What’s On Your Mind?

As soon as I get used to something it seems to change! The most recent example being the latest Windows Live Writer update… I don’t like it when instructions and controls on the screen get so small that I can hardly see them without using the magnifier tool, and won’t answer to ctrl+ … (grumble, mutter, grumble)…

I also don’t like it when changes in software get in the way of and delay my actual writing!

What was really on my mind before this happened was some more pondering about Facebook. (Two weeks of experience now.)

Facebook in English asks: “What’s on your mind?” Facebook in Swedish asks: “What are you doing right now?” I turned language into Swedish because most of the friends I’ve added to FB so far are Swedish. But the Swedish question annoys me every time it turns up on my screen. It seems to be presuming constant activity. It’s a question made for people on the run, using their mobiles. For me, the only truthful answer each time would be: “sitting at the computer”. Or possibly “lying”. In one sense or the other. (I.e. I might be half-lying on the bed instead of sitting. Or I might be making up another answer because always writing the same thing would be boring.)

Another question I never know how to answer is “How are you?” Especially when asked by people one hasn’t seen or talked to in years. I can’t even begin to come up with a good Facebook-sized answer to that one. (Someone just wrote it on my Wall. Again.)

In my opinion “What’s on your mind” really is a much better question to have as a starting point. What’s on my mind may or may not be the same as what I’m doing, or feeling (state of health etc). The mind is free to wander even if the body isn’t.

Right now for example it’s circling around how much the Facebook question really expresses the national spirit. Or language spirit, if there is such a thing? I got curious and changed my FB language a couple of more times. The Germans seem to take the same attitude as we do in Sweden. They also wants to know what people are “doing”. The French, on the other hand, just say “Exprimez-vous”. Express yourself. (I can almost see the hand gestures to go with that!)

In Sweden we really are very focused on what people are “doing”. Health and Work are major topics of conversation in almost any social context, as soon as you get past the more neutral topic of Weather.

When one has no job and does not want to get into details of health, that really only leaves the weather.

What do people talk about where you live? And if you have experience of more than one culture or language, can you see differences?

For All Language Lovers...

I got this sent to me on Facebook, and thought I must share it here as well. Two of my blogging friends came especially to mind... Rae and Scriptor Senex.

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language

Time For A Change

Maybe it was all the talk of resurrection and renewal lately that made me finally take the leap and explore the new Blogger templates. 

Here’s a tip if you haven’t already thought of it: I have a hidden, secret “testblog” that no one can see but me. Its only purpose is for me to be able to play about with layout without any risk of messing the real blog up until I feel that I have at least an inkling of what I’m doing.

In spite of that, I haven’t really been playing much with layout. Since I started this blog 1½ years ago, I have only made one change of basic template, and the other big change was when I figured out how to add my own header picture. And I have been rather happy with that.

However. The world around us keeps changing, and sometimes we get hit by a need to make a bit of an effort to keep on top of things…

Because of the blog name, I wanted to keep to the sea and island kind of colour scheme. I also prefer to keep backgrounds simple, not taking too much attention from the actual content of the blog. But I found this wooden background picture that I really like... I find it restful to the eye, and I hope that my readers will like it too.

If any of you have trouble loading the blog or anything like that after the changes, please let me know.

---

The wooden clock-sculpture with the cat on top is of course another masterpiece by Uno Axelsson. (For more of of his animal sculptures, look in my Blog Archive for July.) There was a sign on the wall telling exactly how old that tree trunk was (I think it was oak?) and where it had grown, before it came into Uno’s hands. I have forgotten the details now.

That cat on the top might have something to do with a Swedish saying that I’m afraid probably makes even less sense in English than in Swedish. Even the origin of the Swedish word is unknown: klockarkatt, which would mean “cat belonging to a bell-ringer”. (We use one and the same word in Swedish for bell, clock and watch.) The saying goes “to be in love like a bell-ringer’s cat”, and refers to being a bit crazy and obsessed with the object of your affection. It seems there is also a German word Klosterkatze (“abbey cat”) which might possibly be connected to the Swedish one. If anyone knows more about it, please share.

