Per’s first day

I have a pretty unbelievable story about how Per spent his first day (while I was at work)! He asked why I didn’t ride my bike to university(!!!) Like I ever would!! I said “the hill on the highway (Whitemud) to school is impossible!” So of course Per decided he would go run this impossible hill during a 1.5 hr run. Somewhere in the river valley, he saw 2 people standing on the trail, one woman holding 7 dogs on a leash. And one dog in the North Saskatchewan. The woman was on the phone trying to call for help while the man looked on doing nothing.

Per looked at the drowning dog in the river, assessed that the dog probably jumped into the water (as the ice didn’t look broken), and decided he was going to try to save it (!!!!). Thought in case he did fall in that he could use 2 sharp sticks to use as spikes on the snow/ice to pull himself out. He asked the 2 people – “do you have a screwdriver or a knife?” They looked blankly at him, and didn’t say anything. (I would have reacted the same way – like, what is this guy going on about?) He grabbed two tree branches and tried to break them into sharp points. Then crawled out onto the ice lying flat to the ground. Reached out a stick to the dog to try to get it to bite onto the stick, but the dog didn’t figure that out. So Per crawled even closer, grabbed him by the paw and pulled him out. The dog ran to safety, while Per tried to maneuver himself back safely to the bank. The woman was in complete shock. The dogs were pretty happy. Per felt awkward standing around so he continued on running. A few moments later, the man was running behind him, saying “That was awesome!!” Per just waved his hand as in to say, all in a day’s work.

Geez!!!! Not to take away from how amazing and incredible that was, but I’m really glad nothing bad happened to Per!

Then Per ran back home (2 hours total), had lunch, then biked out to MEC and toured the downtown area (another 4 hours). My bike is more of a “leisure” bike (i.e. used twice in the 3 years I’ve owned it and covered in dust) and isn’t fitted up with splash guards for actual commuting, so Per got pretty filthy. But now, Per installed splash guards so I can actually use it to ride to work… (Don’t have many excuses now not to.) And when I got home at the end of the day after my art class, he had prepared the Swedish cheesecake he brought all the way over the Atlantic along with fresh cream and strawberries. And had another surprise gift for me on top of the many presents he’s given me already! I’m getting completely spoiled.

I hate Queing in Canada

Excuse the “British” English in the title (I don’t think anyone in Canada actually queues, we just line up)… I think travelling for a year has made me become conscious of using English that most people worldwide can understand. Such as, “winter hat” instead of “toque”, “mobile” instead of “cell phone”, “sms” instead of “text”, “soda pop” instead of “pop”, “toilet” instead of “bathroom”, and so on…

Anyway, I wanted to vent about a situation I run into all too often in Canada when I go to Tim Horton’s or McDonalds. Walking through the door, I see two cashiers each helping one person, and then a line of 2 more people forming behind one of the customers.

I have two choices. Do I:

a) Be a jerk and form a new line behind the customer with no line? There’s a risk of being yelled at by the other people already waiting, though it’s extremely low, since most Canadians want to avoid conflict.

Or, b) Line up behind the 2 people, knowing full well that the next person to walk into the store will do a)! And without fail, before anyone in my line can comment or change lines, somehow a big group of people will all enter the store at once, forming a new line behind asshole. Then I fume while having to wait an extra 5 minutes longer than I should.

Times like these make me wish we had Sweden’s ticket dispensing system.

Better to continue late than never…

I really recommend traveling for a long period of time, or if that’s not possible, at least slowly. When I took a week hiatus from Sweden, I spent the entire week in Barcelona, as opposed to a few of my friends who “did” 9 countries in 10 days. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with it, but it’s not for me. I realize that because North Americans work so much and only get 2 weeks vacation per year (assuming they have a semi-decent job – otherwise you get none), we want vacations that cram in as much as possible in the short time we have off. Over time I realized that it’s not the “must-see” sights or museums that that you necessarily remember (although I did see some fantastic ones in Barcelona that changed my views), but the people you meet, and the conversations you had.

Even better, I highly recommend living in another country from your own (for Canadians, I would say besides the US, since we already know so much of their culture and are very similar in many ways). I remarked earlier about Australia the culture shock I felt was sometimes greater than in China or India because my expectation was that Australia (or any other western country) would be the same as Canada. I was constantly surprised and shocked every time I found out that Sweden did things in a different way than Canada.

