be persuaded to read persuasion

So I started Persuasion by Jane Austin about 3 days ago, but since I had to study for my exam (on the economic history of sweden) I couldn't really indulge until yesterday, when I spent from 2 to 7 pm reading and then finished it this morning while doing laundry. If you have not read it already, I highly recommend it. I will not ruin the ending or anything in this entry, but it evokes some thoughts on romance so I will allow myself to ponder my reaction here. I hope you find it "agreeable." Reading austin always makes one desire a most illustrious and graceful rhetoric, preferably with a poignant british accent. (sooo excited about england/scotland!)

Often in life the things we have to wait for are more rewarding than those we don't. Granted some things are inherently good, and no amount of speed or delay will change that they are so. Yet sometimes it is the waiting period that makes the end result so much more valuable. I don't think it is good for anyone to always have what they want, as soon as they want it. Modern technology has sped up the pace of life so much that perhaps we expect all our desires to be met instantaneously, but I don't think that is a best possible outcome. Something is certainly gained in waiting.

For example, I love Christmas. Perhaps even more than the day, I love the season preceeding it. The idea of advent, living in anticipation of Christ's return to earth, surely agrees with me in that something is gained by our waiting for Christ's return, and while we wait, looking forward to it and perservering through the troubles of this life. I can enjoy December 25th much more if I have been living in anticipation since at least Thanksgiving. I used to remove a link in the red and green construction paper chain each day. I hate it when holidays sneak up on me. Something is lost.

I started by saying I would talk about romance, but I think you've already made the connection. The first thing Corinthians 13 says about love is that it is patient. Another word for patience, long-suffering, has always made me pause. "Long" and "suffering": I don't know anyone who likes long suffering. If we must suffer, we want it to be over as quickly as possible. In persuasion, Anne has been "suffering" for 8 years when we first meet her as a character. Longing for someone she loves but can't be with, believing him lost forever, possibly married to another. She talks a lot about constancy. It seems to me both the gift and the curse of strong feelings that we don't get over them quickly. Yet another good reason for marriage to be forever. Hearts which cleave to each other and become one are not meant to be parted.

Still I maintain that a romance that endures trials, separations, and difficulties is much the better for it. I agree with Mrs. Smith (a friend of Anne's) that our true characters are revealed in the painful and awful sitations rather than the sunny day. And of course, anything which we have long waited for gains even more value because of the wait. In all my grown years of coming and going from home, I find that I am most happy to see my family, our pets, and that lovely grey colonial on the day I arrive from a long separation. I can appreciate them more after feeling their absence.

One song that always makes me reflect is The Wait by Built to Spill. You should go listen to it because the music really adds a lot but here are the lyrics:

You wait/ You wait/ You wait for summer, Then you wait for rain/ You wait/ You wait/ You wait for darkness then you wait for day/ Yeah, you wait

You wait/ You wait/And she said patience, patience, darling/ Patience, patience, it will come

You wait/ You wait/ You wait for August, Then you wait for May/ You wait/ You wait/ You wait to get up, Then you wait to play/ You wait

You wait/ You wait for someone that'll make the waiting worth the wait
You wait/You wait/ You wait

I don't know exactly why I put the whole song in except that I think it rings so true. Perhaps another aspect of waiting, patience, and long-suffering that should be discussed is what we do in the meantime. If we don't know how to enjoy the days going by in anticipation, we won't be truly able to enjoy the event/person/etc. that we've been waiting all this time for. As soon as one thing arrives, we'll start longing for something else! It's so characteristic of our nature, and daily contentment is not. I spent most of my younger years believing that my life would finally "start" in college. Then there is my tendancy even now to think that my life can't have abundance until I'm married, and so in some aspects I'm waiting for my life to "start" then.

I guess what this song reminds me of is the need to be content everyday even as we wait. We are not guaranteed a tomorrow, and while planning for the future is wise, it is also wise to be thankful for all our present circumstances, if for no other reason than that God is in control and is working all things together for our good.

