Willy's Blog

A few Sweden pics

2008-09-12T23:33:00.008+02:00

Here are a few from my apartment in Malmö including my 22nd Bday.

Annika, Sam and I on my Birthday

Believe it or not I baked that

Sam showing Annika some of his favourite music

Living room

View from my apartment. I'm on the 3rd floor.

Sam misses Arthur

Bday Cake from Annika :)

Thats it for now. I'll try and update my blog in a little bit. I'm hoping to keep it updated more often now so check back every once in awhile!

Will

Pic Uploads

2008-09-12T20:54:00.010+02:00

Here are some pics from the summer in Canada. They are out of order but include a trip to the Toronto Islands, a Coldplay concert, Blue Jays game and Muskoka as well as some from our Midsommar party in Newmarket. I will upload some from Sweden after. Enjoy!

Trip to Toronto Islands
Coldplay Concert

Canadas Wonderland

Cottage
Jays vs Cinncinati
Toronto Islands again

Sunset on the Moon River

Annika and Will in Bala

These are a few pictures from our Swedish midsommar celebration in Newmarket on June 21st.

And this is from the Swedish church's midsommar celebration in Toronto
Annika by the falls in Bracebridge

I will post these for now and add a few more later..the internet is really slow right now!

More New Beginnings...

2008-09-01T14:54:00.002+02:00

Well, its been a long time since I wrote here but I have a few minutes now so I'll write a few things I have been up to...hopefully I can keep it up a little more often now!

I am in Lund, Sweden now starting a new course called 'Svenska som främmande språk' or what we english people would say, Sweden as a Foreign Language. I had my first class this morning and it seems really good. It will not be easy as we have class 4-5x per week for 3 hours from now until December, but in the end I am supposed to have my Swedish up to the University level so that I can study in Swedish if I choose to do that.

The people in the course seem nice and I think we'll get to know each other pretty well this semester so hopefully it won't all be work and we can have some good times too!
The teacher said today we should be speaking only Swedish all the time if we want to pass the final exam for this course but she never said anything about writing in English :P so I guess I will use my blog to get all my English thoughts down.

I'm not sure exactly what my plans are after this course but it is a good start and opens up a lot of doors for me in the future. It also buys me some more time in Sweden for the time being (provided I get my visa) which is where I want to be right now.

I also finally found somewhere to live (unbelievably hard in this town) and am living in a town called Malmö which is just across the water from Copenhagen, Denmark. It seems like a good place to live and I've got a place which is very central which is great for commuting back and forth to Lund (12 minutes on the train) It cost me 640kr which is about 110 canadian for 30 days of unlimited travel. Its not a bad price considering it pays for itself after about 5 round-trips and I will be making around 20 round-trips per month.

Oh yeah, and I am also taking an distance-ed English course through Athabasca University which will allow me to graduate as soon as I complete all the work. It seems to be a good system and so far I would recommend it to anyone who wants to travel and/or live somewhere besides where they are studying. From what I hear all universities in Canada (and maybe elsewhere too)should accept their courses as part of most programs.My plan is to graduate next Spring or Summer, so we'll see how it goes studying two things at once. The nice thing is this English course is flexible and I have up to a year to finish it if I need it.

It was hard to come over here this time and leave Canada behind. I was home for such a short time and there was so little time to relax and do the things I wanted to do. I felt like I was stressed the whole summer about organizing stuff for the fall (courses, visas, financial stuff) and along with travelling around with Annika and my family and working part-time tutoring English the summer absolutely flew by...

Not sure when I'll be back in Canada but things are going well here right now and by the end of September I will be deciding my plans for Christmas and the spring so I will be sure to write again and let everyone know what is happening then!

Hope everyone is well! Would be great to hear from you all!

Will

summer 08 and beyond

2008-05-17T15:23:00.005+02:00

hey
sitting here right now and thinking about the last few months and thought i would make a new blog post to put some of my thoughts down on paper..or at least the internet

the last few months have been a bit scary from the standpoint of feeling pressure to make decisions that are not easy and trying to move forward into a world that seems to becoming both bigger and smaller at the same time. smaller in terms of distance between places and bigger in terms of the possibilities that have been opened up to me.

i passed the swedish test i wrote in lund (southern sweden) a couple weeks ago which means i am going to be coming back to sweden in the fall to study. i was very excited to get this news as i have probably never done something so scary and put myself out as much as i did to write this test. it is a pretty big accomplishment for me as it is not even 10 months since i learned my first swedish words.

