My first Swedish Intercultural experience

Today, on the advent of the due date for our team project delivery, when almost everyone in class is busy working and writing their parts of the 40 page paper due bu each group, the professor for our next course, Intercultural Communication, organised an Intercultural Lunch for our class and one of her Swedish classes.

About 15 of us decided to go , to honour the efforst put in by the Swedish class to prepare the food for this lunch. I have been in Sweden for close to 3 months and because my class is 100% international , I have had very limited interaction with Swedish students in my age group and as a result a very derivative view of the Swedes, their behaviour and their way of life.

This was my first organised opportunity to interact with Swedes and not just Swedes but Swedes who are in my age bracket and also study at the same university as myself. They prepared a banquet made of traditional or commonly found dishes on Swedish dinner tables such as the renowned "köttbullar" or swedish meatballs, potatoes, salmon, red beet salad, swedish bread, sausages, a dish made of fish and potato called Johanssen's something, herring and much more for dessert and drink such as Julmust, and strawberry cake.

In addition to the spread prepared for us the company was also very enjoyable. All of the students sat with us and were very freidly, talkative and made genuine efforts to get to know us better and talk with us about what we liked, observed and thought about all things Swedish.

It most definitely was one of the highlights for me in terms of my experiences in Sweden thus far. I am looking forward to a few more like this.

"If you cannot find your heart's desire in your own backyard, you never lost it to begin with" Angels in America

Recently while searching on Swedish local television for a programme in English that I could watch and be able to have some understanding of what was occuring, I encountered an American miniseries called "Angels in America". The series, produced by HBO, the famous US movie channel. At the time that I saw this show on Swedish TV they showed 3 episodes back to back and I thought that it was very interesting. For more info see the link peovided. Subsequently, I managed to borrow a copy of the full series and I am in the process of watching all the episodes. The other night I was not feeling well and woke up after midnight. Unable to go back to sleep I decided to watch some more. I was watching the 5th chapter I think, when the angel\messenger (played by Emma Thompson) visits one of the main characters, Prior, who is dying from AIDS, and she tells him the reason for her visits and his supposed purpose and role as a modern day prophet of sorts.

During their discussion, there was one line that jumped out and me and is the basis of my blog today.

"If you cannot find your heart's desire in your own backyard, you never lost it to begin with" Angels in America

To me this line in a long conversation stuck out because it seems to hold a quality of infinite wisdom but at the same time is a bit mysterious and calls us to ask and interpret for ourselves how this translates into our lives. I'd like to take the quote piece by piece and give my take on it. "If you cannot find your heart's desire in your own backyard..."- what does this mean....why would our heart's desire be in our backyard and not in the house with us? Does this suggest that our hearts' desires are usually buried, not in plain sight and requires some energy and sweat to uncover?... the second part "...you never lost it to begin with" the addition of this part of the sentence complicates it a bit for me to be honest. Maybe the idea is that a person may be looking for his\her heart's desire and their first instinct is to think that it is buried somewhere and they need to look for it in the proverbial 'backyard' but after we search through the backyard and spend time and energy trying our best to locate our desires if we don't find them they were never lost, they always resided in the very place they should be in our hearts. The statement could be a call to us to recognise that all the we need and we look for in life is usually resident in our hearts and if we take the time and energy to search in the chambers of our hearts before our 'backyards' we may find the journey towards discovering our desires much more productive and pleasurable.

Views from Kalmar and the Masters Class in Leadership and Management in International Contexts

My trip to Amsterdam

Listening to: Say it right by Nelly Furtado

My trip to the Netherlands was above and beyond excellent. Never before have I ever considered visiting the Netherlands or thought about Amsterdam as a 'must see' city, but to my pleasant surprise, the people, energy and atmosphere of the country was one that I enjoyed tremendously. Holland is without doubt a very cosmopolitan country with incredible diversity and a buzzing energy that makes it a dynamic and engaging place to visit. Hopefully, I will be visiting a lot more soon.

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

Photo of some classmates at the student pub - October 2006

Interesting passage sent to me and I think is very profound - based in spirituality

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work.

She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver."

She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"

He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy - when I see my image in it"

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has His eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

The differences between one and one - life lessons

Life and the universe, I have realised, work in conjunction to ensure that we are exposed to exactly the quality and quantity of experiences we require to help us further along our desired or required path.
Last night I attended a birthday party that I will never forget for a variety of reasons. The party was to celebrate the birthday of one of my classmates. She decided that she wanted to have a special theme for the party and chose a "Tropical\beach party" theme. It was an interesting idea and definitely a change from the run of the mill parties that are thrown. Most of the class turned up after 9 and the birthday girl had asked some of us to provide the party with some of our Latin music to give the authentic feel of a 'tropical' party, which we did.
During the night, other people kept changing the music and putting on music, which in their opinion must have been more amenable to the party but included the likes of the Beach Boys and such ....in a party in 2006.
The most interesting part was the behaviours surrounding the party. There was a group of students from Spain, which in some people's minds can also be lumped with Latin America (to their amusement) and they along with one or two other open minded people enjoyed the diversity of the music and the difference to what is commonly known.

