after 2 months...

• A1 term almost finished
• 5 roundtrips between Stockholm and Jönköping
• better understanding of basic Swedish
• dramatic improvement in teckenspråk
• biked countless kilometres
• 2 computer mishaps (virus & mis-installation of linux)
• improved capability of getting around in Stockholm on my own :)
• diminished english skills :(
• met many new swedish people

Yeah, today (october 16th), I've been away from Canada for 2 months... and it doesnt feel like 2 months... time has gone by too fast!... Looking back two months, I've realized that I've gone through the "oh okay, I am supposed to do that" and "oh, I should not do that?" phase. I feel that I've learned everything I need to know about living here, but of course everybody will tell me that one never stop learning in his/her lifetime... what I really meant was, I feel that I have gained much better understanding in the social, law, political, academic facets of swedish life/culture. Everyday, I feel like I say "oh i see" less in my mind...
In other words, I am beginning to feel like home despite the fact I don't have all of the luxuries here that I have in Cambridge :)

What I expect from myself for the next two months is -

• have a job
• study more (as my courses in A2 term will be much more difficult)
• see much more improvement in my written swedish
• possibly travel to another country at least once? I should take advantage of ryanair.com!!
• have more people thinking I'm actually a Swedish by my teckenspråk :)

Hopefully by December 16th, I can look back and say I've achieved all of these expectations I have placed upon myself.

Anyway, here's whats up with me so far... I've been in Jönköping for a week now... I will be going back to Stockholm this tuesday morning since for next week I only have classes on monday and nothing for the rest of the week... also, this monday is my last day of regular classes before I take exams for the A1 term. I forgot my shaving razors in Stockholm, and before I left Stockholm I hadn't shaved for like a week, so yeah its been 2 weeks so far :) I'm developing this so-called beard and my neck is constantly itchy :( I can't wait to go back to Stockholm and shave! :)

In the past week I've ran for 6-7km twice, biked total of 60km... 30 km in a single day once... this might be nothing to some of you guys but my legs feels like huge pieces of rubber flopping around now :) I hope to keep up my exercise regime since you all know how much free time I have here... It's funny, in Stockholm, there is not many deaf people with my size... I've seen probably 2 or 3... and when I tell someone that I just ran for 6km, and they will say "YOU?!?"... I don't think they have ever seen someone like me run that far... :)

Yesterday, I made this nice dinner... a wok mixed with chopped chicken this medley of vegetables including green & red pepper, green beans, broccoli, onions and then sweet & sour sauce to top it off... my roommate from Ghana, Kingsley, saw what I made and asked me if I could teach him how to make it today... Of course, I was willing to do so,... he was so excited learning how to make different food... his daily meals always had pork and rice everday...
I was curious and asked him, who does the cooking at his home in Ghana?... turns out he has a wife and a daughter... he said that in Ghana its his job to provide the money, everything else the Wife does... childbearing, cooking, cleaning and everything else... heh... Although, he has admitted that he realizes that this generation is changing so he occasionally helps out in the kitchen with his wife but his society basically frowns on that. He owned a communications business in Ghana, but he wanted to pursue a Masters degree so he decided to come to Sweden for his Masters so his business can benefit from more education.

hmm... last week I realized something,... when I talk with Elisabet and there is some people around or everybody else other than Elisabet in Stockholm I always use teckenspråk, nothing else... but when Elisabet and I are alone or when we talk about something really important, we always revere to ASL... it's only first language, its the language we gain most understanding from eachother... but there was this one time late in the night, Elisabet and I was discussing about.. uh.. i dont remember the topic... but it was important... we talked in ASL but my swedish signs tried to take over ASL, I was actually thinking in English but expressing in Swedish signs... I wondered if this was the beginning of a transformation since teckenspråk is becoming a less of struggle everyday for me.... although being in Jönköping doesn't help since theres no deaf people around here and of course I always use ASL with Marcia and Laura otherwise they will kill me :) But, yeah... I'm hoping that I can evolve from being too dependable on ASL into being able to switch to both language at my own natural will given appropriate time, place and person. Although I don't think this transformation will happen anytime soon.

