hockey pool week 7 AND 8

After some misunderstandings and snafus (I still don't know my mac as well as I would think) I hereby present Hockey pool week 7 and week 8!

(As is obvious with the slope I lost momentum for week 7) but more importantly the winner was Gerty-Z with a whooping 40 points! WOW! The rest of us lined up as follows; Ricardipus, Cath, Lavaland, Bob, TomJoe, SM and me as a last place holder....

Week 8, ended yesterday and ScientistMother stands as winner with 35 points!! Congrats! The rest of us lined up as followed; Lavaland, Cath, Gerty, Riciadipus, me, Bob and Tom as the last place holder for the week...

Now, I have to go and cry in the corner since I forgot to change my picks for this week and therefore probably will have some less points again.... darn!

tale of two languages

One of the questions I have gotten since I moved to post doc city* is "do you think in your own language and then translate in your head". And I try to explain that it took about a month (give or take**) being surrounded by new language before I dreamt and thought in that language and that there is a certain strangeness in the thoughts. What I mean with that? 

I mean I think in English most of the time. I describe my feelings in terms of English. Not when I speak to my old friends back home, or my family - since I speak mother tongue with them but it's sometimes like I have to translate my thoughts back into mother tongue since I have them in English (currently since I live here). Sometimes it's difficult to translate them into the "same" word and that is a bit odd. I mean, I'm not surprised when I fail to explain my feeling in English, when I know what I mean deep down, but having trouble explaining the English expression into mother tongue? Quite annoying.

It's sometimes confusing. And there is a disconnect. The feelings I describe in English isn't always as "feely" as they would be in Swedish. As to describe it, it's sometimes more like watching a movie and knowing what they say but it's not connecting as much inside as it would be if it was in Swedish. Like the experience when someone calls you a bad word in "not-your-mother-tongue" or having to curse in another language***.

I made a mistake in teaching my coworkers some of the worst words (in my language) when I started my post doc. They laughed and thought it funny and for some short time, they said them to my jokingly in the lab. I had to tell them that it wasn't going to work anymore since it wasn't a joke to me when I heard the words. Funny enough, when they said the equivalent words in English I didn't really care. They were sort of uncomfortable though... if I said their words... The test did work and we all decided to stop trying to be "funny".

Anyhow, it's interesting that it's like having two different lives - one in mother language and one in second language.

And then the kicker. 

Sometimes I wake up and feel strange about my dreams. I have recollections about them being about my friends back home, the ones I've known for several years, and it's been very normal... but yet, something is odd. And then I realise that the problem is that my old friends were speaking English, and the voice over in the dream was in English as well. It doesn't make sense, since when I think about them all is in description in Swedish. And even if I can correctly translate words, they don't really mean the same...

Part of this was something I thought about when thinking about science since a lot of lingo back home is still in English (after all, we are not Icelandic or French where they make a new word but we use the English word most times and "make it Swedish") and that makes a challenge to talk about certain aspects of science in Swedish while most people know the English word anyway. Partly it was about my feelings and why it's harder to grasp certain things when they are spoken in English. Interpret people and their actions and words are hard to start with. Doing the same things in another language, a whole another problem.

It's like the second one of disconnect... I spoke to a friend back home a bit back whose mother is really ill. It was one of those times when I realised, yet again, that "I'm sorry" and "jag är så ledsen för din skull" aren't connecting the same within my heart. The latter version really hits home. I guess that is one of the reasons I sometimes rehash conversations in my head and translate them to really "feel" what was said and felt. It's just not the same when I speak my new language. It's like the defense if down in my ow language, whereas it is still a sort of wall in front of my heart in English.

I guess I could try and explain it better if I state that it could be the same that I usually need to read poems out aloud in order to feel the words. Or, I am just like a child trying to learn how to read? In any event, I need to hear the words as I read them in order to feel the emotion behind them (plus, it makes me read slower when I read aloud so maybe that is the reason?)

If nothing else, read the poems and words out loud from here and see if they make more sense... or more emotional?

Then there are those poems I read as a young woman, the ones I would like some of my newer friends to read and see if they like them as much as I do.... although I am not sure the read the same in English (the ones that exist that is). Partly maybe since poems are so hard to translate, considering the words and the context that makes the whole thing hard to make the same beautiful poem. I guess it might be the same in general when you translate although I tend to think poems are extra hard to make "right".

