My move to the Dark Forests in Sweden, was, from a professional POV, sort of career suicide. At least that's how it feels when I am in a negative mood.
I am a professional writer. I work with words. I get paid a nice salary for my words. For 8 years I worked as copywriter, publicist and editor in New York. (I still work freelance in this milieu) I also got my MLS, with my hopes that one day I'd be able to be like my Grandma and work as a Young Adult librarian (I love YA lit and I adore the pop-culture library programming for teens)
Anyway, long story short, I speak Swedish fluently but my reading and writing in the language is on grade-school level. (Learned spoken Swedish through real-life situations/immersion) I feel like Clarice Precious Jones - Precious from the book "Push" by Sapphire or the film "Precious" by Lee Daniels. I dislike reading in Swedish. I hate writing in Swedish because I cannot express myself with the ease that I do in English (or even in Spanish). Even my 3 year old son realizes that his mama becomes flustered when he asks me to read aloud from his favorite Swedish books.
I'm not an architect, nurse, IT dude, dancer, baker, or accountant. For me, the written language isn't just a professional by-product or circumstance. To succeed in my given field(s) I need to not only master the written language, but to finesse it, coddle it, love it up, outsmart it and whip it into shape.
I start an intensive grammar/reading/writing course in Swedish this Monday. Wish me luck.
I am not really in a rush for success. I am in-a-family-way, after all. And with the extremely generous ma/paternity leave here (480 paid days awwwwwwww yeah), I won't really have to worry about this for a relatively long time.
If all else fails, I'm starting a lipstick line. I already have a great name for it.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
What is Fika, Anyway?
There is no single word equivalent to "fika" in English. Fika is an integral part of life in Sweden. It is, in simple terms of translation, a coffee break.
Swedes have seriously kick-ass coffee and not-super-sweet baked goods that they usually enjoy during fika. Work stops for fika (at my husband's office, they fika 2x a day - once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I'm thinking this is about average for a Swedish firm?). You fika with your friends in the home. You can fika in the garden. You can fika in public places too. You can take fika in the forest. My son's preschool class, although they are too young for coffee take fika when they go out into the forest for "uteförmiddgar" (literally: outside mornings). For children of his age, it entails sitting down in a forest clearing and eating sandwiches, buns and drinking milk or juice. The word is an important one to know if you come to Sweden because you will probably be invited to fika at some point.
I think it's a nice practice. When I worked in La Paz, Bolivia, my workplace had a late afternoon equivalent of fika called "tecito" (translation: a little tea) during which we drank tea and ate Bolivian pastries.
As a person who had been working in some pretty intense NYC work environments, I thought it was great and it gave me a chance to get to know my co-workers better in a more relaxed setting. This casual setting also gave me a chance to significantly improve my Spanish and my Swedish (I have worked in Sweden too) language skills.
Some fire-breathing American live-to-work folks might find this practice during the work-day wasteful. Then again, those sort of Americans are exactly the sorts of folks that really don't need any of the caffeine from fabulously strong Swedish coffee or the sugar from the baked goods!
Swedes have seriously kick-ass coffee and not-super-sweet baked goods that they usually enjoy during fika. Work stops for fika (at my husband's office, they fika 2x a day - once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I'm thinking this is about average for a Swedish firm?). You fika with your friends in the home. You can fika in the garden. You can fika in public places too. You can take fika in the forest. My son's preschool class, although they are too young for coffee take fika when they go out into the forest for "uteförmiddgar" (literally: outside mornings). For children of his age, it entails sitting down in a forest clearing and eating sandwiches, buns and drinking milk or juice. The word is an important one to know if you come to Sweden because you will probably be invited to fika at some point.
I think it's a nice practice. When I worked in La Paz, Bolivia, my workplace had a late afternoon equivalent of fika called "tecito" (translation: a little tea) during which we drank tea and ate Bolivian pastries.
As a person who had been working in some pretty intense NYC work environments, I thought it was great and it gave me a chance to get to know my co-workers better in a more relaxed setting. This casual setting also gave me a chance to significantly improve my Spanish and my Swedish (I have worked in Sweden too) language skills.
Some fire-breathing American live-to-work folks might find this practice during the work-day wasteful. Then again, those sort of Americans are exactly the sorts of folks that really don't need any of the caffeine from fabulously strong Swedish coffee or the sugar from the baked goods!
