A sabbatical from reality. How much of my life is the way it is because of the way I am and how much of it is due to the environment in which I reside?

That last question I've answered: the place has little to do with it. My life has settled down into patterns very much like in Berkeley. Or, for that matter, any time and place before that. When I was eleven I ran around asking my relatives to write stories on index cards; at twice that age I'm still running around begging people to write down their stories. What drives me to do these things?

What am I trying to prove by avoiding going home? I really don't know. That I'm in some way stronger? Some weird desire to be exceptional? No, that's not it. Not really.

Sure, the new environment provides an impulse of novelty, but pretty soon things converge to the normal course. The flip side of independence is isolation, isolation which leads to a creeping, desperate lonliness. I want to sleep in the kitchen just to be near people.

So I'm ready to move to Israel. Meet a new group of people and impress them with the places I've been and the things I've done and have them think I'm interesting for a spell. I hate living life by resume; I'd rather just be interesting. When I meet people at parties they don't bother to say goodbye when they leave.

In some ways leaving Sweden is disturbingly similar to coming here in the first place. Sometimes I liked to think that I left the U.S. in "disgust". Not for the country, but for certain people and certain circumstances. That's not at all the way it really was -- I decided to come to Sweden more than a year before I actually embarked. I left for Sweden a bit upset at the ruts my life had fallen into in Berkeley, looking for a more social life, looking for adventure and new experiences. It worked for awhile, but it's easy to fall into the same old grooves. I don't mean to say that those grooves are all bad, either -- I just want to know that I'm capable of other things; that I live the life I do out of deliberate choice.

I don't ever want to think that I left Sweden in disgust. I want to leave Sweden when I feel that I am ready. The thing is, I don't know what that will take. What does it take to address nagging insecurities?

I look forward to Israel to have a hardcore job in real research where I can work long hours in the lab, working on real problems long into the night. Maybe that's what it takes. Being useful. Being productive.

How long do you try to make things perfect before you just give up with "good enough"? That's the real question when I ask whether I want to stay here in Sweden.