Living in another country makes you realize that the way you think is just a product of the environment and country you were raised in. I wish I could take credit for this nugget, but it was Mikey who made me realize this during our travels in Bangladesh and India. Actually, I learned a lot from Mikey, and looking back now, I feel like I could have learned a lot more had I asked him more questions and been more open. (I think I need to send him a thank you letter.)

I feel that travel opens you up to new ideas, attitudes, experiences, and ways of doing things, but living in another place opens you up to new values and ways of thinking that you may never have considered. I kind of wish I could do my year off all over again, as I would do things much differently. Now that I’ve been drawing again, being older this time around, I see a lot more in the act of doing art. When drawing, after stepping back and looking a second time, I see and notice where I went wrong. And in noticing this, if I were to restart the drawing again, I would approach it differently.

Every week I look forward to my figure drawing class. No matter how tired I was, I would get a second wind in class, and come home barely able to sleep because I was excited to show my drawings to Per. I had no idea I would enjoy the class as much as I do! I enjoy it so much that I’m signing up again for the next set of sessions next month. I’m psyched to try out and experiment with some different techniques I’ve been learning about. I’ve taken out drawing instruction and art history books from the library and have been reading furiously. Certain drawing books excite me more than others – not so much the ones that are less “step-by-step” on how to draw a dog, but ones that suggest how to develop your creativity.

I’ve discovered some artists that I’m nuts over, and I can’t wait to try copying their style.

Liu Ye, an artist from Beijing:

I love his paintings – bold, innocent yet dark, and an east /west mix. He studied industrial design in China, and then painting in Germany and the Netherlands. His father was a children’s book illustrator when he was growing up and he discovered his father’s secret stash of (banned in China) children’s books of fairy tales and books on drawing the female form. I would love to own a painting by him, but his latest paintings sold in Hong Kong for $500,000 to $1.5 M. Doh!

Egon Schiele:

Looking at his work, it looks so fresh and contemporary, yet these were done just after the turn of the century (the last one – not this one ).I love how he uses just a few contour lines (rather than a lot of shading) to express the figure. Apparently he died very young too at 28 years old. His wife died of the flu, and then he died of the same flu 4 days later, back in 1918!! Gee… He sure developed his talent and accomplished a lot in a short period of time. Wish I had his talent at my age, though guess I have the rest of my life ahead of my still!

I feel recharged and itching to get back on the road again…  In some ways, I’ve fallen back into my old patterns of doing things, though I think what I need to get out of my year off is that I don’t NEED a change in scenery to create new and fulfilling experiences for myself… It’s just more difficult (for me) to do so when the surroundings are familiar.

New guilty TV viewing pleasures

I am loving America’s Best Dance Crew 3! I do get into the TV watching game late, as I usually avoid wasting time watching TV – and have been watching episodes online. I’m in love with Quest crew, and even more so because I have to support my fellow Asians. But it’s a close call with Beat Freaks, a group of strong females (one of who was Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku girls – how fun is that?) who don’t skank it up just in the name of dance. Really wish I could dance!

Not only have I fallen for one guilty TV viewing pleasure, but two – while watching ABDC3 on muchmusic.com, they aired a commerical for RuPaul’s Drag Race – a reality show about a competition for the next Drag Queen. A cross between two of my favorite shows, Project Runway, and America’s Next Top Model, except twice as fun! How could you not love a show with challenges such as “Drag on a Dime” and lines such as, “The time has come… For you to lip-sync for your life!” So campy, but love it!

On top of that – I am extremely envious of how fabulous the drag queens are! Man… after watching that, I feel like I need to use the freedom I have to act, dress, and look extremely feminine, especially being able to get away with it much more easily in mainstream society than they do. It’s safe to say that I (probably – knock on wood) won’t be shot at while outside a (gay) bar dressed exaggeratedly as a woman. I often think gay people have a lot more fun than straight people do, because they’re free to completely be theirselves and not worry about what others think of them. (Of course, I hardly know the dificulties they also have to go through.) Still, I think I can take something away from this.

Facing fears

I had signed up for the first drawing class I had taken in over a decade back in 2007.  I was surprised at the results I had from the class and remembered how people used to consider that I was good at art, waaaaay back when. When I told one of my friends of my class, she said, “You’re brave!” I was puzzled at her reaction – brave? It’s a class that anyone can take!