And now I should really go to bed. I recommend both Persuasion and The Idiot (which I just finished reading as well). I also read Candide (Voltaire) at my corridormate's urging, which is satirical and sobering. It's a bit unrelated to this entry here but perhaps I'll discuss it in a future post. So be content and wait for someone who will make the waiting worth the wait.

pictures from copenhagen. better late than never.

thoughts on the welfare state

I've been learning a lot about Sweden's welfare state, both in and out of the classroom. In my first class here we discussed liberal egalitarianism (made famous by rawls and expanded upon by dworkin) which explains the need for a welfare state on a theoretical basis which considers the moral equality of individuals as paramount. This line of thinking recognizes that there are inherent inequalities between people (that they don't deserve) and thus desires to equalize positions, allowing inequity only when it benefits the least well off. Perhaps at a theoretical level this seems right, but putting it into practice requires a society which does not believe that individuals have a considerable amount of self-ownership. Liberal egalitariansim seems to require the valuing of others in the community on an equal level with yourself and immediate family while at the same time promoting individuals and individual rights as supreme. This almost seems a contradiction. The individualistic western culture with which liberalism has historically been associated seems to make the imposition of a welfare state a difficult task.

In the States we don't usually think of our country as being a welfare state, but to some degree it certainly is. Granted you can go from riches to rags and end up on the streets, but there are unemployment transfers and government sponsored programs to keep you from going hungry and get you back on your feet, as long as you want to get back to work. The government provides education and subsidizes higher education and healthcare for many who can't afford them. We seem to take it for granted that a modern state provides basic services to its population but this was not always the case, nor is it true everywhere today.

Let's go back to the reasons for the welfare state. I've always thought that governments provide basic services like education because it is in the best interest of the state to have an educated population. Certainly countries have and will continue to compete for places of power in the global community and that requires a certain level of competancy among laborers (at least in the modern context). The Swedish welfare state takes it further, they provide free education all the way through (including masters and Ph.D's), generous retirement benefits, gender-equalizing policies such as shared maternity/paternity leave paid for by the government, free healthcare (like the rest of europe), etc. The sentiment here is "we're all equal so why shouldn't we all have the same opportunities?"

I think it really comes down to values. In the states people are always talking about "hard work" while here the buzz word seems to be "equality". I've always taken it for granted that inequity is inherent in the world and thus some people will have to work harder than others to have "the good life." I guess I've never questioned the justice of such a thought. I used to whine to my dad that someone got more than me- he would simply reply, "michelle, life's not fair." Perhaps that is why the swedish culture and liberal egalitarianism seem so strange to me. Is it unjust for some to have more than others? Since when did justice mean an equal distribution? For some people, the two seem to be equivical. Is this a cultural sense of entitlement? Am I wrong to think that God gives to each a certain lot, and it's what we do with what we're given (talents, opportunities, resources) by which we are measured?

So all these thoughts are rolling around in my brain whilest I'm also pondering economic development. Previously I have considered my reason for being involved in development more along the lines of compassion for the poor than giving them their due. Do I think it's right and just that a few hundred families own most of the arable land in South America and the landless farmers are often employed at close to slave wages? Certainly not. There is plenty of injustice based on distribution. But this is where I get stuck. I do think that the huge tracks of land sitting unused by rich landowners should be redistributed to the people without land, but I'm not sure if I consider such an action an act of mercy and love like Christ told us to act, or as a requirement of justice because each person has a moral right to an equal share. So now you see that this entry is really just me trying to figure out what I think.

Back in the 1970's, the swedish welfare state was much more built up and regulated than it is today (the economic crisis of the 90's brought a lot of deregulation). The majority of the population was within one of 4 national labor unions and these unions basically sat down with employers and made deals while the government watched and gave its blessing. The main thrust of this policy was 'wage solidarity' which meant "equal pay for equal work"- even between companies and in somewhat different industries. This resulted in the majority of the population having very similar incomes and the floor and ceiling effect- with government money transfers, no one could drop below a certain level and with a progressive tax scheme that dramatically taxed away extra income after a certain point. This is why Sweden has one of the lowest Gini coeffiecints (which measures inequality) in the world. The system also focused on preventitive measures and proactive government intervention which is less costly than recovery and crisis management. This was one argument that the welfare state could propel development rather than stifle it.