my girlfriend annika and myself are coming to canada for the summer to work (she has her work permit approved this week) however, after the summer i will be moving to sweden for the fall and possibly beyond that. i feel like i have a lot of things i want to do with my life that i wouldnt have even considered a year ago, and of unfortunatly that also means spending less time with my family and friends in canada than before...but that does not mean you are forgotten...i really hope we all get a chance to see each other this summer!

my brother and his wife maria just arrived in sweden and it is great to see them again...just wish i didnt feel so busy with schoolwork and everything, but im gonna get back to that now and try and get some stuff out of the way.

take care everybody and let me know what you guys are up to..i want to hear!

will

April 30/08

2008-04-30T23:47:00.004+02:00

Last day of April, a pretty good month overall, but a pretty overwhelming one to say the least. There were a lot of decisions to make, a number of which I still have to make, but live remains exciting and busy, to say the least.

Today was Valborgsmässoafton (sp?) in Sweden, which as I had been previously informed, is a pretty special day here. It involves the welcoming of spring with speeches, music and FIRE!! Well, not just fire, but a big fire in the middle of the the river in Linköping along with a big fireworks display. There were a lot of people there and it was a pretty impressive display. Was very happy to be there, but of course forgot my camera and therefore have no pictures to upload...

I know its been awhile since I wrote here, but its been tough remembering to keep up with any sort of blog. I am now moved back in with the Jacobsson family until June when I am considering going to Taizé in France for a week before the journey back to Canada. That decision will come in the next few days...depends on dates and money, but not so much the 2nd..one should always find money for the things that are most important!

Its nice to be back in a busy house again, but all the privacy and independence went out the window pretty much immedietly..thats ok though, its only for a month and it should be fun here. (as long as the drumset in my room doesnt get played at 6am tooo often)

Looking for a summer job now, anyone with any ideas please let me know..I've applied to Roger Neilson's hockey camp and had a telephone interview with them, but have not had any follow up..(which is strange because they pretty much offered me a job on the phone)

Well, I guess the biggest news this week (or month for that matter) was my surprise invitation to write an entrance exam/test to a Swedish language course which will qualify me to study in Swedish afterwards. It was a surprise, not because I didn't expect it, but because I expected to write this test in August, and received an email three days before the test date saying it would be this past Monday...ahhh!!! (this kind of felt like them saying 'here, you have three days to learn a new language and then you must travel several hundred kilometers to write a test and do an oral interview) Anyways, I went and wrote the test and did the interview and overall got a good feeling about it...I'm really hoping for this, so wish me luck!!

So, I guess thats all I'll add for now...there are millions of other things to write but I am tired and can't think of them all right now, so I'll just say life is good, Sweden is great and I look forward spending spring here, summer in Canada and everything that follows after that (ill let you all know good or bad the results of the test..ive got my fingers crossed (canada) am holding my thumbs (sweden)...pretty hard to do both these things at once!

Take care and keep in touch...always great to hear what is going on with all of you!

On "The Tipping Point" By: Malcolm Gladwell

2008-03-06T02:27:00.002+01:00

First of all, to visit Gladwell's website and read about The Tipping Point you can go here

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is a book that attempts to explain the phenomena at what point social trends or become ‘epidemics.’

In Gladwell’s words “The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea…It is the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation or unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” (7)

In my words, The Tipping Point is a study of the moment in time and the factors surrounding it where any social phenomenon explodes in popularity. Gladwell explains this using the following methodology:

He argues there are 3 major factors that make something “tip.” They are:
1. The Law of the Few
2. The Stickiness factor
3. The Power of Context

The “Law of the Few” concerns 3 special types of people called: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. Connectors are described as people with a natural social instinct of meeting and networking with an abnormally large number of people. Consequently they can play a major role in making things “tip” because of their ability to reach such a broad network of people. Mavens are people with an abnormally broad knowledge that Gladwell categorizes as “information collectors” and can thus make things “tip” because people respect their opinions and will follow their advice. Salesmen are self-explanatorily “persuaders;” they are those with an “emotional contagion” that are able to appeal to others emotions and sell them on ideas unusually well.