Yet, signing up for these most recent art classes, I was extremely nervous. I felt so behind (who I was comparing myself to, I don’t know). Especially for my life drawing class, as I have never attempted to draw the human form. In the art supply store closest to my house, there are a series of little information articles posted around the shop. The titles caught my eye:

Myth: You have to be talented to be an artist.
Myth: It’s easier to draw small when starting out.
Myth: You should learn to draw before you learn to paint.

I felt reassured by something that challenged self-limiting beliefs I held, and also that others wondered and thought the same way. A recurring theme in these articles and in my art classes, is discussing fear, how we are overly critical of ourselves, and the limitations of making a three dimensional object, two dimensional. And most importantly – though it sounds corny and new age – my teachers talked about how everyone was on their own personal journey in improving ourselves, and that we had a voice and style of our own that could be expressed. I had no idea it was such a common fear, to be scared of making a mistake on a piece of paper. At the art store, when I was picking up a sketchbook, I got into a conversation with one of the staff who said that if he feels “blocked” by the pressure of a blank piece of paper in front of him, he puts down a scribble “to show the paper who’s the boss.” I do feel normal knowing that I’m not alone.

It makes for long days having class 3 nights a week (and then weekends filled with doing “homework” and projects), but despite this, I feel energized! Time flies by when I get engrossed and completely involved in working on a piece. This is how it’s supposed to feel, isn’t it? Being refreshed and renewed from doing something that doesn’t feel like a chore, something that I look forward to. I actually feel more confident about myself too – I never expected that something as simple as making marks to paper would have this effect. I know I have a long ways to go still, but I hardly feel that it’s “work”. Now, if I can make a living doing this somehow…

More misadventures in grocery shopping, and keeping busy

Today at the grocery store, I almost got charged $65 on what was supposed to cost $40! I happened to be watching the cashier ring in the items – which I don’t normally do – and I see “Chocolate milk $25″ come up on the register, even though she was weighing peppers and I didn’t even have chocolate milk in my basket! (And I have no idea why chocolate milk would ever cost $25?) She got flustered and realized her mistake and reversed it. However, before I left, I made sure to double check my receipt. She double charged me for grapes during her moment of confusion! Of course I was able to get it corrected before leaving. Lesson learned – make sure you check your receipt when you go grocery shopping!

Another reason I like self-checkout (though I wasn’t in Superstore today, which has the option of self-checkout). Sweden’s system of self-check is a bit different and I didn’t dare try it in case I made a foreigner blunder.

Otherwise, I’m keeping pretty busy with art classes, like I said.

Because I don’t have much time to prepare meals during the first half the week, Sundays are spent cooking up a storm. I’ve picked up a Company’s Coming Healthy in a Hurry cookbook, which I’m extremely impressed with! Every meal has been a winner – tasty, and best of all, easy and quick to make.

Corn and Cod (actually Basa) Tacos

Sweet and Sour Chicken (made without ketchup!)

On Sundays I also make lots of food, and make something for the freezer, for those inevitable busy nights when I don’t have time to cook – much healthier and easier on my wallet. I’ve also made a “resolution” of sorts to eat two vegetarian meals per week to try to reduce my footprint on the planet.

Mushroom casserole – a faux risotto made with brown rice

And some art stuff.

Drew this before any of my art classes to kind of set a baseline for myself

1 minute gesture studies and 1 hour drawing in graphite pencil. The head is too small, probably due to me trying to “fit” it on the page when I was running out of space. Decided not to try to salvage it, since the head was drawn the best I think.

Ink drawings drawn with Q-tip. Not finished yet.

Series of 1-minute gesture studies, and a 20-minute “exercise” in class, drawing shadows only in conte. (This is why the figure is distorted) The model thought my drawing was beautiful – very flattering to me! I might have to retry the drawing since I was generally happy with the results.

Homework – an exercise in drawing shadows only, this time with a Sharpie permanent marker and a grey marker.

