Mushrooming during the study break

Mmmmm smells like mushroom

While some people are dutifully studying hard for the upcoming exam, I took the time to recharge my batteries and go mushroom picking in Lithuania.

I got the cheap flight pretty much at the last minute, packed my bags and went to the airport (via a short stop over at David's house where I ate real Mexican Mole).

Getting out into the forest with a great group of people including my lady Viktorija was fabulous. There was so much clean air out there that it made you dizzy. We picked up some beers and smoked chicken legs on the way into the forest to tide us over — walking around for hours searching for tasty boletus and chaterelles is hard work.

It had been raining recently and the weather was unusually warm for this time of year, so the mushrooms were sprouting everywhere. We had to drive a while before we could find a good spot because every man and his dog was out in the forest looking for those tasty fungi.

We found loads of mushrooms including two of the most poisonous in Europe. What I love about going mushrooming is that I learn something new every time. We always go with Vik's cousin Marius who is somewhat of a forest expert. He can always show me something interesting that I would have otherwise walked straight past.

Our mushroom company. Left to right: Paulius, Viktorija, Adam,
Margarita, Marius. Centre: Meta.

We had the boletus for lunch with some chicken stew, mashed potatoes and Vik's mum's preserved cucumbers and onions... yummy....

To work or not to work?

Today we did our presentation to the class and investors for the hygienic underwear garments. The presentation was so-so, but we didn't get asked any hard questions, so the discussion went fairly well. Perhaps it was too early in the morning for people to think of any hard ones for us.

After the presentation the representative from the hospital system told us he liked the idea and offered for us to continue working on the project. Though the opportunity is good, it would take some time (maybe one year) before we would see any cash at all come into our hands. In the mean time we could be working a lot.

So the question is, to work or not to work on the underwear for the hospitals....?

Screening out the noise

Its hard to hear yourself think sometimes.
Photo by James White.

One of the great things about living abroad in new countries is that you just can't understand what the hell people are talking about.

In the new world of constant information bombardment, not being unable to understand what people are saying is some sort of wonderful gift.

Currently I'm reading a book about re-energizing yourself and what that means for performance. Being able to shut out external sources of information, especially when they are trivial, is one of the ways that we can recharge our batteries. It gives us that little bit of extra time to organize our thoughts and find a little time for ourselves.

Something that my friend Daniel in Warsaw got me thinking about over a year ago finally clicked in my head today on the bus while I was reading a blog post by a journalist colleague from Estonia.

We are really totally bombarded by information to the point where we can't process it all anymore. I don't know if it was ever possible to process all information put in front of a human being, but surely it was easier before we all had four different electronic items we carried on our bodies and switched between at regular intervals.

What my friend Daniel rightly said back then in Warsaw is that he loves living there because he doesn't fall into the trap of listening to what people are talking about. In his native England he is of course able to listen to people talking on the bus or on their phone.

I noticed the same thing when I went home to Australia for three months over the summer earlier this year. You start listening to what people are saying because suddenly there is that extra source of information that you are able to process.

The trouble is that most of the time it is just rubbish. White noise almost. I don't want to listen to what people are saying on the bus, but the thing is that I understand them anyway. My brain automatically tunes in and I listen. Just another source of useless information. Just more noise to cloud my mind.

Add this to things like Facebook, Twitter, the phone, blogs, news, work, friends and you start to go insane. Its no wonder people can't function properly and don't sleep well.

Just another reason why its sometimes nice to live abroad...

Why I don't want to be a journalist anymore

This interview from Estonian Public Broadcasting more or less makes the point about why many people, including myself, want out of the newspaper industry. It is rotten to the core and people don't enjoy their work anymore.

Don't get me wrong — I like writing and I think its a good job, but the way the industry is structured these days, you can't do much. No creativity, no good interesting stuff. It is all about speed over quality and cost reduction over thoroughness.

There are only a few good publications left. The Economist is one for example. Financial Times is also good. After that, well who knows...

This is a very good book for an insight into what you read every day.

How to ask a good question

Working as a journalist for a few years and talking to various politicians and other figures taught me that asking a good question (especially in front of others) is a skill worth learning. There is no time for bad questions and if you ask one, you won't get an answer.

How not to structure a question to someone:
["Um I was thinking that..."], ["useless blah blah blah blah"], [second half of the question], [first half of the question], [other random information].

This makes the person who you are asking the question get confused. Then they can't give you a proper answer even if they want to.

This is how I feel when people ask terrible
and inane questions. Photo by Lorenzo Gonzalez.

Example:
"You know I was thinking that, in my country we have a water pump that can turn milk into tea and it is really loud and expensive to run. People in America like to drive big cars, do you think that? Sometimes I like to eat flowers."

