Polyb: julio 2007

Celestial Voyage

Cynic playing live at Hovefestivalen, Norway

The World Accordingly...

Puerto Rico and Midsummer

So how was my last trip to Puerto Rico?

Its been great. Hard work, but great. Helping out my parents with fixing the house, the cars and so forth and then being with friends in the night, drinking beer and watching bands play.

I may have given the impression of only focusing on family and friends. Thats exactly the case. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with my parents who I hadnt seen in 1½ years. We are all split up, my parents in San Juan, my brother in San Diego and me in Stockholm.

Background: It's been like that since 2001 when I decided to go back to europe ( just europe, I was tired of the USA influence in Puerto Rico, the need of a car all of the time and my short temper with any noise or distraction I usually encountered in the big city). I wanted more peace and quite, away from the super shops, the big roads and the crazy consumerism. I could have settled in Spain, Italy or any other southern european country or even Holland - where I had been contacted by the University of Amsterdam to start my masters studies in social anthropology with focus on ethno medicine.

But I chose Sweden, the country where I had been born and grown up in. Looking back I think it was the best but ´oh so boring´ decision I could have made, since Im half swedish, know the language and have half brothers and sisters there. As soon as I came back one of my half brothers Jörgen had some bad news. He couldnt offer the job position he had promised at Flextronics, since the company was cutting back on people and the need of spanish speaking people had been haltered completly (for their new projects in latin america).

I knew that I would have to get a job as soon as possible, any job. I got one as a mailman and soon after that a steady job in charge of the computer systems in a big retail shop.
Almost two years later I started studying again (truth is, I was starting to hate my job).

Present day: Now theres only 10 points left (like 2 months) or something of writing the thesis paper. But I still havent finished my masters 6 years later which is embaressing I think, but at least I have been working during all this time - which for me has been more important, since my studies are linked more to personal curiosity than solely career building. Yes, there have been good openings for anthropologists mainly in the USA and England but not in Sweden or elsewhere in europe. Now its changing rapidly, thats why im leaving my thesis open - if my current work comes to a halt or I find something interesting abroad thats where im going.

Now I've explained a bit more than I was supposed to, I leave you with some pics and videos.

PUERTO RICO