Anyway, I guess thats all... I still don't have WindowsXP... and am struggling with Linux, the new operating system is a learning experience for me :) I figured in my field of profession I should be open to all computing aspects... hopefully one day I will have 3 computers devoted to windows, mac, linux :)... would be fun eh?... ah thats the geeky side of me talking now :)

ok, shutting up now :) see ya all later...
bg0ur3

the long-awaited post

*sigh* I know there have not been new posts lately... but at least theres one now :)

I can't really remember everything that happened since my last post but I'll do my best to recall them. Oh yeah I said something about the difficulty of me understanding Swedish, I just thought I have something else interesting.... recently I realized that in English, we use the word "for" often, when simply translated into swedish it means "för" but it can also mean "till" or "åt".

"I will buy a drink for you" = In swedish, they use "till" instead of "for" essentially saying "I will buy a drink to you"
"Can you drop off Billy for me?" = In Swedish, they use "åt" instead of "for", I'm not 100% clear on why "åt" is used...
"Thanks for loaning me the money" = In this case, "för" is used. (I think?... you swedes who read this blog, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

buy my point, you can see how confusing it is... I'm sure from Swedes' perspective English has some unnecessary words that confuses them when compared to their native Swedish :)

Anyway enough with the swedish :)....like I said before my school schedule is sooooo light, I'm used to a heavy academic schedule and working 30-40 hours a week with just few hours left to do homework and being tired everynight... right now I just have maybe 6-8 hours worth of classes during the week and almost never get any homework to do (but of course theres always lots of heavy reading) I feel that my time here is being wasted.... so yeah I've started job hunting... I got in touch with this company, Omnitor (www.omnitor.se) there is an english version of that page, just click on the United Kingdom flag... anyway, that company works with videophone technology, somewhat similar to what Sorenson is doing right now. The boss there were intrigued by my email and wanted to meet me on the next day, so I did... I don't know if I would call it an interview but it was a very informal meeting and I think it was the first time I've ever tried a full hour-long conversation in teckenspråk (swedish sign) with a hearing person who signs swedish.... you all know how it is harder to understand a hearing person signing ASL (if they arent an interpreter) in Canada or USA, imagine me with a swedish man :) but I think the meeting went smoothly.... he needs someone to work as a Project Assistant or some Java programmer... I told him I would be very interested working with him on a part-time basis. Hopefully everything works out well soon.

Last weekend, Elisabet and I went to Elisabet's friend Cissi's 25th birthday party. Her birthday was actually in January but she didnt have a party so she decided to host it last weekend... Yeah, in Sweden, people who turns 25 years old (or any other age but more often when 25) tend to host their own birthday party... that's something that we don't see often in Canada unless I'm missing something? :p The party was full of women but yeah there was few guys there too...Cissi decided that the party would be more fun with formal attire... I don't know if it was more fun that way but everybody sure looked nice heh... maybe for my 25th birthday party I'll make tuxedos mandatory ;) Anyway, here's a picture of me and Elisabet at the party.

On the next day Elisabet and I went to a Theatre in KTH, a university theatre, there were 5 actors - all deaf - there was also like 150 deaf people in the audience watching the play. The play was pretty good but it had some "uhhh?" moments :)... probably because I didn't understand it 100%, of course the actors signed in Swedish but I understood the overall story plot... it's about an alcoholic father trying to hide his habit from his family, a passive and over-accepting wife, a son struggling with his homosexuality identity and another son who is over burdened with the responsiblity of keeping the family together and keeping his father's business intact. The play had some moments that included some sign language in unison that cannot simply be sufficently explained in English, so remember to ask me about the play when you see me in person next time :) After the play, I rushed to Centralen and caught my bus to Jönköping with just 10 minutes to spare :p