You might think that this particular example sounds stupid and ridiculous, but its more or less how many people like to talk when asking a question.

How to ask a question:
[Relevant information that provides a basis for your question - very important for questions that can be easily interpreted to suit the needs of the person answering],[question, in plain speech...use active voice][finish with actual question].


Read it again if its hard for you to understand — you actually need to ask the person a question. Yes, it would require a question mark (?) if you wrote it down. It should be structured the same way that you would write it. It should make sense.

Example:
"There has been research into wind turbines that show they produce subsonic waves that can unsettle the human body. How relevant do you think this is to town planners in Sweden?"

Another thing: don't ask multiple questions in one sentence...it is just confusing and it gives the person the chance to ignore the parts of the question they find uncomfortable or don't understand.

In short, people around you hate you if you ask shit questions. Don't do it.

Country getaway

On Thursday and Friday our class went on a field trip style excursion to a little place called Bräkne-Hoby (see map). We were taken there to have intensive team building and workshop sessions for our business plans. Bräkne-Hoby is in the neighbouring region of Blekinge and seems like a really nice lush green place. There is also an archipelago, which the locals kept talking about.

My team was of course working on the underpants stuff, as mentioned in the previous post. Until we got some basic knowledge about the product it felt like we were really clutching at straws, but after a while we started to get a clearer idea about the project and who the main players were. Ringing the laundry and the hospital helped. Also, great websites like www.AliBaba.com helped us get into contact with multiple suppliers in China who knew how to make the garments we need.

The people in the region want to put Bräkne-Hoby on the world map, they said.

View Larger Map

Some of the other teams have developed really good ideas, but other teams still look like they are struggling for direction. I was shocked when two classmates told me that our speech seemed to be one of the most coherent and well established.

We were given a lecture by Rune Andersson, a very successful businessman here in Sweden. Its nice when experienced and successful people take the time to come speak to us. It gives the whole class a bit of a lift and some validation that this isn't just a university course, but something that could lead to something bigger in the business world.

We also had some fun while we were there. Everyone in the class had been assigned a role — some had to make breakfast, while others had to organize team building games. I was in the entertainment group with a few others and we had a great time.

Originally we were only given 15 minutes to perform (according to the schedule) and we decided to get together briefly and practice and brainstorm what we could do during these 15 mins. While doing that, a crowd began to gather and suddenly we were performing. The 15 minutes stretched into hours, but I had a great time. Overworked, underpaid, but satisfied :) We played on the guitars, my harmonica, a skinned tambourine that we borrowed from the university and a little rice shaker that I made out of a medicine box. Brandon, Petter, me, David and Alex played for most of the time.

The other entertainment team didn't even get to perform, unfortunately, but thats that way the cookie crumbled...

Genital operations

Part of the first unit of our Entrepreneurship course involves taking an external idea and trying to commercialize it. We were lucky enough to get a project that was invented by two nurses who want a better way to have removable underwear for people having surgery in the genital region. Hands on research required.

Currently the problem is that there are too many buttons on the flap that can be removed for surgery, so surgeons or nurses often just cut the underpants off because it takes too long to take off. Other methods are too expensive to produce. Normally cleaning these garments costs more than to buy a new one, so this has been deemed to be worthy of a second look.

We need to come up with a product, a market and a business model for this. Oh, and we have around one day to do this... This is part of the intense program.

The nurses need to be contacted and we need to come up with feasible ideas.

If we come up with something really great, I won't be writing this blog anymore because they don't have affordable internet options for ocean going yachts yet :) (or maybe they do)...

Company visit and explosion

Yesterday we went to visit a company called Know IT Create. We were given a presentation from the founder and CEO of company Create, which was later taken over by Know IT.

He gave us some information about how he managed company growth from sitting on a box with a telephone in Lund in someones spare bedroom to having a business in multiple cities with 250 employees.

He basically reiterated some common sense things about the service industry such as high customer service levels and working hard. Also, being cost effective was one of his major points too. It was clear from his office that he wasn't a flashy guy. He also wore a t-shirt and jeans, but thats all part of his success as a manager. He keeps it nice and simple with no unnecessary frills. With the money the company saves on glass fronted office space and not flying business class etc, the staff are regularly taken on trips or have team days. This makes the work culture in his business very good.

Something he said later on that I particularly agree with is that you should only work with people that you can laugh with every day, otherwise its going to feel like a loooong time in the office. That was his number one tip for working in a new business, beating even his tip of never giving up.

He was sort of awesome in the eyes of the students because he gave us these really good and huge sandwiches at the start of the presentation. Because a lot of us had forgotten our breakfasts, it was a good way to get us all onside.