Experimenting at home with conte and pastels – my first foray into colour. I need to learn how to draw hair :S

I also did an attempt at a self portrait in pastels, but the results were too ugly to post. The eyes turned out good however. Will have to try again later. But so far I’m quite happy with the progress I’ve made in only a few weeks! I went from making very slow and tentative lines in the first things I drew, to bold and fearless lines of gesture studies. Most days I feel quite confident in myself, and I believe that in time I could become quite good. Even if nothing comes of it, it’s not like it’s “wasted”, because I do enjoy it! Work is work, but my art classes give me something to look forward to, a reason and a purpose to wake up and to keep on going… Sounds corny I know.

Comments about Sweden

Two blogs in one day! Writing blogs is a lot more fun than cleaning house. And gotta catch up somehow! As I have lots, and lots to write about Sweden still – 3 months in one place is a long time! Although I found travelling in Asia challenging, I think living in Sweden has also challenged many of my beliefs, and in ways I didn’t expect. In some ways, because I expect all western countries to be similar to each other, the shock becomes even greater when I see that not everything is done the same as in Canada. Especially by living in another country, you realize how challenging it can be to be out of the environment that you’re accustomed to. I really recommend it to everyone, to try living in another place for awhile. As in, longer than the average North American 2 weeks of vacation allotment – which I think sucks big time

My previous blog about Sweden vs. Canada got the lengthiest comments to date, so I’ll quickly respond to Ryan’s comments (sorry to pick on you ):

Ryan: “1) Swedes are generally more attractive than Canadians. True, the population is more homogenous in Sweden, so the “diversity” of appearances isn’t as strong; but geez, talk about a country with a good gene pool! haha.”

Definitely agree. Your point homogenous population isn’t a good argument though – look at Britain! I read on someone else’s blog that though they think the proportion of extremely attractive people in Sweden and the US is more or less the same, the average Swede (the one you would date and marry) are much better looking than the average American. Definitely true in my case I think this could also be tied to the fact that Swedes seem to be in much better physical shape and health than the average North American too.  Morbidly obese people are never attractive.

Ryan: “2) They generally dress better too, though this point is debatable. I noticed some took the “Eurotrash” look to new levels. Maybe it’s the overabundance of H&Ms? Kind of a double-edged sword that place is.”

Hmm, generally true, but debatable like you said. I never saw anyone wearing something extremely sloppy like I do in Edmonton (where many people think t-shirts and sweatpants are the answer to everything). Also, the stereotype of Europeans wearing a lot of black (at least in Sweden, Barcelona, and Paris) is comically true! One coffeehouse we went to in Sweden, I looked around and not a single person was not dressed all in black! In my opinion that’s a shame, since life is too short not to have fun with colour. Says the person with countless black sweaters, and all brown furnishings Hey, I mainly buy clothes with colour now!

Another bad development in fashion in Sweden is that many girls are orange! They take the fake/sunbed tans too far! They’re orange with bleached(?) blond hair (they probably have dark blonde hair which they’ve lightened). I thought it was only a California thing to go orange, blonde and black (as in too much makeup crap around the eye), but it’s a big trend in Sweden. And the thing is – the women don’t need it! They’re already naturally pretty! It’s like when Asian women whiten their skin – natural is good. It’s only a portion of the population that does it though.

I would add that Swedes are a lot more design-conscious, without realizing it. Everyone’s homes I’ve peered into (they don’t generally cover their windows!) showed some sign of effort in making it look nice. It also seems that every Swedish kitchen has many extremely useful kitchen gadgets that I don’t have. Could be that I don’t shop in houseware stores and don’t see these gadgets here (at least since I bought a house and as a result didn’t have as much disposable income to support my hobby of shopping when I was bored).

Ryan: “3) Care more about their health, but this is also debatable. Noticably higher tobacco (smoking and snus) rates, especially amongst youth (though not as bad as Denmark). Still, Swedes were more physically fit, and take advantage of excellent cycling networks to get around rather than relying on cars.”

I agree! Not as many obese people, and everyone seems much more active. They have a much better network of cycling paths – even *I* rode my bike to town 18 km round trip on a regular basis instead of taking the bus! I wanted to take a picture at one of the bike stands after a snowfall of snow piled on bike seats, but didn’t have a chance. Our North American car culture is pretty much killing us…

PS to Per – stay off the snus!

Ryan: “4) Excellent transit systems, intracity and intercity rail, bus and T-bana. They’re easy enough for tourists to understand, and must be a no-brainer for locals.”