“The Stickiness Factor” I relate to that song that you can not get out of your head. It is something that for whatever reason can not be forgotten. Gladwell focuses in this section on the packaging of information and the way that subtle changes in the way information is delivered to the public can dramatically alter the way it is received and to what level it “sticks.” He uses examples of TV shows such as Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues and demonstrates how the popularity of these shows is directly correlated to research performed by the show’s creators with kids to see which elements of the shows were “stickiest” by looking to see what the kids paid the most attention to and what they were bored by.

“The Power of Context” is pretty self-explanatory. Gladwell discusses the human tendency of over-attributing the causes of events to the individual and how the context of a situation can be just as important as one’s personality in deciding how an individual will act. In other words, where any person is and what they are doing at any given time has a generally unrecognized, but powerful influence over how a person will act.

I have a few issues with The Tipping Point, although it is clearly a well-thought out, well researched piece of writing.

First of all, Gladwell’s argument is too formulaic in its attempt to explain social phenomena. The structure the book is exclusive insofar as he does not leave room for factors outside of the ones he lays out to explain the concept of The Tipping Point. In his conclusion he says “The Theory of Tipping Points requires, however, that we reframe the way we think about the world.” (257) However on the previous page he says “This is the first lesson of the Tipping Point. Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas.”(255-6) I think it seems these two ideas are at odds with one another. To be flexible in reframing the way we think about the world distinctly means looking at the whole picture and being open not only the potential of the flux of different factors over time, but the potential for unseen factors. In writing a book about reframing the way we look at things Gladwell is implying something is wrong with the way we are currently looking at them. However it seems he is neglecting the potential for error within his own framing of things, which is either a kind of confidence approaching on egotistical, ignorance or a scholarly apathy towards a potential weakness in a rather sound bit of reasoning.

The reason this issue stands out so much to me is because of the way Gladwell simplifies the concept of The Tipping Point into logical terms in a way that makes it seem far too easy. I believe a lot of the things Gladwell says are quite true, but I am also skeptical that there can be methodology to creating a phenomenal “epidemic.” I mean, if it were that easy why couldn’t anyone do it? Why couldn’t the advertisers being paid millions of dollars to produce these sorts of epidemics simply read this book and have all their problems solved?

I believe this is a book with lots of potential, but also a book that needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Gladwell provides knowledge with the potential to help create social change, but it is by no means gospel. He leaves no room for influences external to the ones he presents, or even pure randomness. The elements of change he discusses are all factors in social change but what if there are others? Or what if it is possible for social change to happen and epidemics to begin without changes in any of the factors he lists? Or to be metaphysical for a minute, what if some things do not happen for a reason? Even deeper, what if there are unseen influences on social trends? Things that cannot be explained in the simple terms outlined by Gladwell…

These criticisms are really just food for thought. The Tipping Point is a very interesting read and is full of well-argued thoughts with plenty of references to studies and research to back up the arguments. Ultimately, it is thought-provoking, which demonstrates the strength of the book; to analyze the way we think and act and some of the factors behind the change in social structures. In terms of this objective, The Tipping Point has in itself a brilliant self-reflexive quality insofar as it has the potential to instigate great social change through an analysis of social change itself.

I have no doubt that when Gladwell wrote The Tipping Point he had in mind the objective of “tipping” the book itself into an epidemic of his own. And after reaching the status of No.1 International Bestseller maybe there was something to that egotistical confidence after all….

Feb 2 /08

2008-02-02T23:14:00.000+01:00

Well, I have been up since 7am and am preeety tired, but am feeling great. The last few days of all things I have been helping produce a ballet concert that is happening tomorrow. Although this might seem like an unlikely project for me to be working on, I have been having a reeeeally good time. The concert is tomorrow and I already know I will be sad to see it go, because it has been a lot of fun working on it.

I start 2 new courses next week, both of which I think will be pretty cool. The first is called 'Sweden and the Swedes' and the second is a Swedish language course which I have been waiting to get started with for quite awhile. The Swedish course is not through LiU but through Folkuniversitetet, which is downtown Linköping. I hope it is good, but I know it can't hurt to expose myself to more Swedish. I want to learn and I am tired of saying things when I know they are wrong.

Anyways, thats it for now...big concert tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to upload some pictures sometime next week.

Day #38

2008-01-27T22:27:00.000+01:00

Well, its been 38 days since I left for Linköping and it feels a bit surreal right now how much has happened, how much is happening, and how much is still left to happen...

I just got the wireless network up and running in the Jacobsson house, so I finally have time start writing a bit about what I am up to.