If interested, Edith Södergran and Karin Boye are two excellent poets whom I am not sure are found in English but are quite the quintesse of poets (imho). They are mostly on the dark side, or at least some of their romantic ones and others questioning life, but maybe that is quite the thing with poets? Emotions, mostly the bittersweet ones... but yet so eloquently written and perfectly describing the feelings and motions in order to make it easier to us who doesn't have the elegance of expression to know what to strive for? Or just expressing them?

*another country with another language than my mother tongue, and the question arise (sometimes after people ask if perhaps we speak English in my country) when established that I do have another language as my first one...

** it all depends on if I'm surrounded with only the new language or if I speak my native one a lot every day... if that makes sense? Even if I read the new paper every day, and talk to my family often, it's not the same as speaking it every morning and on and off during the day.

*** cursing has been shown to me being one of those things that doesn't connect as much inside when someone calls me a bad word. I mean, I get upset - don't get me wrong there - but the same context in native language is way more upsetting. When I was younger I spent some time in France, speaking French and almost ended up in a really bad situation since I said some very rude words that really didn't mean that much to me.... partly since it was another language. Safe to say, that wasn't true for Same thing that been explained to me by people who work with immigrants in my own country and their use of foul words in Sweden, since it doesn't connect that same way to them when they say that. In short, it's easier to curse in another language since it doesn't speak to you the same as if you were to say it in your native language.

...not in Kansas anymore...

Every once in awhile I forget where I currently live, post doc city. Needless to state much more, it’s a whole different place than where I grew up on the other side of the world. Funny enough though, I seem to forget every once in a while, like these last couple of weeks when I’ve encountered some of those things that make me go “ahh…. Maybe not the best plan silly! What was I thinking?”.

Let me just go through one of these things that makes me go “ah” (other people might not really go ah… ). I think it at least gives me some credit that I haven’t mentioned any of this to my family nor friends since I’m not too sure they’d approve or see the funny. Although, one of the things I realized was that I’m getting visitors in a few weeks and my friend’s boyfriend wasn’t too keen on visiting. Although,he was even less inclined to let my friend go alone to “that city since it is DANGEROUS”. My friend replied “well, chall has lived there for many years now and she hasn’t gotten killed or attacked yet” … ehh… I’m not really going to tell her too many details, and especially not right now when they’ve already booked flights and stuff.

So, one of these nights I realized driving home from a friend out in the suburbs that I needed gas. I had thought about it earlier in the day but gotten off work a bit late and therefore didn’t fill the car on the way out… Although, I got a bit worried since I saw the needle heading down to ‘E’. I therefore did what a responsible person does, and pulled into a gas station and up to the pump. Somewhere here I probably should’ve realized that if the “credit card function” on the machine is cancelled so you have to go in and pay with cash and tell the person behind the counter than you need gas for $20, maybe there is a reason for that? Not to mention that certain neighborhoods might not be the best to visit on a Friday night?!

Well, I’d already gone inside when this thought occurred to me and I wasn’t going to leave then (plus that getting stranded in the middle of the road without gas is just plain too embarrassing) . Silly me, not feeling scared or anything, although I was quite clearly not like the other clientele in there…. The woman who stood next by the counter while I handed over my 20 commented that my accent pointed out that “I was not from here” – her male friend next to her smiled and showed his golden grill while he looked at me and her. I don’t know why I just didn’t keep my mouth shut, but I guess like always, I’ve learned ignoring people usually leads to more problems than others. So, I stated that I wasn’t indeed not from around here (anyone could’ve done the math by looking at me in the store but hey…) but had moved here awhile back. She shooed and smiled and said that it was so cool that I was from exotic place (I’m pretty sure she had no idea where I am from but again, not arguing at 11 pm in a gas station in some neighborhood where I probably shouldn’t have been in the first place) and that with my hot body (yeah?!*) and that accent and exotic story – “I’d make a killing strippin’”.

She offered to take me over to the place where she worked in case I wanted to make more money than my current day job or just “to get some extra cash”… I just smiled and said “thanks, I’d need to think about it but it was so nice of her to say that” and with that I moved out towards my car to go home. After that exchange it really didn’t face me as much coming back home realizing that there were two men getting into a car outside when I clearly could see a gun from one of their belts…. Did someone say “de sensitized”? Another place indeed…

*A part of me thinks this is the best comment evah! I’ve never been offered a compliment that I would have the body to strip or do nude jobs… (apart from Croquis) so either my weight loss/exercise has paid off, or (which I might be inclined to think) she was sort of bending the truth… or the strippers at her place are slightly bigger than the “average stripper I’ve seen in all the Hollywood movies” and while in Vegas? Anyway, I spent half the way driving home thinking about what had happened and trying to visualize me in a strip joint. Needless to say (?) I couldn’t help but laugh since I would most likely not “kill with my mad skillz” but rather not really working the pole as much as falling on the floor and suffocate while trying to suck in that tummy….