Yep. In the city centre of Linkoping, they had an electronic sign at bus stops indicating when the next buses would arrive! Their bus system kicks Edmonton’s ass, and we’re a city of 1 million??? Very sad.
Ryan: “5) Lower crime rates, friendly people who will stop and take the time to help you out with a question, minimal urban decay, and so on.”

Definitely felt much safer in Sweden than I do here. I wasn’t sure how our crime rates compare, but it did seem lower in Sweden. Not sure of the friendly people since I hardly talked to strangers. The stereotype is that Swedes are a bit reserved until you have a drink together, which I found to be true sometimes (though I’m like that also).

There’s a few more ways I think Sweden has Canada beat, but now I’m tired of writing Sweden sounds like an utopia? Perhaps in some ways, but there’s also a few negative things about Sweden, which would make life for me not exactly easy, should I decide to move there. Also, I think Sweden is about to experience massive change, partly due to the increase in immigration and demographic change.

So to respond to Loyal’s comment: “All I am saying is that for whatever reason, there seems to be some popular (North American?) notion that Sweden’s social safety net is very generous – perhaps too generous that people may take advantage of it.”The negative stereotype of Sweden’s overly generous welfare state is a bit true, and is ripe for the pickings from sneaky immigrants. Hey, I might be one of them too – abusing their free education system Swedes as a general rule seem bound to “do the right thing”. I admire their honest and trusting nature and think if everyone was more like that, the world would be a better place. But I can’t help but think that the opposite will occur…

As an example, I’ll respond to Per’s comment: “Joyce told me about a man who was unemployed for one year without seriously trying to get a job? In Sweden there is a system to stop this, if you don’t apply for a job you are qualified for you don’t get any money. But Canada don’t have this system? So it may be easier to take advantage of the system in Canada?”

Of course we have the same system. But shocker of all shockers – people lie! You really don’t need to do much to “prove” you’re looking for a job. Sending off a few half-hearted resumes doesn’t get much result. I should know – I sent off 100 resumes (and not half-hearted) to get the 1 job I have now as an engineer! We sneaky, dishonest immigrants can take advantage of Sweden’s system just as easily, if not more so (as Swedes would probably trust someone who said they were looking).

More blog(s) will follow, as it might take some more thought to word it in the right way.

Swedish food series

I didn’t expect to like Swedish food so much, considering how simple it is compared to Chinese or French cooking. Though I should have realized, there are very few foods I dislike, and variety is (insert cliche here). I see Swedish food as being simple but made with good ingredients, whereas Chinese food uses a lot of smoke and mirrors to disguise and change foods that might have been less appetizing otherwise (i.e. tripe, for one example). Swedes’ food habits also mirror the way they live – their menus are seasonal, and menus change as the seasons (and food availability) change.

Part of my grocery store misadventure included only being able to find split yellow peas instead of yellow peas, and not really knowing what cut of pork to buy. I planned to make Yellow Pea Soup, or Artsoppa, a traditional Swedish meal served on Thursdays, followed by pancakes, and served with warm punsch (an alcoholic sweet drink). The recipe called for salt pork, which I wasn’t sure I would find. I looked up an alternate cut of meat I could use by searching recipes on the internet, and quickly wrote down “ham hocks” on my grocery list just in case. Couldn’t find salt pork in the grocery store like I anticipated, so bought ham hocks instead.

Came home, and rechecked the other recipe… Only to find that I was supposed to buy “SALT ham hocks”. Doh! Well, I tried making the soup the ingredients I had on hand anyway.

The ingredients – very simple!

15 minutes from completion, before adding spices… Not looking very promising, hmm…. Rather runny.

After cooling, I separated the meat from the fat, to put back into the soup. Yikes! Don’t want that stuff floating around my arteries and ending up around my midsection!

Served with grainy brown mustard on the side. No pancakes or punsch unfortunately. Soup wasn’t as good as Per’s mom’s soup, but not bad for a first trial.

I put half of the soup into the freezer for one of those inevitable busy days. So easy, cheap, and filling! Plus, you could justify having pancakes with whipped cream and jam if you make it

By the way, here’s one of two jars of herring I smuggled into Canada So yummy! Again, very simple, and full of good-for-you omega-3’s. I should have tried smuggling more, though my luggage was already at 39 kg not including my carry on. Makes a fantastic quick and easy meal.