The Swedes seem more relaxed about their work. On the news the other night they were interviewing people in the debate to change the workday from 8 to 6 hours a day. The woman they were interviewing was saying how nice it was for her to have 2 more hours a day at home with her family since her company had switched. I can't really imagine America instituting a 6 hour work day, so that working over 30 hours a week would mean overtime. Yet it's a nice thought. Certainly all those worried that China is going to pass us as a world power wouldn't like what that would do to GDP. It definitely seems like there are less adult Swedes working themselves to death, though family values seem to be weaker here (that's an entry for another day).

Well thanks for reading to this point, I know that was probably just a lot of incoherent rambling. I'm curious to hear what people think about a "just distribution" so leave a comment if you like. Being a brunette is great, I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe. My corridor is feeling more like a family everday. I guess I do a lot of "real" cooking compared to some of the others because Alexander told me today I'm like the corridor "wife". He said he wouldn't mind if I had some food on the table for him when he got home lol. All that probably because today I tried to cook a whole chicken and it looked all fancy. Tasted pretty good too. Okay well I should really go back to learning about Sweden's economic history and reading up on the world development reports for my economic development class. I can't believe it's March 18th!

taking the plunge

I dyed my hair dark brown. I think I like it. I'll miss my natural hair color because it is rather unique, but I figure now is as good a time as any to try something a little different (perhaps quite different). here are some recent photos:

Eating pancakes with my corridormates. Texas and I sort of had a bake off, a friendly one of course.

Some corridormates and Kayla hanging out in our kitchen. From left to right: Kayla, Ali, Howard, Jonathan, and Texas.

jag heter michelle. jag kommer från USA. tack!

I've become more of a student in the last two weeks. I'm now taking Swedish class in addition to my political science or economic course each month so I'm actually in the classroom on a regular basis. Today was the exam for my political theory course and I didn't really realize how much material there was until it was too late to study at a reasonable pace. Thus Tuesday and Wednesday involved lots of reading, studying, and Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Therapy (which made the cramming a bit more pleasant). I love learning, but this was certainly no "ideal-type" situation. My exam today went from 1 to 5 pm and involved writing 4 seperate and full essays. Glad it's over now and I'm looking forward to my economic history class(which unfortunately starts tomorrow morning at 9).

In other news, I got a new bike! For those who didn't hear, my first bike was stolen about 2 weeks ago. My strategy this time was to buy a bike no one would want to steal. Unfortunately bikes here are soo expensive. I doubt anyone would pay more than $10 for this bike at a tag sale in the US and I paid quite a bit more. Oh well, it feels good to be out in the air again and to get places so much faster! No doubt I need some exercise after my pint of chocolate therapy.

Last weekend I attended my first Swedish gasque at Kalmar Nation (my nation). I put some pictures up on facebook but here are a few goodies:

(The cool pep band that played while we stood in the freezing cold waiting for all the nations to arrive at the University Main Building for our ceremonial entrance.)

The first course was AMAZING! Seriously, I didn't know toast with sundried tomotoes and artichokes could be so good. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I was starving by the time we ate, but it was still really good. Of course gasque-ing and drinking (and singing!) all go hand in hand so we drank some swedish schnapps, beer, and wine. I can say with confidence that I'll never enjoy schnapps.

Also at the opening remarks of the recceqasque the University Choir preformed for us. Here is a clip (since I know you all want to know what singing in Swedish sounds like). I joined a different choir (the one at Kalmar) so I'll rehearse with them every Wednesday and then we sing at gasques and in the spring choir festival. It was really nice to sing with them on Wednesday, it's really going to help my swedish pronounciation and help me to get to know some Swedes better. I would love to be in a choir at home, but just don't have the time to be committed to it like I do here. Between the biking, singing, reading, learning for the sake of learning, and catching up on current events- I think my time here so far has been really fruitful. I'm learning to define productivity in a different way that's allowing me to chill out for a change.

I think that's a pretty solid update for now. I'm having fun planning for Stephen's visit and our trip to the UK and Ireland. I might even take two classes in March so I'll have the whole month of April off and won't have to worry about making things up. Being an exchange student allows for quite a bit of flexibility over here. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to Copenhagen for the weekend, so stay tuned for a post on that.

am I swedish yet?