What can I say...life is good. I don't have much class right now and I have lots of time to relax, which feels good after a first month where I didn't have any time to think. It feels a little weird though..I had my first classes last monday and tuesday, and now have none until Feb 5, which is over a week away...well, I'm not complaining..theres are lots of other things to do

I am moving to my own apartment on Feb 4th which will be good for a number of reasons, even though the Jacobsson's have been great to live with. Its always a bit constricting when you have to live by someone else's schedule. I found a pretty sweet place too and it is only about 5 minutes walking from the Jacobssons.

I don't know what else to write now...I talked to the manager of LHC (Linköping Hockey Club) and put me in touch with some people who will try and help find me a place to train and play while here. He also mentioned possibly teaching some younger Swedish goalies in the hockey school. Hopefully I'll know more about later this week...

I think thats it for now...I will post the link to here on my facebook page so you will be able to find this page from there as well.

all the best to everyone back in Canada, and wherever else you might be!

Will

My mobile phone can....(class again)

2008-01-27T19:55:00.000+01:00

<---This is my phone

It was the 2nd cheapest phone available on a 'pay as you go' type plan, meaning I didn't have to commit to anything (hmm..I didn't know this assignment would also be a biography of my personal traits...)

Anyways, the phone is much better than the one I used back in Canada, even though it cost less than half the price. This is one of the only things I have found to be cheaper in Sweden...

It has a built/in mp3 player that runs off a 128mb memory stick that I just pulled out of the phone to find that out..

The memory stick also serves the purpose of storing pictures, movies, and sounds files that can all be recorded by by the camera and microphone built into the phone. You can also save new ringtones, themes, games, applications (like facewarp, music mate or newsreader...these are the pre-installed apps I found on my phone) that are either pre-installed on the phone and dowloaded via the WiFi network on the phone or via USB port from my computer.

The phone has a built in personal organizer that can alert you of your events inputed into the calender feature. Also, there are calculator, timer, and stopwatch functions. Of course you can save all the contact numbers, as well as information on the people you contact frequently as well.

The phone can also work as an FM radio, as well as being able to play online games with other people through the PlayNow function (this sounds expensive...)

Finally, the phone also functions, as a phone! You can make and receive calls and the same thing goes for sms messages(which can include photo, audio, or video attachments)...who'd have thought...a phone that functions as a phone!

My template looked like yours so... (class)

2008-01-27T19:23:00.001+01:00

Well, after about 2 minutes of looking at 600 different blogs that looked exactly the same as mine I decided I would try and figure out how to make my own, more original looking blog

I'm feeling pretty smart right now...I managed to reformat my template by editing the html script for the template. I thought it might be of interest to document how I did this, both in case anyone else in the class is interested in doing the same (and is, like me, not particularly good with computer code and other such computery things) and also to document the fact that for once something on a computer actually worked for me. I will include the steps below that I followed in order to change the template.

1. First I looked around google for a good site for blog templates and found one that had some pretty cool ones. ............NO! I will not tell you which site I got it from because then your blog will, once again, look the same as mine....

2. I picked one with a picture I liked, but I am pretty sure the template code is pretty standard (meaning if you follow the steps below, you could probably put in the web address for any picture and it would work.) In other words, it is not so much the picture you are choosing, but the template, or format of how the blog will look.

3. I then downloaded the blog template from the site, and unzipped the file (it was a .zip file with 3 files inside: 1. the template file which is .txt 2. the background pic file and 3. a shortcut icon which i havent figured out quite yet)

4. Then, I had to open a photobucket account and upload the background picture (this is the part where I think I could have uploaded pretty much any picture I wanted to be the background...I chose the one that came with the template) I have the feeling this step may also help me in other areas with my blog as I had never heard of 'photobucket' before, but it seems like a pretty useful site.

5. I took the web address given to me by photobucket and pasted it into the html code (which is in the .txt file that came in the zip folder) under 'background: transparent URL' It should tell you where to do this on the site you download your template from.

6. I copied the entire text file and pasted it into the html section under templates in Blogger, and voila...a pretty blog!!

n.b For stage 6, I had to click on the link at the bottom of the html template page that said revert to classic mode...I got this tip from the website I downloaded the template from, and it wouldnt have worked unless I did this.

Well, if anyone actually gets to the bottom of this post I congratulate you! I'm sure this info is pretty redundant, but....well...too bad!!!

