Whew - marathon composing and posting done!

I have been very, very, very bad about keeping this blog updated - it is well over 6 months since I last posted. I knew that with all this time off I had absolutely no excuses any more and so I am happy to report that I have completed posting 11 (or 12 if you want to count Helsinki as two) new items that tell you what I've been up to in the last 7 or 8 months as well as what is to come before I am back in Victoria (in late July or early August 2014). My work is certainly not done - I still have a master's thesis to write, several more trips planned (including a week in Nice starting in just 5 days - yippee!) or in the early stages of contemplation and today I re-enrolled in SFI (Swedish for Immigrants).

Here is a list of the posts I put up and links to them:

1. Adventfika 2013 - an annual celebration at the home of classmate Erica
2. Uppsala's picturesque old cemetery (still one picture to come)
3. Christmas 2013  - quiet but joyous just the same
4. Copenhagen (summer of 2013 trip)
5. Gothenburg (October 2013 trip)
6. Helsinki in the summer and in the winter (both 2013)
7. Innovations Against Poverty (IAP) (October 10, 2013)
8. International Health Uppsala Goals (IHUGs)
9. Karlskrona (summer of 2013 trip)
10. Riga (summer of 2013 trip)
11. TEDx (September 21, 2013)
12. Nice (January 12-19, 2014)

Hope you enjoy these posts and I'll try not to get so behind again!

IHUGs

So here it is, somehow, January 2014. The 'only' thing left to do educationally is our master's project. I already have my subject picked out but won't describe it here since I doubt it will be of interest to most. We do not have individual supervision for our projects but rather we are put into groups depending on whether we are doing quantitative or qualitative projects and then have two supervisors. We have meetings to discuss our work as a group – but not very many of them and they start late. Our first meeting is on January 31, 2014 (this is why I have time to go to Nice next week – January 12-19) and then we have only five meetings before our final submission date of May 16, 2014, with our presentations on May 27 and 28. Our graduation will be some point after that – probably in the first week of June.

The thesis won't be the only thing going on during those weeks – my classmates and I have decided we are going to pursue International Health Uppsala Goals (IHUGs). These are activities that we think we should experience before we leave Uppsala for perhaps the last time (who knows what the future holds). These IHUGs range from the mundane (go to Gamla Uppsala) to the more expensive and potentially memorable (attending a hockey game). I'll keep you posted on how we are doing on them – and must make sure to do some of my own (like going to the Castle which I still haven't done).

I will head off to India for a few weeks and return to Canada, YVR via Iceland with Iceland Air seems (to my surprise) to be the most economical route. I should be back by the end of July or very early August 2014. It will make me very sad to say goodbye to all my International Health friends but I am also tremendously excited to get back to the beautiful city of gardens by the sea. Right now that date some 7 months away seems very remote but I know the time will go quickly. To everyone in Victoria – see you in August 2014 or a few days before.

Innovations Against Poverty (IAP)

Innovations Against Poverty is both the name of a department within SIDA (the Swedish development agency – confusingly pronounced the same was as the Canadian Development Agency so our teachers frequently say things like Canadian CIDA when they are talking about projects that might involve both organizations or only the Canadian one) and a competition for students attending university in Sweden run by SIDA in conjunction with some private sector players . Your team (you can compete as an individual but where's the fun in that!) is given a scenario of a challenge in a low or middle income country (LMIC – just so you know we call them that these days – not developing countries) and tasked to come up with a social business solution that will help to address this issue.

Our team chose to look at maternal and child health in Zambia. All of the scenarios and challenges presented in some way corresponded to one or more of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – ours touched on 4 (improve child health) and 5 (improve maternal health). Three of the team members were people I met through TEDx and we worked well together I thought. 

Soe told Karl about the competition basically a week before the submission of the proposal for the project was due and so we worked very hard on our project and were pleasantly surprised (okay, maybe some of us were downright shocked) when we made it into the next round. In the final round only 5 teams would compete for the grand prize which included a trip to Zambia to attend the annual Innovations Against Poverty Conference.

Here we are on the train going to Stockholm in the morning of October 10 for the final all-day competition. Unfortunately we didn't win but it was a great experience and we had actually quite a bit of fun and learned a lot about working as a group with diverse backgrounds, strengths and points of view. 

From left to right - me, Georg Streeter, Soe Thiha, Addy Loca (Karl is somewhere prepping himself to present - he and I presented our case to the judges and the other competitors)

TEDx

You have probably heard of TED but you are perhaps less familiar with TEDx. TEDx events are locally/independently organized events that follow many of the same format rules as TED. Talks are supposed to be 18 minutes in length (or thereabouts), the event will have an underlying theme and the whole thing will be designed, planned and run by volunteers.

