Sköldpaddan och jordgubben

Consider this part 2, or maybe part 3, of my posts about getting a doctorate in Sweden (part 1 is here ) As I noted in my post about Valentine's Day yesterday ( part 2 ), I attended another doctoral defense at Uppsala. I'm still pondering just how different a Swedish doctoral defense is. Yesterday, Anni was grilled by her "opponent" for more than an hour. Just when I would think he was wrapping up his questions, he'd ask another. And another. They actually had a great conversation about her work, with her apparently calm and collected the whole time. After she finished, the chair of the department (who was helping orchestrate the defense) announced that her grading committee, advisors and the opponent would meet elsewhere and discuss whether she passed (with her grade of pass/fail to be hung up outside the faculty common room door). In the meantime, Anni was greeted by many well wishers, which must help distract. Like with the previous doctoral student, I c...

Alla hjärtans dag. All Heart's Day (aka Valentine's Day). Though the Swedes seem to love holidays, Valentine's Day isn't much of a holiday. It seems to be a day to buy chocolate and flowers, maybe to go out for dinner. There are signs of it around, but unlike something like Santa Lucia Day, this seems to be a much less celebrated day around here.  Apparently commercial marketers (I think flower sellers) sought to promote it somewhere around the 1960s, and it's slowly been catching on as a holiday across the Nordic countries (I'm not saying Scandinavia deliberately- another post on what countries are actually considered "Scandinavia").  The kids could buy lollipops at school, but no need to bring in cards, exchange candy, or anything else.  In my family, Valentine's Day means its my brother's birthday-- happy birthday, Josh!  Chris and I usually avoid celebrating our relationship on Valentine's Day... but we did inadvertentl...

Immediately after Christmas, semla buns started to appear in all bakeries. These are quite the concoction: light cardamom pastries filled with an almond paste, a heavy cream, a top layer, and powdered sugar. There is approximately no way to eat these gracefully as far as we can tell.  .  Semlor (plural form of semla) in one form or another have been around since the 1600s. Semla comes from the latin word "simila"-- wheat.  The advent of wheat flour originally meant such light baked goods were just for the rich as wheat could not be grown anywhere in Sweden except fairly far south (wheat production is still limited today). Traditionally, these would have been eaten in a bowl of warm milk. Though we've seen semlor everywhere, we haven't seen any bowls of hot milk.  These are also known as fastlagsbulle/fastelavnsbolle: Fat Tuesday buns, or the rolls eaten on Fat Tuesday, or the start of Lent. Apparently, people needed to fatten up before going into t...

Just a short post.... news came out today that Penn State is the top Fulbright Scholar (think faculty level) producing institution in the U.S.; see  https://news.psu.edu/story/607611/2020/02/10/academics/penn-state-no-1-us-producer-faculty-fulbright-scholars-2019-20 . The Chronicle of Higher Education provides an interesting list of programs that produce both faculty level and student level Fulbright awards. Don't know how much I've talked about the actual research I'm working on for the Fulbright... my overall hypothesis is that there are many more places in the world where water serves as a catalyst to bring people together. And that there are places where people are finding ways to manage complex issues like water quality (think runoff of nutrients that leads to algae blooms) and flood & drought. More on what I'm doing is in a news story about my research. I've learned a lot so far. Random tidbits: Sengal & the countries around it have started to...

in lieu of me writing much of this post, I'm reposting an article that includes the Swedish word of the day "vabruari"-- really a slang word. We've heard it a lot around work... As noted in the article below, VAB refers to parental leave. The idea that parents are entitled take 1 20 days off per year for each kid (paid, even if it is at a small discount) is so unbelievable to us coming from the U.S. It is NOT okay to come to work or school at sick in Sweden... a  colleague at work last week said that 5 out of 19 kids were in her kid's pre-school class. I nteresting to think how something like the coronavirus has less of a chance spreading in a country like this.   On to the article:  Article from  https://www.thelocal.se/20190205/swedish-word-of-the-day-vabruari If you have children, or work or socialize with people who do, here's a word you're going to hear a lot this month. Vabruari  is a portmanteau, a word that combines two others...

A side note on blogging. This seems to have fallen mostly to me... our kids are convinced no one reads their posts. We in fact have no idea how many people read our posts- although Chris has now made me the administrator, it shows that we have 0 people getting our newsletters (which we know isn't true). I post things to facebook but not always. If you'd like to hear more from our kids, I'd encourage an email! Send one of us a note and we'll send you their emails. We've agreed that they can tell me their stories and I can type, which at least makes it a bit faster, though it doesn't overcome the reluctance. We (I) also welcome comments and feedback. Blogging does feel a bit like I'm talking with myself... but hopefully it's been at least a bit interesting for those of you following along. Time for bed for the kids and another week: veckan 7 (week 7) of the year.

When we first went ice skating sometime in November, I could barely stand up. I received skates for Christmas last year and we brought them from Pennsylvania. Once we started skating, my skates felt wobbly and unsteady. I held onto Mom and Dad that first time, and had them pull me around.    Since November, we've been back to the ice skating rink like 3 days a week. I started to feel sturdier on my skates, even trying to figure out how skate backwards. I remembered that my friend Carson had taught me the bunny hop but I couldn't remember how to do it.⛸ Over time, I managed to go backwards. In early January during the Stockholm Skates day (on Jan. 6th), there were ice skating instructors- they taught me how to do a one footed spin, how to switch forwards to backwards, and some other simple things. I also learned how to play ringette that day- a fun game with a hockey stick without the part on the bottom, and a puck that was actually a donut ring shaped thing. You coul...