Between yesterday and today I took two steps closer to becoming a real European girl. I bought my first pair of euro-tight jeans (the waist is a bit higher and they are tight all the way to the ankle) and I got bangs, or as they call it here "fringe". I'm embracing the idea of assimilation and giving it my best shot. People continually speak to me in Swedish, but I think they'd probably do that no matter what I looked like. Still, I tell myself I'm playing the part well.

I took a boat cruise to tallinn, estonia, this past weekend. For those who know me and my history of severe motion sickness, you may be questioning the rationality behind such a decision. I just figured I'd have a good time until I got sick, which was the case. I won't be taking any more boat cruises, but I don't regret it. As far as estonia though, it was quite different from Sweden (Uppsala or Stockholm). They are obviously more similar to each other than to the US, given that they are both european, but the vibe was different. when I poke into the shops in sweden, I find all most all the clothing tasteful, but kayla and I couldn't help but remark on how gaudy a lot of the estonian fashion was. Not that fashionable clothes make or break a city, I'm considering erasing this whole last paragraph for fear that I sound very ethnocentric, but I'll leave it since it was my honest first impression. Also take into account that I was still feeling pretty sea sick all day and dreading going back on the boat. To top it off, there was intense wind and rain which made for a pretty miserable walk around the city.

Anyhow, the old section of Tallinn was really beautiful. The country is famous for making amber jewelry, which was quite lovely. I smiled to myself on seeing women with round fur hats. The alcohol was cheaper than here in Sweden (hence the reason most people went on the boat cruise) so I bought 2 bottles of wine, though I have no plans to open them soon. We ate lunch at a lovely italian restaurant looking over the main square. There were lots of pretty churches. Really I just love european cities for their old and weathered buildings. We climbed up a lot of stairs to look out over most of the old city below- it was postcard perfect.

In other news, we went to Kalmar tonight (our nation, where nation means student organization, of which there are 13 you can choose from as a student at uppsala university). They told us all about the nation and what we can be involved in there. Then we had a dinner and learned some of the swedish (drinking) songs that are sung at the gasques (fancy dinner parties). The choir sang for us too and I am planning to go see about joining it. I think that would be a fun way to learn some swedish. I just keep hoping that if I listen hard enough to people speaking swedish I'll magically understand, but I doubt this is the case so I should probably start working on that. Part of me sees no reason at all to expend effort learning a language I'll never use again, but then again, it would be quite useful now and what's the harm in knowing another language? Might come in handy some day.

My class is going quite well. We switched professors (which is quite normal here for them to do sort of tag-team teaching in their own specialty) and started talking about different models of democracy. It made me want to read up on the classics so I'll probably go pick up some aristotle and perhaps machiaveli's the prince. We talked a lot about feminism last week, and since sweden is known for being a more gender equal society than perhaps any other major country in the world, it has led to some very interesting discussions. I admit I hadn't spent much time formally considering the way society is constructed to reenforce gender roles. Still I don't like the idea of the government interfering with the way families choose to divide up tasks and responsibilities within the home. I doubt such a policy would ever be accepted in the US where we value our personal liberty above all else.

Well I should get to some reading. It's easy to fall into thinking that I have no work to do since there is only an exam in two weeks and that is the only grade for the course. In any event, time to learn about "the best of the degenerate forms of government".

it's snowing!

I woke up this morning and noticed that my room seemed to be illuminated in a different sort of way. Opening the blinds confirmed my suspicion... snow! It's hard to believe there hasn't been any snow (except for a dusty one day that was gone by the next) since I got here. I thought Sweden = snow but apparently that was incorrect. All the Swedes point to global warming as the cause for the change and my corridor mate called this "the worst winter [he] can remember." It's actually been really nice for me because biking is our main mode of transportation and that's a bit easier to do without snow. I'm excited for the snow though, this town was meant to be blanketed this time of year.

I've been doing some cooking. Sunday night I made meatloaf for Kayla and Karina and last night I made enough stirfry to feed a whole family (so I'll just eat it for several days, it was yummy). So far I'm enjoying cooking for myself (which is good because eating out is so expensive) but I've noticed it's only possible for me here because I have so few structured activities. The reading is a bit of a burden but my class is pretty interesting so far and very few of my classmates have actually done it. Anyway, here are some pictures from our first sunday night dinner.