Case study #1: Canada vs. Sweden

Back in Canada now, and experiencing some reverse culture shock perhaps. While I was in Sweden, I remarked to Per how amazed I was that people assumed and depended on everyone doing their job to the best of their ability. For example, Swedes trust that their government, watchdog groups, committees, and the like (such as Konsumentverket) to – gasp – actually do the job they are supposed to! He was completely confused at my statement – why shouldn’t I expect that everyone would do their job? Well, living in Canada, I’m completely used to poor customer service, lazy employees that pass the buck, and a general apathy from people towards their job and those they are supposed to help.

Case in point today: frustrating day at the grocery store. The good thing about Superstore (a gigantic, discount grocery store chain) is they have a huge variety of goods! Thought about how Per might find the store really interesting with all the products you can buy in one place. Downside is that they have such a huge variety… I was stuck shopping for over 3 hours!! And if we stopped to look at everything we’d be even longer. I couldn’t find all of the things I wanted i.e. canned beets (to make Swedish beetroot salad). Nope, guess we don’t carry that in Edmonton if it’s not in the Superstore. Yellow peas? Nope, only split yellow peas. I don’t think ingredients for Swedish foods are very easy to come by in Edmonton.

Also, it’s frustrating that we don’t show prices per kg like they do in Sweden. This is one of many ways I feel that Canada is so backwards compared to Sweden. Making life easier for the Canadian consumer to make informed purchases? Hah! You’re dreaming!…

Anyway, so I stand in front of the whole aisle, calculating in my head which package is the best value. On top of that, the same type of product could be in 3 different places in the store, which makes comparison shopping even more difficult!

But that’s not my main complaint… I caved and bought some Haagen Daaz before heading to the cashier, as I really missed North American ice cream. Swedish ice cream is good enough, but doesn’t quite hit the mark in comparison. (But Australian gelato is probably number one.) So, checked out at the cashier, the girl told me I had “6800 points” – enough to get $60 discount on my groceries, from using my grocery credit card in Sweden. But she didn’t ask me if I wanted to use them, and didn’t take the discount off. Uh, hello??? I WANTED to use them. Why the heck would I want to keep saving them up – for fun??? She apologized and I tried to give her some slack for being a new employee.

I tried to go to customer service to get it fixed, because I don’t shop Superstore very often (once every 1-2 months). But the woman at the counter pissed me off so bad!! She said they can’t just put the money back on my credit card, they have to return everything on my receipt. And then she can’t just give me back the same goods, I have to go shop in the store and pick up everything again myself… Sounded fishy to me – I was pretty sure she just didn’t want to have to manually run a return on every item on my receipt.

Me: “Well, can I just return $60 worth?”

Lazy old woman: “No, you have to return EVERYTHING. You can’t do it that way.”

Me: “The cashier was the one who made the mistake, it shouldn’t be my problem.”

Lazy old woman: “Yes, but the return can’t be processed any other way. You can just use the points next time you shop.”

I was pretty ticked off, so I just shook my head and walked out, fuming. Then, on the walk to the car, I thought, hey, that’s NOT true that I CAN’T return $60… She’s just too fucking lazy to do it! If I go back in there, she has no choice but to process a return on items that happen to total to $60.

So in true Canadian passive-aggressive fashion, I wasn’t going to let the lazy employee off the hook that easily. I went back with $70 worth of groceries, waited while she manually returned each of those items, walked back in the store and did a quick round, while she made some poor sap of a re-stocker have to put all the same things back. All because she claimed that she couldn’t give me back the same items, to save herself from doing work. Even if it did waste another 15 minutes of my time, I showed her!

Sweden 1, Canada 0.

Squeezing in some last minute travels before home…

So, finally we’re back in Linkoping for 2-3 days for a breather. But not for long, as we’re making plans to revisit Stockholm, and also go for a week-long x-c ski trip with Per’s parents. Then, it’s back home to Canada, unfortunately. I have so much to write about still: Norrkoping (twice),  Goterborg, Germany, Stockholm, Barcelona, Gotland, traditional Swedish Christmas with Per’s family, surviving in the forest overnight in below-zero temperatures without a tent  or matches, Kalmar, a very close call with the Swedish tradition of everyone shooting their own fireworks for new year’s eve… But this will have to come at a later time.