C & L are in Northern Sweden to visit family. I couldn't join them since I had too much work to do. Is that really true? I'm trying to take it easy since papa died, 'cause there's so much more in life than work. But if I hadn't been able to work for ten days, it would have been stressful afterwards.
So what's on? The new academic year has now most definitely started with many students studying human geography and tourism studies. Of course this is a good sign for us, but it also means much more work with still the same amount of time that we get paid for. 33 students may not seem so much, but dividing them into 2 groups with three seminars for each group and having to correct 3 assignments 33 times takes time!
Well, we're planning as we speak, and as it is me who is repsonsoible for the course this autumn, I also book lecture rooms and that sort of administrative thing. This time, we even scheduled a study visit to the Migration Board in Örebro (http://www.migrationsverket.se/). Let's hope this gives somewhat of a practical start of the course, as students may learn a lot more from this than from reading a 100 pages...
Also, on 14 and 15 Ocotober 2010, CUReS will host the first Nordic Urban Workshop for PhD Students studying urban phenomena from a broad spectre of disciplines (sociology, Health, Education, Politic science, Human Geography and History). Anders and me are busy planning this and we'll hopefully be host to people from Norway, Sweden, Finland, France and Italy. It will be quite international and intercultural, with a seminar, a guided tour of Örebro Castle and dinner in town.
Meanwhile, Mats, Dieter and me started preparing for two new articles to come. One about place marketing and one considering the decision making process of the Dutch lifestyle migrants coming to Central Sweden in the early 21st Century. A lot of studying and planning needs to be done, as I will probably visit the Scandinavia Day in Hoevelaken in January and the Emigration Fair in Houten in February 2011. A start is made with studying Simon Anholts books and website considering his work about competitive identity and the Nation Brands Index.
So, yes it's true that I couldn't join C & L to Northern Sweden. What is more, I have finally been doing some work in and around the house; I hope the garden, car, stairs and trees look nicer now than before (but see another blog).
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
August and everything after
Probably, I started working to soon after dad passed away. It wasn't possible to focus on work those weeks in May and June. One lecture that I was supposed to give had to be cancelled as I hadn't been able to prepare a proper one. Talking sense when supervising students during the B-paper course was quite a challenge. No suprise then, that I couldn't really find a way to submit the article.
Finally, the summerholidays started, we travelled to Holland and I could sort of relax. It was right in those first weeks of the holidyas that I regained some concentration and on 15 July, I submitted the article.
Now it's the beginning of August and slowly I start working again. Trying not to exagerate. It will be a while before comments on the article will reach me. Instead, reading texts I should have read before is a good way to start up. At work, not many people have returned from their holidays, which also smoothens things.
Later on, there will be kick-offs and meetings. And Peter and me will have to start planning for the Autumn version of the course about population, urbanisation and mobility. I will also have to make plans for two new articles and field work for these articles. But now, I will read Brian Berry's classical reader (1975) about urbanisation and counterurbanisation.
Finally, the summerholidays started, we travelled to Holland and I could sort of relax. It was right in those first weeks of the holidyas that I regained some concentration and on 15 July, I submitted the article.
Now it's the beginning of August and slowly I start working again. Trying not to exagerate. It will be a while before comments on the article will reach me. Instead, reading texts I should have read before is a good way to start up. At work, not many people have returned from their holidays, which also smoothens things.
Later on, there will be kick-offs and meetings. And Peter and me will have to start planning for the Autumn version of the course about population, urbanisation and mobility. I will also have to make plans for two new articles and field work for these articles. But now, I will read Brian Berry's classical reader (1975) about urbanisation and counterurbanisation.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Mourning and sorrow
These last weeks have been a complete chaos of feelings and thoughts. As you may know. May father died in April. All other things are unimportant. I was there in the Netherlands and stayed for some weeks.
For work this meant that nothing particular was done in April. My colleagues kindly took over the lectures I was supposed to give and the seminars I was supposed to lead. One lecture was cancelled as I thought that I could do it, but in the last moment realised that I wasn't able to focus at all.
I am now together with Mats and Ann-Cathrine lecturing on a course about writing a scientific paper. This involves more consultation work than lecturing, which could be good as it requires a more practical way of focussing. I find focussing on practical matters somewhat easier than focussing on theory, concepts and academic writing.
This week, I took over after Anders, who was supposed to organise a Nordic Urban Workshop. This is to be held in Örebro in October, and about 20 PhD students are expected to participate. Event organisation is something we learned at European Studies and I am happy to be able to practice that now. Together with a research administrator, we are planning and making a flyer.
The PhD course on Mobility was already finished when the tragedy happend. No new PhD courses are planned for this Spring term. There may be one course coming up in the Autumn. A course on quantitave methods, here in Örebro. Would be good not to travel too much.
And yes, I am trying to finish my article soon.
For work this meant that nothing particular was done in April. My colleagues kindly took over the lectures I was supposed to give and the seminars I was supposed to lead. One lecture was cancelled as I thought that I could do it, but in the last moment realised that I wasn't able to focus at all.