Overall, many people did not want to dance and most preferred to stand around engaging in peripheral conversations and sampling the delicacies and vituals that were either provided by the host or that they brought. It was an absolutely fantastic experience to see how some are rhythmically oriented, open and possess an idea of social interaction which involves heightened social activities (e.g. dance, games etc.) versus the other group that is more conservative and seems to be afraid of expression and social interaction at significant levels. Very interesting and I look forward to learning more about this phenomenon - needless to say they are all in the same age group more or less and one group in southern oriented vs. northern oriented...guess which is which...we are in 2006 but when will people make an effort to understand and extend their boundaries from what is comfortable?

Where the sun sets at 3

Artist I'm listening to now: Nelly Furtado (songs from "Loose")

Today was an interesting day to say the least. I woke up and was filled with a spirit of contentment and for that I am grateful. Contrary to yesterday the sun was out and although the temperature was frigid it felt healthier and better
Maybe it is because we have some free days coming up and no stress to read or do anything and I head to Holland to meet Rinus for the first time. It could be the trip of trips.
It amazes me how the sun rises at 7 am and sets at 3 pm here. It is unbeliveable how the sun, which I have taken for granted all my life and sometimes cursed and ran away from is now something that I welcome and view as the one item that can make a big difference in the day and the way everyone feels. Tonight is Franziska's birthday party and it is a tropical theme so we are putting together some music from the Caribbean and Latin America and it promises to be nice.

The snow has arrived
Thought for the day and song: Se Le Ve ft. Daddy Yankee and Andy Montañez

This morning I awoke at 6 am and my tonsil pain had stopped, Gracias a Dios! So I got dressed and for some reason the time seems to disappear. So I open the fron door to see a torrent of snow falling and stopped in shock. Today is the 1st of November and snow was falling this morning and continued to fall all day. I have lived in 2 other temperate countries . the US and the UK and this is the first time that snow has begun falling this early. It is a scary thought what else we will face in the months to come. Oh well! Today we continued a class with Professor Michel Glais about the competition policies and competitive environment in Europe especially. It has been very interesting but the change in the weather makes it a bit hard for some to endure the long hours.

The end of October

Today is the last day in October 2006 and my 33rd day in Kalmar, Sweden. What can be said about my experience so far - INTENSE and interesting. I arrived to my Masters programme a bit late so I had to dive right into the coursework and adapt to the new living situation, dynamics of the class and much much more.My class in entirely international with no Swedish participants and my exposure to them thus far has been very limited. Those who have taken the time and energy to extend themselves to us, international students here have been very warm and hospitable but generally that is the scenario. There is a certain chilliness about the young Swedes that roam the same school halls with us. Maybe things will change in the months to come. Generally, Kalmar is a small city so I will not attempt to judge Sweden by what I experience here but so far it is an interesting experience because the behaviours and perspectives of the Swedes and many of our classmates which are Northern European are so very strange to me - a great opportunity to experience the diversity of humankind

The end of October

Today is the last day in October 2006 and my 33rd day in Kalmar, Sweden. What can be said about my experience so far - INTENSE and interesting. I arrived to my Masters programme a bit late so I had to dive right into the coursework and adapt to the new living situation, dynamics of the class and much much more.My class in entirely international with no Swedish participants and my exposure to them thus far has been very limited. Those who have taken the time and energy to extend themselves to us, international students here have been very warm and hospitable but generally that is the scenario. There is a certain chilliness about the young Swedes that roam the same school halls with us. Maybe things will change in the months to come. Generally, Kalmar is a small city so I will not attempt to judge Sweden by what I experience here but so far it is an interesting experience because the behaviours and perspectives of the Swedes and many of our classmates which are Northern European are so very strange to me - a great opportunity to experience the diversity of humankind

The Universal laws per Iyanla Vanzant's Acts of Faith

1.The law of forgiveness - infuses the mind with natural, healthy ideas that take away the darkness and bring in the light

2. The law of obedience - requiring that we act in order and harmony

3. The law of sacrifice - everything we give must be returned, a sacrifice never goes unnoticed.

4. The law of increase - requires that we give praise and thanks for all that we have

5. The law of receiving - we get exactly what we expect

6. The law of attraction - brings us the desires and thoughts we hold in our minds

7. The law of supply - all our needs and desires are provided based on our belief in its existence

If these things do not occur it may be possible we are breaking the law

Good thinking material

Welcome to my new blog

check out Glow by Nelly Furtado

Hi all, I used to have a lovely blog site with lots of entries while I lived in the UK on blogger.com and unfortunately it has just disappeared. So here I go, starting all over again.Once again, I have started a new chapter in my life. A year ago it was a new life in London, UK and now I am pursuing my Masters in Leadership and Management in International Contexts at the Baltic Business School, University of Kalmar, Sweden.I hope you join me on this journey and tune in regularly for updates on what is happening here. Take care