tintiiin

The waiting continues. This time with a hurting arm. The coffee machine (yes, a real fancy one, and yes, I’ve had a luxurious coffee every day the last couple of months in my temporary free-time off-studying holiday place all-inclusive on the countryside with horses around, a constantly full fridge and good company) burnt me! My forearm has a reddish swollen triangle that burns! I’ve melted four ice cubes on the mark already. Feel sorry for me! Good coffee costs a lot.

In the waiting process of going to Seoul and start packing (which I really should get started with) I entertain myself with diverse activities. The kind of stuff you want to do but you always have too much other must-dos that come in the way. Sad thing is though, those things are seldom as fun and entertaining when they are the only things you do. Anyhow, I try to enjoy myself and appreciate the excess of time. One question that brings to mind is the (recurrent) one – why can’t humans hoard stuff like time, energy, company etc.? Why not? It would be so cool, and save us so much trouble!

But I guess, evolution takes its time. Our future generations might get lucky. Speaking of future generations it comes to mind that one thing I miss having time to do while being busy studying is engage in political discussions and keep myself updated of the political game. Hence, today’s entertainment was partly to watch the foreign affairs debate in the parliament, and a lot more interesting, watch one of the interviews in the show Nyfiken på Partiledaren on SVT Play. Today the choice fell on Åsa Romson, speaker for the Green Party. For you who haven’t seen the program, have a look; it’s a different portrait of the leaders of the parties in parliament as it covers a more personal angle of the politicians. There is no focus on what the party thinks and argues in certain political questions but rather their outlook on mankind, and what ideology means to them. Another important distinction to other attempts to cover politics and politicians take on issues is that it is not an interview per se, but a conversation between the politician and the guy leading the conversation (in this case a doctor and therapist).

However, what I wanted to comment on is how the different political leaders handle the unusual situation differently. Åsa seems a bit uncomfortable of talking about herself and her childhood as she tries to generalize her experiences. The conversation with the leaders is followed up in a studio with two commentators (one of them lectured on my Political Science basic course). The commentators lifted Åsa’s work with their interpretations of her performance. For my untrained eye I saw a pretty uncomfortable and grey person sitting in the chair, all the other leaders I’ve watched in the same show had caught my attention and become someone, a person and I felt I’d got to know them a bit. Åsa was still very vague, not as she avoided questions but rather as she didn’t have those great personal and attention-grabbing answers. The commentators’ analysis of this though came to a rather different conclusion than I had done in my quick judgment. The very “un-prominent” leader was in itself a formation of the party’s structure, ideology and ideas. The Green Party is about the ideas, not the social ties, it’s about the democratic organization not the leader, it’s about the joint conviction of including more people (read younger, not yet born etc.) not about who the people are. I hope the commentators interpreted Åsa fairly and correctly and in that case they did a great effort of helping the Greens to communicate their philosophy. Watch the show and judge for yourself.  

Now, let's do some more of those activites that I actually have time for - yoga.