Anyway… It seems to me that the cat on the top of that clock is keeping close watch on something…

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle…

I know that most readers of this blog don’t understand Swedish. I just “have to” include this anyway, even though half the joke gets lost in translation…
 
Brother, dog and I went for a walk in a nature reserve in the countryside again this weekend. (It is quite close to where our dad lives.) From a meadow, a path along the river leads into a wood of mostly alder and birch. Here and there there are signs to tell you what you’re looking at…




For some unfathomable reason, this one sign among all the others seemed to be directed at children rather than adults. First of all they call the alder wood a “jungle”. (?!) Then they go on to say that “in this jungle, there are no dangerous predatory animals or elephants…” (elephants?!)
“But if you look down into the calm water…”
 


… Any idea yet what you’re looking at? …*
 


“… you may see some insects walking on the surface of the water. These are called water striders, and they are predators hunting for other small insects…” 
 


“… using their proboscis.” (Swedish: snabel)
 
You tell me! - but I do suspect that the proboscis joke gets even more lost in English than in Swedish, since with the elephant you usually use the word ‘trunk’…? Even in Swedish, if and when you finally get it at all, the whole jungle joke still feels so far-fetched and out of place that it makes you go “aaargh”…!


* Sorry, to get close enough for a proper macro shot of the insects I would have had to step into the water, and since unlike the water striders I’m not able to walk on the surface… Well, anyway - the black ‘dots’ are their shadows on the bottom of the river (you can see they have quite large feet!); and in the enlarged picture the striders themselves are kind of purplish in colour.

In the Jungle,
the mighty jungle,
the lion sleeps tonight.
In the jungle,
the quiet jungle,
the lion sleeps tonight…
A-weema-weh, a-weema-weh,
a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh…

PS. Would you have known how to spell that ? I mean “a-weema-weh”… Another thing I never gave a thought until just now! But I found it on the Web. Of course!

About Me and Languages (8)

I mentioned in the Finding the Library post the other day that back in my teens I had in mind for a while to become a librarian. But when it was time to make a career choice, I was told that job opportunities weren’t looking good.

Writing that down, I was reminded that I might as well be getting on with the next chapter of my autobiographical Me and Languages series. You will find links to previous episodes in the sidebar, below the Blog Archive.

After graduation from 'senior high' school, I had a gap year. (A word I very conveniently learned only yesterday from a novel I started reading, or I wouldn't have known what to call it!) That is: unable to decide what kind of career I wanted to pursue, I took a year off from studies, and got some experience from working life instead. I got a job in an office, working for an electricity company.

Still living at home, but now with driving license and frequent access to the family's second car, my mum's Renault 4:

As it happened, I found that working in an office suited me rather well. So a year later I applied and was accepted to a secretarial education, lasting 1½ years. This involved 'leaving the nest' and moving to another town, and into my first own flat. (Yay!) A very small student's flat, and lacking a proper kitchen, but it was a separate flat, not just a room in a "corridor". And very conveniently situated in the centre of the town.

This education was a new construction, including six months of University English, while the rest of the course took place at a secondary school and included business languages (Swedish, English and either French or German), typing, shorthand (in all three languages) and basic business economics. My third language at school had been French, but I chose to go on with German (my fourth language) instead. The University course - the mid one of our three terms - was not especially adjusted for business life but included all the usual stuff - phonetics, grammar, literature, and facts about history and modern life in Britain and the US. During this term we also still had some typing and shorthand classes at the other school to keep up those skills.

Looking back, I don't really understand when I actually found the time to study. I know I must have, because my certificate proves it. But judging from my photo albums I was busy with all kinds of other activities during these years - also getting involved in a new church, and a gospel choir, and making a whole bunch of new friends there too, besides my classmates with whom I also spent time out of school hours. A boyfriend was also in the picture for a while.

Well. I had no television that first year, and there were certainly no computers around!

After the first year, I found a bigger flat. I sort of outgrew the first one because of always having lots of people coming over for tea and just "hanging out". And I enjoyed that social life immensely!

So much, in fact, that when I finished my studies, I did not want to break up and move back "home". Or anywhere else.  So I stayed on where I was, even though this meant to keep going from one temporary job to another for the first couple of years.