I joined Kalmar Nation. We didn't really know much about it when we joined, but it seems to be the punk/alternative scene. We went to a concert (a cool swedish band) and I was really wishing I had some of my vintage clothes because it was sort of an "anything goes except boring" uniform. Next time we'll punk it up a little. We had just spent the day in Stockholm (see facebook for pictures) so we were pretty tired and not dressed for the occasion. Stockholm was really beautiful and trendy. We went in 2 hardcore vintage clothing stores- there was no mistake about these clothes being from another era. Still, there was a heavy emphasis on loud and bright clothes from the 70's and 80's, which doesn't really appeal to me so I didn't buy anything. There was another store that had very avant guard fashion, some of which didn't look wearable in every day life but I guess in Sweden it's different. It's almost like you have to try. And you have to wear predominantly black. Some people wear only black every day. At home we might call these people emo or morbid, but here it's very socially exceptable and almost expected. I hope when the weather gets warmer people will break out the color because I brought a lot of colorful clothes and plan to wear them.

Swedes are an interesting breed (though they consider themselves quite boring actually). They are so reserved that it often comes off to me as rudeness. We walk around cities and grocery stores looking totally confused and lost and not a soul would dare open their mouth to help us. When we ask for help people are willing to help, but they avert their eyes from you until you speak to them. Forget talking to the person next to you on the train. Everyone puts in their headphones. It's not really so different from home, just more extreme, and since I like chatty and meeting new, random people, it feels a bit stifling at times. The international students are the exception (obviously, they aren't swedish) and they love to chat and meet everyone. This weekend a whole bunch of internationals are going on a little cruise from friday evening to sunday morning to Tallinn, Estonia. We'll only be in Tallinn for 8 hours or so, but it's cheap and should be really fun as long as I'm not horribly seasick.

Kayla and I both want to do some serious traveling around Europe (and she wants to go to Morocco) so if anyone reading this has a suggestion for a city we "just can't miss" please comment :) We're planning to do Russia for sure.

Sometimes it's strange to come 'home' here since this is really the first time I've ever felt like I live alone. Freshman year I had Karen and ever since I've had my suitmates (love you guys) so even though I was very independent in my wanderings around campus, I always had people to come home to. My corridor mates here are a pretty weak substitute and often are not around anyway. Still I think aside from it feeling very strange and a bit bare, I'm dong well with it. This is such an independent culture- it takes my natural loner-ness and amplifies it into a society's way of life. Students don't even feel particularly tied to their families since the state pays for all their education (and even gives them a stipend to live off so they can go away to school) and so their parents desires have no economic bearing of the students' choices. The elderly are also taken care of by the state, so there's not a lot of intergenerational interaction as far as I can tell. The whole system makes for a very "me-centered" life (which is similar to America of course).

One glaring difference with Americans is the desire to distinguish ourselves from the pack through hard work, and then be recognized and rewarded for it- while in Sweden there is this unspoken rule that no one can think they are better than anyone else and thus shouldn't want to make a lot of money (though plenty of them do) or draw attention to themself. My swedish friend david told me this unbelievable antecdote, I don't know if it's an exaggeration but here it is: An elderly person gets on a bus that is already filled with people. No one gets up to offer their seat and the older person will have to tell someone to get up (I believe this so far because I witnessed the same situation, and unfortunately for me, the old lady barked at me in Swedish and asked for my seat even though I was carrying/holding a ton of heavy stuff from IKEA). He say's no one will move until told to do so for this motivation: they don't want to act charitably because people will think they're doing it so people will think "oh that person is so charitable" and thus they will draw (positive) attention and recognition that will put them on a higher moral plain than the others around them, which isn't acceptable because they must all be the same. Also John (another swede who spent time in America) told me that it's super taboo to talk about salaries, even vaguely and among friends and family. You can only talk about it if you make a pathetically low amount and want to complain. I guess it's similar in the US, but just more extreme here. John says people here aren't supposed to desire to be rich. There's no "Swedish dream" to go from rags to riches (of course, almost no one here would fall into the 'rags' category).

Okay that's enough rambling for this morning. I'm going to go eat some leftovers and be sad that during the time I was writing this, the snow changed to rain and thus the snow will probably be gone soon. Please send mail! My address is:

Sernanders väg 6-137

752 61 UPPSALA Sweden