Inner Mongolia

Not since the apartment in New Jersey with the white rocking chair on the balcony have I felt as much at home as I already do here on Ahrenbergsgatan. Returning from a rainy evening run around Skatås, I took a warm shower in the sand-coloured bathroom and ate the last of the bread from Lilla Sur, appreciating every minute of knowing that the kids were sound asleep upstairs.

As the wind and rain intensified overnight, the comfort of district heating became even more apparent. Over breakfast, I read a long article in Dagens Nyheter about AI expansion on the windswept steppes of Inner Mongolia, reminding me of the vastness of the world, of past flights across the Gobi Desert, and of how fortunate I am to wake up to a day in academia rather than outdoor construction work in unforgiving winds.

Starting my working day by writing a course analysis, I found myself reflecting on one of the recurring tensions in higher education. While students generally appreciated the lectures, many wanted the course to focus more directly on preparing them for their own bachelor's theses. Understandable as this may be, there is something paradoxical about studying political science at university while wanting to narrow one's intellectual horizons to the particular methods and theories needed for a single research project. After all, the ability to critically engage with unfamiliar perspectives is arguably one of the most important things a university education should offer. And returning to those images from China, perhaps there is something to be said for dislocation and confusion too, for occasionally being confronted with just how much of the world that lies beyond our immediate concerns.

The little electrician 2.0

Twenty years ago, I wrote a blog post about installing an early modernist pendant lamp in Lund, evoking the French Concession in Shanghai. Today, I completed the installation of all the lights in my new apartment by finally tackling the “Pumpkin Pedal” from Watt & Veke. I had been putting it off because of the non-standard colours of the wiring in the ceiling. While I may have pushed my luck a little too far, it saved me a couple of thousand kronor in electrician's fees and, fortunately, everything worked out, including the integration with the Plejd smart lighting system.

The factory floor

Between the morning showers, I managed to squeeze in a short 5k run up to Skatås and back via Lilla Sur before tuning in to our department's biweekly Zoom meeting, where I was surprised to learn that our head of department will be leaving her position at the end of the year. With all of Halmstad University undergoing an organizational transformation, there is certainly a lot going on right now.

Meanwhile, back on the factory floor, I have just sent off the final proofs of my Routledge book chapter to the editor in Singapore, and now I am trying to get some work done on the Bioclaims project, which will hopefully be extended until the end of 2028.

Continuity

After months on the road, I find myself firmly on the ground in Gothenburg. With the kids having already spent their first night in the apartment, I can now look forward to having them here pretty much every day until Christmas. While we still have a couple of walls to put up upstairs, the kids seem to like the new place as much as I do, and I now have almost everything in place, including a mesh Wi-Fi network, curtains (which, sadly, always seem to be a gender-based challenge), and a very comfy sofa from Burhéns.

Having spent the morning supervising my new batch of undergraduate thesis students, I made lunch for William, who has come down with a cold, before heading over to Backaplan and the original Nordic Wellness gym for a bit of indoor rowing. With the exception of Friday, the forecast seems to promise nothing but rain for weeks, reminding me of that old November challenge: simply making it through every single day of November.

Timeline

With the Democrats not only winning control of both the House and the Senate but Trump also admitting defeat, it seems as if Jean-Luc Picard has indeed sacrificed himself to fix the timeline. Coming in the wake of progressive victories in Hungary, Serbia and Brazil, there is finally some hope for a better world or, at least, an end to democratic decline.

Waking up to the good news from across the Atlantic, I laced up my Hoka Speedgoats for a long-awaited return to Skatås. Having moved down to Torpavallen, my usual 11.5-kilometre run has turned into 13.5 kilometres, meaning that a full week of running will add up to almost one hundred kilometres, something I hope to manage a few times before the year is out. Otherwise, the new apartment is coming together quite nicely, even if a lot of work remains before the kids can move in on Monday.

The man in seat 32

Yesterday, SJ informed me that my carriage and reserved seat would not be available on the morning train up to Gothenburg. Luckily, both were, so now I can drink my morning coffee in peace and watch the rainy west coast of Sweden pass by outside. In two hours, I will be at the estate agent’s office to finalize the purchase of my new apartment at Ahrenbergsgatan 4F and, by eleven, the moving company will deliver all my stuff.

Taking advantage of a special autumn-break deal, I was able to stay at Clarion Sea U in the port of Helsingborg for just 686 SEK, which became even better when I was given complimentary access to the pool as the hotel was practically empty. Being able to swim in 35-degree water in the dark reminded me a little of when I was in Sligo with dad twenty years ago, and I will definitely return if I can find a similar bargain.

Clarion Sea U

K1

After all the crisscrossing, it felt so good to have a slow weekend next to Araslövssjön. For dinner on Friday night, Linnéa made canard à l'orange, which was simply incredible together with a bottle of K1 Shiraz from Adelaide Hills that I had brought along from Kalmar.

Sticking to the French theme, we then watched both The Dreamers and two thrilling episodes of Lupin, which has become one of the most-watched non-English-language series on Netflix. Set in Paris, the series combines the playful gentleman-thief tradition of the early twentieth century with the legacy of French colonialism in a way that immediately draws one in. As for turn-of-the-century nostalgia, I brought along a box of Mozartkugeln from Austrian Airlines, adding a little Habsburg sweetness to our otherwise French-themed weekend. Now I am on the train to Helsingborg where I will stay at the Clarion Sea U before taking the first morning train up to Gothenburg and my new apartment on Ahrenbergsgatan.

Finitude

Seeing Patrick Stewart as Macbeth on Broadway in 2008 had this larger-than-life quality, of a figure transcending the stage and the ages. In the role of Jean-Luc Picard, Stewart has been with me ever since the early 1990s, as our highest aspiration of what humanity can become in the future, or as Leigh Philips put it, of a “radical enlightenment project married […] to humanist forgiveness”. As such, it was with great sadness that I learned that Stewart has died at the age of 86, as if we needed another reminder that even the most extraordinary lives are finite.

Yesterday, I spent four hours on the train across Sweden, reviewing a manuscript for the journal Cogent Arts & Humanities (how come I always review manuscripts in days while it seems to take months for everyone else #notbitter), before arriving to sunshine in Kalmar. And today has been a truly stunning autumn day as I have walked with my parents for hours across town, visiting the cemetery where my grandmother Alice rests, and now I am about to take the train down to Kristianstad to see Linnéa for the weekend. As is tradition, I was able to go for a fast morning run around Stensö, perhaps exhausting myself a little with an average heart rate of 170 bpm.

A beautiful mind

Even if the terrible train crash in Spain cast a dark shadow over everything, it was great to see Eddie again and take the train down to Halmstad, all three of us together. After checking in at Scandic Hallandia and sending everything in the apartment off to Gothenburg, we got to walk in the autumn sunshine along Nissan, swing by Nordic Wellness, and make full use of the top-floor spa.

Later in the evening, we watched the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind in our hotel room. Set mostly in Princeton, it featured Collegiate Gothic architecture, psychiatric illness and unwavering love. I remember liking it very much the first time I watched it, decades ago, but as so often happens, seeing things through the eyes of one's kids adds another dimension.