France vs. Germany = beauty vs. war?

Long time - no see. I have been travelling the past 3 weeks and thus had no time to be in here...but here I am again. Last week I went to Berlin, I wanted to see the city again 10 years later, and also visit the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition of the 19th-century masterpieces of the French artists (including my favourite - Claude Monet, see picture) that is currently on display at the new national gallery in Berlin (http://www.metinberlin.org/en/home/). The exhibition is called "the most beautiful Frenchmen come from New York". This got me thinking on war and disagreement between Germany and France. A couple of decades ago this exhibition would probably not be in Berlin. Since I also spent a lot of time in the jewish museum in Berlin, which by the way is one of the best museums I have ever visited, I thought a lot on the WWII. I couldn't help but thinking that when you think about Germans in Paris it is about war, and now when you think on Frenchmen in Berlin it is about beauty and art.

Things happening around seals and ice cream

Today I was strolling around in Gothenburg, where I am at the moment visting a friend of mine. We went to Slottsparken, which is a park with some zoo-spots. When we were standing watching the seals swim around in their pool, there was a little girl next to us singing a home made song " "sälisarna", ni är ju så tjocka, ni är ju så tjocka" (seals, you are so fat, you are so fat). During this little song she held a coin in her hands but dropped it in the water during the song. She saw it disappear in the water and then told her mum "now I am sad" and started crying. A few comforts later she was happily standing in the ice cream line, awating her reward... Why is it that we as adults cannot utter our sorrows and forget about them in the same way as the little girl, wouldn't that be nice?

The art of being good

I've just started reading a book by the Swedish author Stefan Einhorn called "Konsten att vara snäll" (freely translated: "The art of being good"). What he wrote about people being nice to each other got me thinking about the phenomenon. He writes about three deifferent ways on looking upon in.

The relgious branch say that it is sort of a law of nature that rewards us when we do good and punish us when we don't. They say that the ability of differentiating between good and bad is innate.

Then there is the evolution biologists branch, they say that humans are able to think ethicial because it gives us a better chance of surviving. Otherwise we would have extincted ourselves too soon or other species would have taken over because of our lack of interhuman cooperation ability.

The sociologists on their hand, say it is all about social conventions. Humans have agreed to treat each other in a good way because we all gain from it. These norms and rules are handed down from generation to generation.

When you look upon it like this, being good becomes almost crude and not very noble, it is more a necessity to survive. In my opinion we are not at all as good to each other as we should be, so no wonder people are dying without reason all over the world...

The beauty of organic crop

I love eating organic food! What I didn't realize until recently is that the growing of organic products is not only good for our bodies and the soil but it also produces beautiful fields. This is a picture of a canola field close to where I live. When you drive by the road the red color just springs out of all the green around, it is like the painting from Monet. So next time you are choosing between organic and non-organic products, think about the beauty it gives us and not about the extra penny it costs.

Have I been watching too much CSI?

Today I realised how easy it can be to track down a person with the help of the internet. Just knowing three pieces of information such as a first name, a city and a hobby plus having some imagination and "dadaaaa" you found the person. Take care boys and girls, the internet is not at all as anonymous as the most of us users think...

here's looking at you kid

The eyes are the windows of the soul. I bet you've heard that expression before, and even if you aren't a strong believer in the koncept of us humans having a soul, you might think there is a grain of truth in it. At least we often think the eyes express our feelings. We say someone has sad eyes or glittering eyes or perhaps sexy eyes etc. Here is the hard fact: the eyes are no windows and you cannot tell anything about how
our mood is from just looking at a couple of eyes.
It is the muscles around the eyes that do all the
work. The muscles contract and relax and thus
display our different moods. But how nice would
it be to hear that the muscles around the eyes
are the windows of the soul?
Oh! and now you know why botoxed people look
so emotionless...

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

messy, disorganized, not rule conscious, rebellious, rash, weird, ambivalent about chaos, likes bizarre things, anti-authority, not a perfectionist, leaves many things unfinished, low self control, strange, desires more attention, romantic daydreamer, abstract, impractical, unproductive, leisurely, likes the unknow

So this is me...

If you like to try: http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html