In the spring of 2012 a group of Uppsala University students, many of them studying sustainable development at CEMUS, decided that it was about time that Uppsala University held its first TEDx event. They chose the theme of resilience, applied for and received the licence and began the laborious task of organizing. I came late to the party only joining as a committee member in late July 2013 – only a couple of months before the big day. Here is all of us after the event and you can check out the entire photo stream on Flickr.

Adventfika

My wonderful classmate Erica really took all of us under her wing last year inviting us to her home for Adventfika where we made pepparkakor  (gingerbread) and drank glögg (sort of like mulled wine, served hot in small ceramic cups and garnished with almonds and raisins). She was also the main driving and organizing force behind our trip to Idre Fjäll – the condo we stayed in belongs to the company her father works for.

This year was no exception and December 7^th (the first advent) found us (myself and several classmates) at the stylish small flat she shares with her boyfriend Jonas. Many of her non-school friends were there as well and the apartment was warm not only with good cheer but with the physical heat given off by so many happy festive people. This year we helped make not only gingerbread but also luciakatter (Lucia cats – really!) which are like a cinnamon bun except flavoured with saffron and curled into an 'S' shape with each curl studded with a raisin. Googling seems to indicate they are a Catholic tradition  which is a surprise to me.

It was a delightful evening at which (predictably) I ate too much and was glad of the walk home although it was a chilly night.

Classmates Milad (seated with glasses) and Erica (red dress) and Erica's boyfriend Jonas

Classmates Viktoria sitting (from the US but her dad is Swedish) and Diana (from Romania) standing making Luciakatter

Glögg (and finished Luciakatter on the right - these have sugar sprinkles instead of raisins)

Me and Maija hard at work

Diana and Milad

The dough was STICKY!

Christmas 2013

This year I enjoyed a quiet Christmas - much like last year. I spent a few days in Helsinki pre-Christmas but was back in Uppsala to volunteer at Jul på Uplands as I did last year. It was two busy and tiring days but I think all those that came to the Nation and partook of the food, the fika and enjoyed the warm atmosphere enjoyed it. Afterwards, on December 26, 2013, we volunteers were the ones that got to enjoy a delicious meal cooked and served to us by Uplands Nation staff.

Most of my classmates were out of town - either in other parts of Sweden or back in their home countries for the long holiday (we don't reconvene to discuss our thesis until January 31, 2014!). I was lucky enough to receive two gift packages by mail and then several more from classmates and felt very much loved and blessed by the end of the season. Here are some snaps of my gifts and cards (apologies for the first blurry picture).

The other thing that I got for Christmas was something I bought for myself. I saw these prints (unfortunately they are not originals and if they were I think I might have found it hard to rationalize the price of buying them) in the window of the Uppsala Art Lab on my walk home from school one day. I thought that they would make the perfect memento of my time here in Uppsala and they are also relatively small and light for carrying back to Canada. This photo doesn't do them justice – they are very colourful. I am pretty sure that I actually met the artist (Ulf Enhörning) the very first day I was in Uppsala and the Monday after I bought these prints (I bought them on a Saturday ) he was flying out to Victoria to spend a few weeks there. As always – what a small world it is.

Saying goodbye to the friends I've made here in Uppsala is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done. And although it is true that the world is a much smaller place and it is much easier to stay connected I am well aware that my mostly much younger classmates will likely be entering a very busy phase of their life's journey – marriage, relationships, kids, work – that may make keeping in touch frequently very challenging. But fingers crossed that the greatest Christmas gift of all – that of enduring friendship – never stops appearing underneath my Christmas tree in one form or another.

My handmade bag from Liz fits my travel mug from classmate Duaa perfectly

Christmas cards from Delia in the UK (a detail of her stained glass work) and from Fran and Dawn in Victoria

A not very appealing shot of the most wonderful gift from my classmates - a digital frame with over 300 pictures of them, places around Uppsala (and Idre Fjäll photos) and fikas, meals and parties

Handmade bag from Liz in Victoria, pretty scarf from Italy from Dawn (in Victoria) and Union Jack socks from Jill here in Uppsala

Two cards that are the work of Ray (Liz's husband), more socks (this time from Dawn) and a travel mug from classmate Duaa

Pretty illuminated star (almost every window has one in Uppsala during Christmas) that I believe is from classmate Diana

My packages pre-opening and the present to myself (a bottle of wine so that I could have a glass while I opened presents on Christmas day)

Art that I bought for myself - this shot doesn't really do them justice  (they're prints actually - don't think I could justify the price of originals)