Hockey pool week 2

Congratulations Bob for being the winner of Week 2 (and also being the current overall leader)!

Here are the results*

*Maybe this type of graph would be easier to see for the first few weeks at least? I've sorted it so the most points are to the left, and the ones with the least points (over all) are in the right....

The I in team*

(As a side note, this was written prior to the Vikings game tonight. Of which, the first half led me to ponder what it really means packing lots of talented people together - doesn't mean they can work as a group. Second half though, made this disclaimer partly unnecessary... until the death with 1.30 to go in the fourth quarter. [VERY BAD WORD!!] Just learn not to throw those interception with less than 2 mins to go... learn from mistakes in the past. LEARN!)

As a young member of various organisations and movements I came to the realization that maybe I wasn't really a team player. After another couple of years as an undergrad (remember all the "group work"?) I pinpointed my problem a bit more. It's not really that I don't like working in a team. Actually, I love working in a team since I know that 1+1+1 can make 5, it's that I have two main issues.

First, I dislike working in a team where the leader is not good. (I guess it would be more honest to say "worse than I would be as a leader and maybe that I consider myself a decent one due to experience and training".) Second, I dislike working in a team where people don't pull their weight. (Probably need to clarify since this comment has led to accusations about being an elitist in the past.) The key thing is in the effort, not necessarily the execution! (And this sort of loops back to the leader thing, that a good leader imho does not ask impossible things from their underlings. Tough things, sure. Impossible things that don't fit their character - not so much.)

This all seems fairly obvious (at least to me). When you are hired to do a job, you take pride in doing the job well. And as long as that happens, there is no problem. Team work for everyone!

Well, I guess it's obvious where this is going?!

What happens when you encounter the other types of people... like the ones who either have no interest in doing a good job (I guess they can always end up in the fired pool?); the ones who have made it a talent to walk the thin line of doing "exactly that little in order not to be able to be fired but also not doing much at all"; or the ones, as I have discovered more in more recent times, actively try to undermine the team effort (hopefully in order to make themselves look good - I can only hope this is the reason since otherwise it is just plain stupid)?

Needless to say, the last category really pisses me off. The other two categories aren't making me happy either - and I wonder if this is one of the main concerns I have had the last couple of years. Where you work more with people who "only sees the pay check in the end of the month and don't really care too much about the job"? This isn't something I think it more common outside of science per se. I know a lot of people not in science who still take pride in doing a great job, maybe because they see it as  a moral thing to do? However, I do think that if you don't work hard and try and do the best you can - you'd probably get tossed out of science (or other competitive environments) pretty fast?

And the team work with people who don't pull their weight usually leads me to enter the "I'll do it myself since then at least I know it'll get done". It's not really the best solution, since it means more work for me, less work for them, and in pay I guess they "win". But at least I can stick to my morals and thoughts about doing a good job. And the job gets done (the most important thing!). Best solution would be to try and improve their work ethics... anyone see the mountain moving? Didn't think so.

Well, I won't go into details in regards to recent times, but I have been going to the gym a lot lately**. Adrenaline and frustration are best worked out on a heavy bag or a treadmill... and hopefully the feeling of accepting "enough is enough" and "it's ok to give up sometimes and stop trying to change people but the only thing you can do is to change your situation"will decrease since I do worry about where that feeling will lead me to do every once in awhile.

In certain less dark moments I guess I could see this as yet another "learning experience". But dang I am getting very tired of all this "learning through being sucker punched just because I believe in people". I don't want to end up building (more) shields and refraining from trusting people (even less than I tend to do anyway).

I guess I just don't get people. Period.


*reference to Buffy season 4 episode... as well as the sport term "There is no I in team", meaning that the team is one unit - comprised of individuals but they are not counted as individuals... only a team!

**I've managed to gain (!) weight (not more than 1 pound or so). Although, when measuring waist lines etc I've lost centimeters so... building muscle might be nice but it's throwing me off my "loosing weight effort" and making me even more annoyed... maybe just date the treadmill more and the punching bag less in the week to come.