Now, I'm back in Jönköping, and since I had some extra time I decided to experiment with Linux, I created a dual boot with my PC but stupid me, I made my WindowsXP parition inactive so after I installed Fedora 4.0 I can't boot up WindowsXP now, I'm stuck with Linux for now... I hope Laing will come online soon so he can send me some files that I need to fix my computer! :)

I had just one class last monday and will have just one more class this week, this friday... then just 2 or 3 classes on monday and tuesday next week before my A1 term is finished then focus on studying for the exams... actually I've been doing some extra studying lately because I have no idea what Sweden exams' expectations are like and I don't intend to disappoint anybody :)... yeah, I've seen some old exams but still, I prefer to continue some extra studying until I am more comfortable about what the expectation level the teachers has on us when we write exams. Tomorrow, I'll bike to the school and study there, try to finish up all of my macroeconomics textbook, 7 chapters to go :).... oh yeah, did I mention that I have a bike here now?... Elisabet lent me her bike... made my life easier without having to pay for the bus and giving me some well-deserved exercise :).

Dad and Andrew told me that theres been some mini-heat wave in southwest ontario? temperature in high 20s?... I haven't seen any days warmer than 15c since the first or second week of September :)... and I like it that way... I need a break from Ontario's infamous humidity eh!

Allrighty, enough for now :), have fun...

bg0ur3

swedish/svenska

Hello again,

Just thought I'd type up something to pass the time.

The A1 (first part of the semester) is approaching faster than I thought, my final exams are coming up in few weeks which means I have to start studying which is what I'll be doing tomorrow. I'm seriously looking forward to October 28th, when I take the final exam for my Macroeconomics class... because after that exam, I will not have any more math-related classes for my remaining time in Jönköping AND Ryerson :)... and my classes will (should) be much more fun and interesting after November.

Yesterday, Elisabet and I went to watch few deaf ice hockey games between stockholm, örebro and finland, Finland was the better team yestserday winning both of their games. Then later on the night, we went to the deaf house (club), many deaf people went.... met lots of new people... it was fun.

You know what's the hardest part for me learning the written sweden?.... its those letters, å, ä, ö... they might seem alot like an 'a' or 'o' but when spoken those letterrs sounds veeeery different so you cannot just say 'a' instead of 'å' or the word will have entire different meaning. My biggest problem is recognizing those letters and remembering to use them at the appropriate time. For example, the word "Sök" means "search"... When I read that word I automatically think of "Sok" but then I have to re-read the word again to ensure I didnt misread it,... I think I'm getting better at recognizing those three letters now but I've still got a long way to go.

For the sign language part, I think I'm getting there :) I remember I had a such hard time understanding the differences between "still" and "still"... yeah, I know I said "still" twice heh, but the Swedes have two different signs for that word for that the word has two different meanings.

Still #1 example - He's still running! (in this case, the "still" refers to the continous activity)

Still #2 example - No matter which road you get, it will still take you an hour to get home. (in this case, the "still" refers that the result is still the same no matter which option you take)

You ASL-users know that for both cases, the same sign of "still" are used but not in sweden, there are two different signs for "still",.. it was very confusing for me but now I think I'm getting the hang of it.

There's still some words and signs I don't know when is the appropriate time to use it, such as "you", sweden has "du" and "dig"... it means "you"

There is one general sign that Swedes has too much use for, I don't know how to explain what the sign looks like but it looks similar to saying "please" or "my"... get what I mean?... anywa in Sweden that sign can be used for "my", "hope", "love", "what do you think?", "want", "like"... all of those words has very similar signs its easy to get confused with one or other word... they rely on the lips movement very much. It's harder for me because I don't know all of the swedish words and much less their lips movement, sometimes I have to ask again to clarify which sign they just used :)

nevertheless, yup, I've promised myself that by January I should be almost fluent in swedish sign language as a second language (my ASL will always be better of course! :) )

Anyway, its getting late, I better shut up now... I'll write more later in the week..

have fun
bg0ur3