Hello to my strong legion of devoted hardcore fans,
Things have settled down here now in Lund. I have all my necessities worked out which I kind of already mentioned. Delphi (my student housing) is proving to be a great choice for me. I'm not only close to the Kemicentrum (Chemistry Centre) where I study, but I'm never too far away from a party. There a parties in Delphi all the time, you can never go lonely.
However parties aren't good blog material. So I thought I'd write about some of the hazards of living in this tight-knit University bubble environment and how Swedish culture (and Australian I guess) plays its role too. All names, except for mine have been changed for the purpose of this story. It all starts with one person. He shall be named Ricardo. Ricardo comes to the chemistry laboratory talking about how he was sick on the weekend and is just recovering now. That's quite harmless. That night I go and try my first Swedish sauna, which they call bastu here.
The basic premise of the bastu is you sit in the bastu until you can't bear it and you're pretty sure you're going to melt. Then you go outside on to the balcony where it could be as low as -10 degrees. If you're lucky it could be snowing too. When you get way too cold you jump back in the bastu and start the cycle all over again. I'm no doctor but I'm pretty sure that's a good way to catch some kind of bug in the air.
Next day, a little dehydrated, sore throat but nothing major. Go to the lab again the next day and two students are sick with the flu shivering madly indoors with beanies, scarves, heavy jackets and all sorts. Common sense would have said stay at home. Not in Sweden. If you are clinically alive you must try to work. So they cough and splutter and shiver and spread the germs around the whole laboratory instead of sleeping in front of the TV at home.
So my dry throat from the sauna becomes a dry cough. The next day not so dry. Now that I'm sick normally I would stay at home. But I have to do the same amount of work as everyone else. So if they get given more tasks to do, I get given more. They reward speed and efficiency with more work for all!!. So I go in to the laboratory now coughing and spluttering. I made a ton of mistakes that day.
Thursday now and despite better judgement I decide it would be a good idea to go to a nation (club run by students) and party with some friends. That is where the Australian way of life compounds the problem. Because I'm still having fun I go out on Friday too. Saturday I saw a Danish castle, but on with the story. Saturday night I actually had to have a little nana nap (so did my foreign friends though) before we went out because we were totally exhausted only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before.
Sunday, after catching up on some sleep as though somehow it works like that, I decided that because the sun is out I would go for a run. Up until then my only symptoms were coughing and mucus. AFTER the run I had a running nose my whole body was sore and I could not walk without getting a headspin. You might say that you feel like that everytime you run, but I've running for 7 years now and I would to think I could tell the difference between unfitness and being sick.
School on Monday, and lo and behold, EVERYBODY in the class is sick. Including the lecturer! and his kids! But despite all looking miserable, thanks to the Swedish work ethic, there we all were. Coughing all over one another. Other people in my corridor were sick but the story for that wasn't so long. People are sick and I share a kitchen with them, story over.
The sickness continues. I went back to the sauna on Tuesday, I didn't go outside. I tried to 'sweat the toxins out'. It doesn't work - stay at home kids.
The next one will be less miserable I promise.
If you want to see photos of me being a lark in Sweden just add me on Facebook with a little message.
Until next time.
Dave Porter