I am now together with Mats and Ann-Cathrine lecturing on a course about writing a scientific paper. This involves more consultation work than lecturing, which could be good as it requires a more practical way of focussing. I find focussing on practical matters somewhat easier than focussing on theory, concepts and academic writing.
This week, I took over after Anders, who was supposed to organise a Nordic Urban Workshop. This is to be held in Örebro in October, and about 20 PhD students are expected to participate. Event organisation is something we learned at European Studies and I am happy to be able to practice that now. Together with a research administrator, we are planning and making a flyer.
The PhD course on Mobility was already finished when the tragedy happend. No new PhD courses are planned for this Spring term. There may be one course coming up in the Autumn. A course on quantitave methods, here in Örebro. Would be good not to travel too much.
And yes, I am trying to finish my article soon.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Thinking of 2010
Three months of paternity leave have gone by, Lucas and me have been to Holland for a week, and I decided to try to see these coming months as some sort of holiday. I will need to relax, because 2010 is already promissing to become a hectic year!
Planning for the courses that I'm lecturing on has started. Together with PS, I will be lecturing on a course about mobility and population geography. Last year's lecturing about Economic Geography will not be prolonged, but the work I did for the so-called B-thesis will. This means that I will be busy during the second half of the Spring Term (April and May 2010, with preparing in March and reporting in June), as well as some ten weeks at the end of the year.
Besides that, I had planned to write papers for 2 courses (the one about Cultural Heritage in Bergslagen and the one about Geographical classic texts). Of course, the article still has to be finished, and I have many ideas how to do this. It's just that I realise it will take a lot of time. Therefore, I cancelled my own plans about the trip to the congress in Washington in April. You can't always get what you want! On the other hand, I still would like to visit the Emigration Fair in Houten (NL) on 13 & 14 February 2010.
I had planned not to participate in any Doctoral courses during Spring 2010, as I have enough to do anyway. But what happens? Yes, a course that seems to be made for me is scheduled for January - April 2010. It's a course about "Mobility in Time and Space", organised by the Universities of Gothenburg, Umeå and Tartu (Estonia). Three sessions are planned, three days at each University. This means a lot of travelling, reading and writing. However, it would fit well with the course that I'll be lecturing on just a few weeks later. How to combine this all with family-life and hobbies?
Well, that's a puzzle I have to lay in the coming weeks....
Planning for the courses that I'm lecturing on has started. Together with PS, I will be lecturing on a course about mobility and population geography. Last year's lecturing about Economic Geography will not be prolonged, but the work I did for the so-called B-thesis will. This means that I will be busy during the second half of the Spring Term (April and May 2010, with preparing in March and reporting in June), as well as some ten weeks at the end of the year.
Besides that, I had planned to write papers for 2 courses (the one about Cultural Heritage in Bergslagen and the one about Geographical classic texts). Of course, the article still has to be finished, and I have many ideas how to do this. It's just that I realise it will take a lot of time. Therefore, I cancelled my own plans about the trip to the congress in Washington in April. You can't always get what you want! On the other hand, I still would like to visit the Emigration Fair in Houten (NL) on 13 & 14 February 2010.
I had planned not to participate in any Doctoral courses during Spring 2010, as I have enough to do anyway. But what happens? Yes, a course that seems to be made for me is scheduled for January - April 2010. It's a course about "Mobility in Time and Space", organised by the Universities of Gothenburg, Umeå and Tartu (Estonia). Three sessions are planned, three days at each University. This means a lot of travelling, reading and writing. However, it would fit well with the course that I'll be lecturing on just a few weeks later. How to combine this all with family-life and hobbies?
Well, that's a puzzle I have to lay in the coming weeks....
Monday, 12 October 2009
Work never really stops
After 2 months of paternity leave, I finally feel like the pace of life is slowing down. It has been a lot of fixing in and around the new house and travelling to and from friends and relatives. And work kept me busier than I thought.
First of all, I'm still working on the first article, be it with some more distance to the text. On 10 September, Mats, Dieter and me had a meeting. Some comments on the text have come by mail from friends in the Netherlands and a few days ago, Mats and me had a meeting in order to summarise all that should be done before we can send the article to a journal. It feels like there are a lot of smaller things, such as numbers and figures that should be double checked and some diagrams altered. Well, this is gonna take some time during autumn, and then I'll work with it full speed after my return on the workfloor in January.
The editorial work with the reader about images of Bergslagen is showing some nice results. With the help of the editors, my chapter starts to take real shape and the reader should be published within a few months' time. That would mean my first academic publication, and it's even in Swedish!
Other things are the financial side of paternity leave, which is quite difficult to arrange when you have as an administrator earning real wage prior to your PhD studies, and now have an income made up of 86% scholarship and 14% wage. It took a half a year, but even that seems to be okay now, and I will soon be able to pay C. my half of the table that we bought for our house.
