Saturday, March 16, 2024

Brooks

Leaving the moving boxes behind for a couple of hours, I walked down with Eddie to Universeum for a reunion with some of his new friends from the TV production. With one programme left of the season that features Eddie, I have been thoroughly impressed by the first four programmes and how natural he has appeared in front of the camera.

Over coffee at Tony’s, I read another column by David Brooks in the New York Times which again reminded me of the fact that, as good as Brooks is at capturing the prevailing Zeitgeist, his analyses almost always go in the opposite direction of my own. To my surprise, I found that I have only mentioned Brooks once here on Rawls & Me over all these years, despite my conflicted emotions about On Paradise Drive and some of his other books.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Green light for Kalle

Yesterday, the supervisors’ committee at the Department of Political Science in Umeå decided to give a green light to my PhD student Kalle, meaning that he is now ready to publicly defend his PhD on 4 June. This will mark the end of a five-year long intellectual adventure that started with me being on the selection committee for the PhD programme in the summer of 2019

Otherwise, the last days here in Gothenburg have been quite rainy and, after getting completely soaked on my morning run, I decided to head indoors in the afternoon for some rowing and ten faster kilometres on the treadmill. Still 47 kilometres behind pace, I will certainly have to be creative if I am to get my running done over the coming weeks as I will both be moving houses and flying across the world to Vancouver.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Swell season

Not the Irish-Czech folk rock duo, but a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from Margaret River in Western Australia (yes, I definitely have to go there one day) to mark that this mad Wednesday is over, a day that started shortly after 4 am with the writing of a syllabus followed by the customary train ride to Halmstad, a thousand meters in the pool, a seminar and then the miserable experience of having to grade a third-chance exam at which I had to fail 20 of the 22 students :-(

Fortunately, tomorrow promises to be less stressful with time to finally finish my paper for WPSA in Vancouver and maybe even get some rowing done at the gym.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Tuesday Trail

After working for a couple of hours this morning, I went for a longer and fairly technical trail run up to Jonsered. Listening to “Western Stars” with Bruce Springsteen (which is quite unusual for me as I normally never listen to music when I run), I followed the same trail as when running Vildmarksleden in August for the first fifteen kilometres and then Gotaleden up to Jonsered, passing many lakes that made me considering going for an icy swim. However, having to be back in time for some afternoon online meetings, I prioritized catching the 10:43 train back to Gothenburg. 

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Saturday, March 09, 2024

Dreams near and far

With eight long months left until Kullamannen 100k, I desperately needed a race to look forward to. As such, I was happy to discover Borås Ultra Marathon in late May, starting right here in Skatås, following Vildmarksleden to Hindås and then Sjuhäradsleden to Borås for a total of 88 kilometres. Having done the first half of the trail back in August last year, it seems like the perfect challenge with basically no other costs than the registration fee so, without much hesitation, I signed up.

Otherwise, I just received a new coffee table book by Lonely Planet which, I am afraid, risks becoming a lot more expensive than that race to Borås. Covering six continents, I have been to 14 of the 100 beaches featured and, upon seeing the other 86, I immediately started checking my point balance...

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Thursday, March 07, 2024

Alone in the dark

In preparation for Kullamannen 100k in November, I thought I should get some more practice of running in the dark with my head torch, so I went down to Delsjön last night. Meeting exactly one (1) person and his dog out on the trail, I have to admit that it felt slightly ghostly and cold, though still a far cry from the H.P. Lovecraft horror of the 1992 classic video game “Alone in the dark”.

Today, the same forest looked completely nonthreatening as I ventured up on Brudarebacken for some great views of the city below on my morning run. When returning for a second run in the afternoon, the morning frost had even turned into "shortsväder" for the first time this year (about a month earlier than in Umeå).

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Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Back to blue

After six weeks with almost no "blue" activities in my Strava, I found the time for 1,500 meters of swimming this morning before our joint APT meeting at LHS. Discussing our new educational strategy and the upcoming research evaluation exercise, I was again reminded of the bureaucratization of academia and the growing number of organizational professionals (as for more on that, see this very timely piece by my colleague Linda and others).

Now on the train home, I was at least able to pick up a new batch of exams for some rather practical work. With both kids being home from school with colds again, I am not overly optimistic but hopefully I will make some progress on my article for Vancouver tomorrow as I have no teaching planned until Friday.

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Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Danska Vägen

From Hamburg via Umeå, I pour up some coffee in my Nord Coast cup and appreciate a moment in the sun along Danska Vägen before an afternoon in front of Zoom. Already now, the sun rises almost 30 degrees above the horizon (which is about ten degrees more than in Umeå). Stopping at Lejonet & Björnen to buy some sorbet for Eddie who has come down with a cold, I fear this will be another week of vobb even as Vabruari is now officially behind us. Luckily, Anna does not have to go to Trollhättan tomorrow so I can still take the train to Halmstad as planned.

Monday, March 04, 2024

Lundabron

From my time in Umeå, I have many fond memories of racing across Lundabron, either as part of CR attempts with Elin or Parkrun, but last night I was content with a slow jog through the mystic mist. Sadly, the same low hanging clouds made me miss out on the unusually strong Northern Lights that apparently had been visible as far south as Wales.

Otherwise, Eddie and I had a great day in Umeå yesterday, meeting up with his friends and checking out some cold-water swimming opportunities at Nydala (even if I ultimately chickened out). Ending the day by sharing a pizza from Basta and watching “Smarter than a fifth grader” together, I really appreciate these father-and-son adventures.

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Sunday, March 03, 2024

Kung Fu Girl

With three weeks left in our apartment at Prästgårdsängen, the attic looked like a tornado had gone through yesterday but, after a couple of hours, Anna and I had restored some structure, and I could make salmon tacos with a Riesling from the Pacific Northwest.

As Eddie is off from school on Monday and Tuesday, we are making another excursion to Umeå to see his old friends. While he is playing the post-apocalyptic computer game Timberborn in which ingenious beavers are taking over the world, I have been able to complete the last revisions to my grant application to the Swedish Research Council so now I have one less thing on my to-do list.

Finally, from the world above the clouds, I am happy to report that the "polarrulle" is now officially back (even if in a slightly modified form). With the transition to Skyteam around the corner, I felt even more nostalgic when drinking my black coffee in one of those blue cups with "Star Alliance" written on the side. Once SAS leaves Star Alliance, maintaining airline status will make a lot less sense for me personally and, going forward, I will probably just book the cheapest ticket regardless of airline.   

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