Now there are probably only 200 blogs that look just like mine, which is just fine with me :)

Personal Media Profile (classwork)

2008-01-27T19:06:00.000+01:00

Personal Media Profile

Alright, so here is a brief list of some of the forms of media I involve myself with on a fairly regular basis. As I mentioned in class, my 'media self' is in a bit of a transtion period for many reasons, most notably coming to a different country to study. I find many of the forms of media I used quite often in Canada are less important to me here and some new forms of media are quickly replacing them. In the list below I will denote whether I am using the listed form of media more or less since coming to Sweden from Canada 5 weeks ago.

- Television - LESS - I am a pretty active tv-watcher, meaning that I rarely sit down to just 'watch' tv. I usually have an idea of what I want to see and it is usually a sporting event or movie. Seeing as most of the sports I watched back in Canada are now on at about 3 in the morning, the amount of time I spend watching tv has gone down significantly.

- Newspaper - LESS - I used to read the newspaper everyday in Canada, but now am reading it only occasionally when I can find one somewhere.

- Books - LESS - as per our class discussion I decided to add books, because obviously being an English major and Philosophy minor in Canada, books take up a significant part of my 'media self.' However, my studies here will require significant less reading than in Canada. I will of course read on my own, but have not done much of this as of yet.

- Computer - LESS - I find myself more involved in different things here that have greatly reduced the amount of time I spend on the computer, however there are certain things I am now using more, and that I wasn't using at all before. I will list some of these below:-

Facebook – LESS - This is simply because I lived on facebook for the last year or so. Since coming to Sweden I have used facebook a fair amount, but have had less time to log on than before. I use it for networking with friends, especially those overseas, as well as sharing photos and of course the scrabulous app (haha..i didn't want to admit that part)

- MSN – SAME - Overall I'd say I'm using MSN less because I am on the computer less, but the percentage of the time I am on the computer where I am using MSN is higher than it was before, so I the average amount of usage per minute on the computer is about the same. When I was younger I used the chat system ICQ, but switched to use MSN a number of years ago. I use it to contact people who are expensive to phone and to chat about unimportant things while multitasking on the computer

- Email – MORE - I am using Email more here for sure, despite being on the computer less. Keeping in touch with family and friends is easiest this way I have 4 email accounts, two with the universities I am with, a hotmail account and a yahoo account. The hotmail account is used for most of my emailing with friends and for business. The school accounts are used mainly for correspondence with my universities and some classmates as well.

- Sports forums – I used to spend quite a bit of time browsing and posting in forums for different sports teams I was a fan of, however they quickly became annoying because of people who used them to ‘spam’ or ‘troll.’ Now I will occasionally read other’s posts, but rarely contribute to them.

- MySpace – LESS - A convenient way to discover new music and hear bands that normally wouldn’t get any publicity.

- Video Camera - LESS - well, I don't even have a camera here, so I obviously am using this medium not less, but not at all. Either way, I used to have a job filming and editing video back in Canada as well as working on a few small projects of my own.

- Mobile phone – MMMMMORRRRE!!! I bought a new phone when I came to Sweden and find that mobile phone systems are much more advanced here than in Canada. Better phones with more features for less money. Consequently I have also noticed people use their mobile phones a lot more here. SMS is a system that is used in Canada, but not on the same scale as here. I have noticed a major increase in my mobile phone usage since arriving in Sweden, to the point where it is an absolute necessity. In Canada I could get by without my phone and sometimes would go a couple days without using it. Here I need it everyday. I would suggest there are 3 main reasons for this change:

1. Cost – it is much cheaper to use a mobile phone here
2. Service – The university campus I was studying at before had almost no mobile phone service anywhere, making it pretty hard to use my mobile phone…
3. Portability – My studies and extra-curriculars here involve more travel, making the mobile phone the obvious medium preference.

So thats about it for now, I'm sure I've missed things from the past, but as for a present profile I think that pretty much covers everything.

Opening Comments

2008-01-27T18:51:00.000+01:00

This blog is being created for two seperate reasons:

1. For a course I am currently taking in Norrköping called 'Information retrieval and new new media'

2. To keep a bit of an online journal of stuff I am doing in Sweden and Europe over the next few months.

I will try and update a couple times per week, but time will tell how often I will be able to. Also, because this is a dual purpose blog, although everyone is welcome to read all my posts, I will try and denote in the title whether it is a class related post or not.

Hopefully I can find some interesting and controversial things to say, and of course feel free to comment on the blog entries!