Later on when I was riding to the tax authority to get my papers in order, my tyre on my bike exploded for seemingly no reason. Not only did the tube deflate, but the tyre was shredded too, though I was riding on smooth bitumin and there were no holes or objects I could have ridden over. Really bizarre.

I guess that the wheel guard might have rubbed on it somehow? Also the tyre might have just been old, but in any case it was a bit of a shock. Good thing I didn't crash into the bushes...

Party v 1.0

I went to my first party of the year in Lund on Saturday. Before you read the rest of the post, you should start playing the YouTube clip below... (you don't have to watch it, but its just for mood).



It was a dress up party called "Oops I just didn't do that" where we had to dress up as something that would never have happened to us. I went as a gay Ukranian sailor.

Other people put in a lot of effort and then there were people who just showed up without preparing anything, but its always fun to have a go and try something crazy or strange. My favourite outfit was worn by Holger from Germany who came out in a dress and wig. He was pregnant (with a t-shirt stuffed in his dress for the baby-bump) and was smoking and drinking. A nice image. He even gave birth to the clothing at 3 a.m. but it is yet to be named or baptized.

I'd estimate that more than 100 people turned up to the party over the night who filtered through the house. There were four areas where people were hanging out — upstairs, in the kitchen (I'm told its very Swedish to hang out in the kitchen), in the stairs and in the basement where the house mates had made a cool dance floor with improvised Rubik's cubes as decorations. There was also a home made mirror ball. People danced like crazy downstairs and generally had a good time.

Brandon from my course came along and brought some of his home brewed beer. Much stronger and nicer than the mid-strength shit available and affordable from the supermarket here. The Swedish government has one of the world's biggest monopolies on alcohol here. The national company, System Bolaget, is the only place where you can buy drinks with alcohol content over 3.5% of volume. It is expensive when you are on a student budget. For those at home, it is still cheaper than what you are paying, but the range is much smaller. The System Bolaget closes at 3 p.m. on Saturdays and I forgot it was like this, so I had to go for the crappy supermarket beer.

Almost all of the guests of the party were well behaved, a nice thing. Not too many people getting out of hand.

In the house I noticed that all the doors to the bedrooms had massive locks on them: I guess they are used to having parties where lots of strangers turn up. I hope there are more this year because it was pretty awesome...

OK, the song should be finishing by about now...

Catch up time

Its Friday night, but the last thing I want to do is go out to a party or night club. Thats because for the last two weeks I have been going bull at gate with commuting, the girlfriend, work and of course the intensive university program I'm undertaking.

I handed in my second assignment in two weeks today in the afternoon and finished off my work for Alfa.lt shortly after. Anton, the Ukrainian guy I live with, and I went to check out the local pool and sauna, which is around the corner.

Its a small pool (just 25m or less even) and it has four lanes. Three of these lanes were blocked off for children's use and the remaining lane was being shared by about eight people. As anyone who has done laps in a pool would know, it was a little cramped in there.

Anton jumped in the pool and attempted to swim, but it was clear that he had never had a single lesson before. With every stroke he edged closer to having lungs full of water.

A funny thing about that is that when he went to the United States to work for a summer, he applied for a job as a lifesaver at a pool. He didn't get the job because he wasn't good at diving, but I think he should thank his lucky stars that he wasn't given the job or he could be dead by now...Not to mention those people he would have been saving.

I had my goggles with me so I could see underwater, but Anton did not and he came out of the pool with bright red eyes. Indoor pools are always over-chlorinated, but this one had a bit of extra oompf for good luck or something. 

One of my classmates told me incidentally that it is not the chlorine actually, but the mixture of chlorine and urine that makes your eyes go red. Supposedly when the chemicals mix there is a reaction and the eye-reddening stuff is made. There were a lot of kids in the pool, so it could be true, but my god were Anton's eyes red....

After the pool we went to the sauna to check out it. Upon entering the room we were chastised by a pair of old Swedish men with their dicks waving about. Apparently it is more or less illegal to go into a sauna with your bathers on. They said its for two reasons. The first is that you take too much sweat back into the pool via your shorts so they need to keep topping up the chlorine (never heard that one before, but it would explain Anton's eyes). The second reason was that they thought that the chlorine from the shorts would evaporate and cause a poisonous gas cloud to form and choke us all in the sauna. Sounds a bit like fantasy...

After lecturing us about the woes of bathers in the sauna, they started chatting to us about how high the taxes are in Sweden. Soon after we got out and went home.

Now I'm just happy to sit here and get a good night's rest. I might even manage to finish my book finally!

The Start Up Challenge

As I mentioned earlier, the first assignment we were given in our Masters of Entrepreneurship program was the Start Up Challenge, a game borrowed from other big business schools like Stanford University among others.

We were given 100 kr (~€10) on Wednesday around midday and by Monday morning we had to come back with at least 500 kr.