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| This is a fairly typical "fika bord" (fika table). Drat that I couldn't find an image with kanelbullar (cinnamon buns YUM) |
Who IS you?
My name is Amy. I live in Växjö, Sweden, which is nowhere near Stockholm. Americans always think I live in Stockholm and tell me they are going to visit me there. I say "I hope you like trains cuz if you fly to Stockholm, you'd have to take a loooong train ride to get to me from there!"
Until I was 18 I lived in the commuter suburb of New York called East Brunswick. I did not enjoy my 18 years there, but in retrospect, I find Central NJ to be dear to my sentimental heart. A lot of my [overactive] imagination developed in the wilds of exit 9 during the 1980s and 90s. And I often found escape from annoying daily interactions through pop culture and from the hilarious people I grew up with (and am still friends with) Though I don't ever want to live there again, I think of EB and of Central Jersey nearly everyday.
At 18, I moved to New York City to attend university, and have more or less (year in UK, some months in Bolivia, some in Sweden) lived there until now.
Now I live deep in the dark forests of Småland (that is what the region is called) in southeastern Sweden. A lot of nice things come from the Dark Forests of Småland including Pippi Longstocking (author Astrid Lindgren is from nearby), Kosta Boda glass, Örrefors glass, Brio toys (it's actually part of the family heritage) and IKEA. And also my husband S., who is the reason we (husband, son and I) moved here from New York.
The nature is beautiful here. Lots of deep lush forests, clear lakes, and big trees. I often describe it as Swedish Greenwich, CT because it is clean, pretty, kind of posh and filled with well-behaved and clean-cut WASPy people. I am a bit bored, a lot nostalgic and nearly halfway through my pregnancy with my second child, so that is why I started this blog. I can't promise you that this is going to be a focused blog with a clear mission, but if you're curious about my life here in the dark forest, or even just a little nosy, come and have a read!
PS: The quote "Who IS you" comes from the 1990s era Jersey-based trash talk show called Richard Bey. One time he hosted a group of drag queens, who inevitably got into some serious trash talking and shade-throwing. My favorite drag queen (whose name unfortunately escapes me now) kept yelling at her opponent "Who IS you???? WHO IS YOU??? WHO YOUR MAMA??" I love that shizz.
Until I was 18 I lived in the commuter suburb of New York called East Brunswick. I did not enjoy my 18 years there, but in retrospect, I find Central NJ to be dear to my sentimental heart. A lot of my [overactive] imagination developed in the wilds of exit 9 during the 1980s and 90s. And I often found escape from annoying daily interactions through pop culture and from the hilarious people I grew up with (and am still friends with) Though I don't ever want to live there again, I think of EB and of Central Jersey nearly everyday.
At 18, I moved to New York City to attend university, and have more or less (year in UK, some months in Bolivia, some in Sweden) lived there until now.
Now I live deep in the dark forests of Småland (that is what the region is called) in southeastern Sweden. A lot of nice things come from the Dark Forests of Småland including Pippi Longstocking (author Astrid Lindgren is from nearby), Kosta Boda glass, Örrefors glass, Brio toys (it's actually part of the family heritage) and IKEA. And also my husband S., who is the reason we (husband, son and I) moved here from New York.
The nature is beautiful here. Lots of deep lush forests, clear lakes, and big trees. I often describe it as Swedish Greenwich, CT because it is clean, pretty, kind of posh and filled with well-behaved and clean-cut WASPy people. I am a bit bored, a lot nostalgic and nearly halfway through my pregnancy with my second child, so that is why I started this blog. I can't promise you that this is going to be a focused blog with a clear mission, but if you're curious about my life here in the dark forest, or even just a little nosy, come and have a read!
PS: The quote "Who IS you" comes from the 1990s era Jersey-based trash talk show called Richard Bey. One time he hosted a group of drag queens, who inevitably got into some serious trash talking and shade-throwing. My favorite drag queen (whose name unfortunately escapes me now) kept yelling at her opponent "Who IS you???? WHO IS YOU??? WHO YOUR MAMA??" I love that shizz.
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| This is where we live. I call it Downton Abbey. Not all of it is ours, obvs! |
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