The first job, lasting for a couple of months, was as secretary/sales assistant at a paper mill. I have shared some memories from that place of work before, in a post entitled The Miracle of Printing.

In that job I had use of all three languages, including shorthand in all three. It also gave me some valuable experience which helped me get other jobs later on, within the same line of business (pulp and paper industry). Whatever I've been working with I've always been interested in learning more about it. At this place, they showed me around the mill, explained how things worked, and taught me about things like different paper qualities etc.

A few months and short term temporary jobs later, I got a job for a construction company designing machinery for pulp and paper industry. There, too, I had use for all three languages, and shorthand. I worked there for about a year. After that, I moved on to become personal secretary for the managing director of a consulting company within the same line of business.  I remained in that position for three years (although the company itself went through some changes). After that, I decided to go back to school again. But that will be another chapter.

(The photos from these years are of very poor quality and almost all colour has faded out of them. Trying to scan and edit a few of them, I find that they come out best in black-and-white. There are very few photos from work or school.)

About Me And Languages (7)

Britain 1974

In June 1974, just after my graduation from 'senior high school', I went on my last family trip abroad with my parents and brother. Again, we went back to Britain. (As life turned out, I've never been back to Britain since. Always meant to, but never happened.)

Much of this trip - as so many of our family holidays! - was planned around my Dad's fascination with railways. I'm not sure if I've mentioned that before. But the fact is, before I moved away from home, I had been riding on a lot more old steam-trains than on modern trains. And when I say a lot, then I mean A LOT more than I ever cared to count, in Sweden as well as in Britain.

Still, I have to say I preferred the railway museums and actual steam engines and trains to hunting down possible remains of no-longer-there railway tracks and station houses buried deep in some forest, which is how many of our holiday trips in Sweden were spent! Which basically meant Dad running around a lot with his camera with the rest of the family spending hours just waiting in the car, since we hadn't the faintest idea how to go about looking for something that was not actually there.

But I digress. Back to Britain 1974. The list below is just a small selection of a much greater number of railways we visited on this trip. These are all just narrow gauge railways in Wales. There are many more such railways in other parts of Britain. There are also tramways, and train museums, and...

 

Don't worry. I'm not going to include all of them here.

The Great Orme Railway, Llandudno, is not really a railway but a tramway, first climbing up a very steep road, and then continuing far up above the town.

Up on the summit: If you look closesly at the background here, it is vaguely distinguishable that in this place it had become a tradition for people to place white stones in patterns and words that could be seen from above and afar. (I tried looking for pictures on the internet to see if this is still so, but could not find any. The tramway seems still to be going strong, though.)

These old photos of mine in the old albums are all so washed out by now... It's fascinating to see that my new scanner (bought last summer) and other photo editing software still manages to bring some life and colour back to some of them. I should probably scan all my old albums before the pictures fade out altogheter, but that's a big job!

Me at Conwy Castle on the North Wales coast.

I think my Mum probably did have some say in making up the tour too, because besides railways, we also did visit quite a few castles and abbey ruins and other historical places.

Here however we're queueing for another railway, up Mt Snowdon.

Here's the proof that we did go up, and did not just buy the postcard!

Probably the most famous railway station in Wales, because of the name. (I checked, but they did not bother to include it in my edition of  Everyman's English Pronouncing Dictionary...)

Another Welsh narrow gauge railway.

A Celtic Cross bought in a souvenir shop at Devil's Bridge and to this day one of my favourite pieces of jewellry. It can be worn either as a brooch or on a chain around the neck.

A scene repeated many times on our journeys.

Badbury Rings, an Iron Age hill fort in east Dorset.

I'm not sure how important this trip was to me from pure language point of view. However, I think it did lay a further foundation for my interest in the Celtic culture and especially the King Arthur stories.

 

In Cornwall, among the places we visited were Tintagel (castle connected to the Arthurian legends) and Land's End, but for some reason I don't have any photos of my own from either of those places, just postcards.

From Cornwall, we continued our journey along the south coast:

Brighton: Beach life (above) and Palace Pier (below)

Dover Castle

After our tour of the south, we went back up to Yorkshire. Above and below: Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, founded by Cistercian monks in 1132, and the largest monastic ruin in Britain.
My Mum posing in the picture below. 