When we were given the money many people were wondering if they could even hit the 500 kr target, but it quickly became obvious that it would be really easy.

Me making cookies with our dough
mixer.

Our ideas were to leverage our skills as photographers and amateur bakers. We made sandwiches on home made bread and home made cookies. The sandwiches were very successful and we managed to tap into a cool niche of students, staff and taxi drivers who forgot to eat something before leaving the house in the morning. Many people were impressed by the fact that we had home made bread.

Alongside the sandwiches — which had cheese, tomato and grated carrot inside — we sold coffee. After around four hours we were sold out and had 600 kr in our pockets.

We decided to change strategy and make cookies. It didn't work out that well, but we made a few hundred kroner profit.

The big money maker for us was our photos for salon idea. We went around offering salons to take photos of their shops in artistic ways for them to use in various settings. This was very successful and it ended up putting us in the top half of the class.

We had a final profit of just under 3,900 kr. Not bad over all.

Show me the money, bitches. 25 kr became over 900 kr for
each member. The team from left to right: Ludwig Mendez,
Mariana Rojas, Adam Mullett, Alexander Okl

The top team won with around 5,600 kr by selling hotdogs, salsa lessons and moving furniture for people. They also bought clothes, fixed them up and sold them at the flea market.

Another team created a magazine and sold ads to two banks. I have no idea how this was achieved given that banks don't make decisions that fast. We were also not registered companies and last time I checked banks require invoices and receipts and things before giving out money. This team managed to come to the class with just over 5,000 kr, but claimed that they had 11,000 in total.

However the rules were that no accounts receivable would be counted and cash was king.

A great experience — lots of fun and a huge amount of learning.

What dreams are made of...

Just so you know what Marabou Dreams actually means, I will tell you now.

Marabou is one of the tastiest mass produced chocolate brands in Europe. They make the most awesome varieties ever.

Here is a photo of what Vik is taking with her back to Lithuania to give out as presents.

As you can see, Mink krokant is one of our favourite varieties. It is toffee
with mint flavour in milk chocolate. So aromatic and so tasty. Mmmmm....

First week in the course

One week has passed in the course so far, but it feels like a month (in a good way).

The course has been very intense and there has already been a lot of group work, which has been good for getting to know my other course mates and to know some things about Swedish culture.

We did fun things like the egg drop game, where we had straws, paper clips, rubber bands, paper cupcake cups, sticky tape, ear cleaners and a piece of cotton wool and we needed to make a structure that would protect the egg when dropped from eight metres above the ground.

The other great thing we've done in the Entrepreneurship course is to do the start up challenge. On Wednesday we were given 100 SEK (~€10) and we had to come back with as much as possible as we could. The challenge isn't over yet, but we have done fairly well (I won't reveal yet how much we made because of the competition not being over yet). I will also later reveal what we did to get that money.

Of course for class there has been a lot of reading, but somehow it hasn't been too heavy, though it was voluminous.

In all, this course so far is more like entertainment than a Masters program, but I don't mind.

Young people are strange

The next generation is taking over and the rest of us are getting older.

I realised today at the bus stop in Lund that I am indeed getting old and that my youth is behind me.

I saw a young couple, maybe 15 years old or so, standing at the bus stop. The girl was quite overweight, had a short haircut and was (as usual for Swedish youth) wearing way too much make up. The boy looked like he had just discovered hair gel and was going nuts with it, setting strands in every direction conceivable. He was inflicted with some serious acne and had braces on his teeth too.

So what happened was that they were hugging and then they went to have a french kiss. Just as they kissed, the boy turned on a Michael Jackson song to accompany the moment. I can't remember what song it was, but they probably thought this was a great way to validate the moment and indeed remind them that it was real.

After all, only things that are recorded or accompanied by digital media really happen. Every time someone kisses on the television there is musical accompaniment. By this logic, if they didn't have the music blaring out of the external speaker on their mobile phone, they might as well have not kissed.

What will the world look like when they are in power?

Less is more

Where is the natural beauty?

What a lot of people (particularly American men) told me when I mentioned Sweden prior to coming here is that there are the world's most beautiful women there.

When I got here — after having being spoilt for the last three years in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland — I saw that Swedish girls cake their face with make up to the point that any natural beauty is totally lost.

In fact I doubt some of them would even be recoginsable if they took off their masks.

There is a limit to the amount of make up a girl should put on in the morning:

Less than one millimetre in depth of foundation on your face please!
Do not use mascara and eye liner to the point where your eye lashes become one solid blade - there should be individual hairs there!

Of course this overuse of make up is most prevalent among the school girls and first year uni students who are still learning how to use this stuff, but even older women can be noticed with defined lines of foundation around their chin line and neck.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a circus.