Planning for next year, I haev filled in a form with my wishes for lecturing. If all goes as planned, I will be lecturing approximately 200 hours in 2010, on courses in "Population Geography", "Culture, Tourism and Regional Development", "Geographical Area Studies" and other courses.
Last but not least, we are celebrating 2 new Doctors of Philosophy in our discipline; Max and Moa! This means an official defence, followed by a dinner and party on which we created the tradition of singing a song composed by us, accompanied by some Geographers playing the guitar. Often hilarious, not so much beacuase of the text, but rather due to our (mediocre)performance :)
And then of course, to gether with C. I'm still taking care of Lucas and our new house. A journey to the Netherlands is also planned for the end of the month. Purpose: visiting an emigration fair in Bunnik!
First of all, I'm still working on the first article, be it with some more distance to the text. On 10 September, Mats, Dieter and me had a meeting. Some comments on the text have come by mail from friends in the Netherlands and a few days ago, Mats and me had a meeting in order to summarise all that should be done before we can send the article to a journal. It feels like there are a lot of smaller things, such as numbers and figures that should be double checked and some diagrams altered. Well, this is gonna take some time during autumn, and then I'll work with it full speed after my return on the workfloor in January.
The editorial work with the reader about images of Bergslagen is showing some nice results. With the help of the editors, my chapter starts to take real shape and the reader should be published within a few months' time. That would mean my first academic publication, and it's even in Swedish!
Other things are the financial side of paternity leave, which is quite difficult to arrange when you have as an administrator earning real wage prior to your PhD studies, and now have an income made up of 86% scholarship and 14% wage. It took a half a year, but even that seems to be okay now, and I will soon be able to pay C. my half of the table that we bought for our house.
Planning for next year, I haev filled in a form with my wishes for lecturing. If all goes as planned, I will be lecturing approximately 200 hours in 2010, on courses in "Population Geography", "Culture, Tourism and Regional Development", "Geographical Area Studies" and other courses.
Last but not least, we are celebrating 2 new Doctors of Philosophy in our discipline; Max and Moa! This means an official defence, followed by a dinner and party on which we created the tradition of singing a song composed by us, accompanied by some Geographers playing the guitar. Often hilarious, not so much beacuase of the text, but rather due to our (mediocre)performance :)
And then of course, to gether with C. I'm still taking care of Lucas and our new house. A journey to the Netherlands is also planned for the end of the month. Purpose: visiting an emigration fair in Bunnik!
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Paternity leave
As we start seeing the end of summer here in Örebro, it is time for a resume of the past months. Before the summerbreak, I've been working a lot with "other things" such as the PhD Section, Lecturing and writing a chapter for the Anthology/Reader "Fram träder Bergslagen" (Bergslagen Emerges). This was all fun and worthwile, but together with moving houses, my 'real' work was somewhat neglected. Around the 14th of July, I finished a first manuscript for the article that I had been preparing from the coruse in Norrköping onwards. After comments on the congresses in Örebro and Turku, it is now quite close to a "Publishable" version I would say.
On a few weeks time, I will meet my two supervisors Mats and Dieter in order to see what should be changed in the article before we can try to submit it to an academic journal.
Now, as I am on paternity leave until mid-January, and C. works full time, I have to take care of Lucas, who just awoke from his mid-day sleep. More about the paternity leave later and perhaps also elsewhere in cyberspace.
On a few weeks time, I will meet my two supervisors Mats and Dieter in order to see what should be changed in the article before we can try to submit it to an academic journal.
Now, as I am on paternity leave until mid-January, and C. works full time, I have to take care of Lucas, who just awoke from his mid-day sleep. More about the paternity leave later and perhaps also elsewhere in cyberspace.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Getting serious
So, now that the last exams are graded for this course I was lecturing and Peter and me gave our lecture on Geographical Area Studies, I can seriously concentrate on my first article. It will hopefully be finished by the start of the summer, and I have received some good comments by my second supervisor from Umeå; Dieter Müller. An 8,000 words paper cannot be too broad so the aim and questions need to be specified to quite a large extent. This first article will be about characterising the Dutch that migrate to the Swedish countryside and I will travel to the Netherlands in order to find som more statistics and conduct some telephone-interviews.
The article will be quite quantitative and it will introduce the phenomenon from a more national perspective. It will discuss why I choose to study the Dutch, why they are recruited and why now. Quite simple questions, but the answers may be quite complicated. We'll see! At least, I can thank a good friend of mine for reviewing the first version of the manuscript :)
Now, I'm off to the spring-sun, my "caught a cold"-son and some sports before the weekend starts!
Cheersio, /Meimer
The article will be quite quantitative and it will introduce the phenomenon from a more national perspective. It will discuss why I choose to study the Dutch, why they are recruited and why now. Quite simple questions, but the answers may be quite complicated. We'll see! At least, I can thank a good friend of mine for reviewing the first version of the manuscript :)
Now, I'm off to the spring-sun, my "caught a cold"-son and some sports before the weekend starts!
Cheersio, /Meimer
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