The very last day of the trip I revisited the family I had been staying with for a whole month two years before, in a small village near Doncaster in Yorkshire. 

About Me and Languages (6)

Again connected to my scanner (after a computer crash in November), and looking for just about any excuse to take a mental break from the cold weather outside, I decided to pick up and continue my sort-of-autobiography.


For new readers: This is a trip down "Memory Lane" that I began last year, and you will find links to previous episodes in a separate box below the Blog Archive.

 

In the summer of 1973, a month before I turned 18, I went on my next international adventure, although this time I did not actually leave Sweden. It was however the first time I went alone to a big international Christian conference. (I had turned to a personal Christian belief two years before.)

The conference language was English, several mission organisations were involved, and people from different countries attending. The focus was on Eastern Europe, where active Christians were in those days persecuted for their faith by Communist regimes.*

The conference was held in a village by the name of Dals Ed. Sleeping arrangements were simple - camping, or sleeping on air mattresses on the floor in the local school. The days were filled with Bible studies and meetings, mostly outdoors. It was a week of beautiful summer weather, in a beautiful spot.

I went alone to this conference, which again (like the stay in England the previous summer) was a valuable experience because it meant having to be open to new contacts. Most of the participants were from the Scandinavian countries, but all Bible studies and sermons were held in English. (Public sermons were also interpreted into Swedish.) This for me laid a foundation for learning to listen to the English language. I also bought tapes from some of the meetings which I listened to again afterwards. This conference also introduced me to the abundance of Christian literature in English. This in turn also laid a foundation for continuing to read such books in English, and to learn the theological terminology in English as well as in Swedish.

Music is important to almost every teenager. Music has also always been important in the church, all over the world. So naturally, music also played its part in this conference. It was the early 70's, and the Jesus movement brought a new type of music into the churches - simple praise songs, with the lyrics often based on direct quotes from the Bible, and also influenced by gospel music. To lead us in praise at this conference, there was a band from the American west coast - I can't remember now whether San Fransisco or Los Angeles. Anyway, they called themselves The Harvest Singers, and they were a bunch of really Cool people - and nice. I remember spending an afternoon sitting on a lawn in the sun, just talking to one of the guys - his name was Lee - for perhaps two hours, something like that. What we talked about, I can't remember. What I do remember is the feeling: A member of THE BAND, a really cool-looking, long-haired, guitar-playing American young man (in his early 20s, I guess)... talking to ME, out of all the people there... *LOL*

One thing he said, still lingers with me. That was on the last day of the conference, saying good-bye. He then said, very matter-of-factly:
If we don't meet again before - "I'll see you in heaven"...

One short phrase that just hit me, and never left. Somewhere at the back of my mind, there is still an image of heaven as a sort of reunion conference: a place where mysterious things will be explained, beautiful and sincere songs of praise sung, and we'll have all the time in eternity to finish all those conversations we had to leave dangling on earth...

*Footnote: I should perhaps add, that although this conference focused on mission in Eastern Europe, and working against the unjust treatment of Christians by the authorities in these countries, the teaching was not at all (in my perception) aggressive. In fact, I think it probably gave me a better understanding of the original ideas of Marxism and socialism than I ever got from any lessons at school.

Dreaming in English

One morning last week I woke up from a sequence of nightmare-ish dreams, and since I wasn't in a hurry to get up I took the time to jot down some notes about it in a note-pad I keep beside my bed. I did this still in a kind of half-asleep state of mind.

I did not look at the dream notes again until last night, when writing an email to a friend in the English-speaking world. Nothing particular struck me about it until after I had already sent that email off. Then I glanced at the notes again before returning the notebook to its place by the bed... and it hit me:

My original notes about the dream were all in English. Moreover, they contained certain puns and phrases that were quite essential to my understanding of the dream, but that I would have difficulties finding good translations for in Swedish. I can only conclude that the dream itself must have been in English, too, even though I'm pretty sure it very much had its background in my present Swedish life!

