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.