On learning a language
Learning a new language as an adult an interesting experience. I have not really taken any formal lessons (outside of 6 weeks of 1 lesson per week when I first got here - which were useless). You don't really notice any progress from one day to the next, but here and there you pick up new words in passing, some connecting are made, you understand a conjugation. Suddenly you find yourself capable of asking where the bathroom is and passing for a hopeless foreigner who is butchering the language. Hey, that is a big step up from being incomprehensible. It is only when I think back to my ability a year ago that I can think "yeah, I am getting somewhere". Because to be blunt, when I try to listen in on a bunch of Swedes chatting, I still get next to nothing. I can formulate sentences by carefully planning them out in my head, using circuitous phraseology to get around a word I don't know. I can pronounce them with enough ability to be understood. But if the answer includes 3 or more key words I don't know, then I am stuck with "Jag förstor inte..." - I don't understand. That happens a lot. To improve you have to be ruthlessly unembarrassable. Say things that you know are stupid, because chances are good someone will correct your mistake and you will learn something. Don't be bothered by stopping someone in the middle of a sentence to ask what a word meant. Most of all, just keep talking regardless of how bad you are.
Anyone in need of an attitude adjustment only needs to move to a foreign nation. Egos get deflated quickly when you go to the pharmacy, ask for some cream for your muscles and the girl gives you Preparation H with a quizzical look.
Radiotjänst
The Television Taxing Authority. Arguably the most dreaded organization in Sweden. These are the folks who collect money to support SV1 and SV2, the Swedish public broadcasters. They are ruthless. If you own a TV in Sweden, they own you. "But", you ask, "How do they know if you own a TV?".
Well, first of all you must register with them if you buy a TV in Sweden.
"Aha!" you say. "But what if I buy my TV abroad? Then I can watch all the TV I want in Sweden without having to pay the piper."
Not true. Radiotjänst folks take a dim view of any apartment or house in Sweden that does not declare TV ownership. They have been known to peek into peoples windows to see if they have an illicit TV.
I am not making this up.
Back in business
Hi everyone.
Well, after a lengthy pause in our regularly scheduled broadcasts, we are back in business after a bit of gentle prodding and an unexpected endorsement from
Okansas.
Last weekend was the Swedish ski- o championships (SM) in Lycksele. Lycksele is the home of the ski gymnasiet that produced local wonder boy Per Elofsson. It is a nice Norrlands town of about 10 000 people, roughly 100 km from Umeå.
Ski-o is fun. I find it technically a lot easier than regular orienteering since you pretty much stay on trails 99% of the time. So really losing contact is almost impossible. The subtlety lies in choosing the best route among dozens of possibilities. In a good ski area like Lycksele, the trail map looks like a spiderweb, so skiing from one side of the map to the other you can choose to go around the outside (and maybe miss some big climbs) or go directly and get stuck double poling uphill on a narrow skidoo trail. You have to make those decisions on the fly. However, once the decision is made, you can really push hard, which for me is different from "regular" orienteering. If I try to run hard in "regular" orienteering (what I would otherwise consider "race pace", HR of at least 160 bpm), I lose contact with the map. Not so in ski-o. You can push to the point of getting tunnel vision and still be able to remember to take the next left turn. So it suits me far better, I guess.
Ski-0 has a lot in common with the annual orienteering race through the streets of Venice.
I really wanted to race the long race (20 km) on Friday, but my car broke down 20 km outside of Umeå. I managed to get to Lycksele Friday evening, but I could only register for the Open 3 category for the Saturday race. So, no SM for me. I did place 2nd in the Open 3 category, which makes me really wonder how I would have done in the real race. Still, it was a lot of fun and I am thinking about making ski-o my focus next winter rather than Vasaloppet. 90 km of double poling is kind of cool once or twice, but I can't say I enjoy it as much as ski-o.
I just found a guy who wants to sell his Vasaloppet bib, so it is confirmed that I will be racing. This year will be more a matter of survival, I think. No matter how you slice it, 90 km is a long way to ski.