Getting curious what the dream was about? Well, part of it had to do with being told (in the dream) to take a course in management, to be able to deal with a new job that people wanted me to take on, but which I myself didn't want and didn't consider myself the right person for. I'm pretty sure this feeling of mine has to do with certain "jobs" that have landed on me after my dad's health started to rapidly deteriorate and mum died. It's all been too much (still is), and I'm not really managing very well at all. In the Swedish language however, we don't have one word that covers the whole span of the English word manage...

About Me and Languages (5)

After my first year in 'senior high school', 16 going on 17, my parents apparently thought me mature enough to go off out into the world alone. They sent me on a sort of educational holiday to England, to stay for four weeks with a family in a small village near Doncaster in Yorkshire.



This was not a family we knew beforehand. It was organized rather like an exchange student program, except that there was no exchange. The family I went to stay with had a girl about my age – she was in the 5th form in a Comprehensive School. I visited her school with her, but she did not go back to Sweden with me.

The flight to England and an initial short stay in London (two nights) was made in a group, with adult supervision. After that, we were sent off in different directions by train, to whereever each of us was going to stay for the next four weeks.






In this village, I stayed with the family A., in a rather typical English house.



Mr A., if I my memory serves me right, worked in the coal mines, or at least in some way for the coal mining company. Mrs A. worked part time at the local pub. Besides their teenage daughter, Lynne, they had a boy of about 5, Lyndon. In the house, on the ground floor there was a living room, a dining room and a small kitchen. Upstairs, three small bedrooms. During my stay, Lyndon had to move in with his mum and dad, and I got to have his room. This he did not seem to mind; on the contrary he quite fell in love with the exciting foreign visitor, followed me around everywhere, called himself my boyfriend, getting jealous of anyone who possibly threatened that position. Cute; but I soon also learned to say one phrase in proper Yorkshire dialect:"Gi' o'er Lyndon!"

Besides the family, I was soon introduced to aunts, cousins, grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, and more or less the whole village. I remember one visit to an old man in the countryside who spoke in heavy Yorkshire dialect very unlike any English I had ever heard before, and not easy for me to understand. He said to me: "You speak like you come from the BBC!" I'm not sure it was meant as a compliment…


Me (between the boys) and some English friends at school

Most days, I went to school with Lynne (the school was in another village, so we went by bus). From strictly educational point of view, there wasn't really much going on at school for her and her friends except exams (O-levels). I did attend a few classes, but there were also a lot of free periods which we spent just hanging around… the school, the village, the cricket field, or other students' houses… especially one boy's house whose parents were away… At that age, however, and in the month of June - one is rather good at just hanging…


Lynne and the boys

One thing that fascinated me about English village life was the habit everyone seemed to have of just walking right into other people's houses without waiting for them to open the door. We never did that where I came from.


The cricket field



I had also been told beforehand, that schools in England were much more strict than in Sweden, including the relationship between students and teachers. My impression was exactly the opposite. The only thing more formal in England was that you addressed teachers (and parents) by Mr or Mrs, which was already getting rare in Sweden in the early 70s. Apart from that, I found the student-teacher relationships quite friendly.


Mr and Mrs A, Lyndon and a great-uncle, in Bridlington

With the whole family + grandmother + great uncle and aunt, we went on some outings to places like York, Cleethorpes (seaside) and Bridlington (seaside).




There were also some organized school activities, like a couple of trips to Leeds Rolarena. In Sweden, I had never heard of such a thing as a Rolarena (like a disco, but on rollerskates), and I had never been on a pair of rollerskates in my life. In fact, in spite of living in this Northern climate, I had never even learned the art of ice-skating. I think there were some kind people who held on tight to me and dragged me round the floor a few times on these Rolarena nights... But two visits to the place was not enough to make me glide around with the ease of those people depicted on the ticket, I assure you! However, I survived, and nothing got broken…



Chaperoned by a cousin of Lynne's (older than us, but not much ) we also on a couple of occasions went to a disco in Doncaster. This was nothing I was used to either, but at least there I did not have to balance on wheels!

All-in-all, besides picking up a lot of colloquial words and phrases and becoming more fluent in the spoken language, and learning more about everyday life in England, I consider the whole experience quite an important step on my way from childhood to adulthood - being away from my own family for a whole month, in a foreign country, and with no other Swedes around.



If you missed the previous episodes in this series, you will find all four of them in the Blog Archive for September 2009.