Author: オスカル
2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,800 times in 2010. That’s about 14 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 10 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 17 posts. There were 167 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 55mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was January 6th with 161 views. The most popular post that day was Housing.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, WordPress Dashboard, blogsicex.com, es.linkedin.com, and search.conduit.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for gotland, pipi, pipi langstrump, gotland sweden, and pipi langstrum.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Housing August 2009
13 comments
Gotland August 2009
Pipi långstrump February 2010
Välkommen August 2009
Gotland University August 2009
Alpha international London 10′
Last August, thanks to my performance during the MIM program, in addition to my involvement with the international relations department during the year, including the set up of this blog, I got the alpha international scholarship which aims to finance either further studies related, or internships abroad Sweden. The scholarship which gives up to 30000 SEK is intended for Swedish or international students enrolled in a Swedish university for at least one year and it requires a detailed motivation letter. If you are interested I suggest you to take a look to preferably internships, but also other academic alternatives in advance, starting before Christmas to do the right choice unhurried since the deadline is around March/April. Anyway you can always contact the International Relations department to get more information. I will tell you my experience for you to get a closer perspective:
I intended to improve my negotiation skills in an ideal environment, so I applied and got accepted to the Oxford royal academy but due to financial issues I finally moved to London, UK, for roughly a month to attend a full-time English course in Education First (EF), the world’s largest private education company, which, by the way, is Swedish. During 3 weeks I attended a total of 78 lessons, combining general English with spins of business English given by a professional with an extensive background in Marketing and Advertising. An interesting part of the course were the project lectures where culture about other parts of the UK and Ireland were approached. In overall, the course´s quality was not as good as I expected, finding an alternative way of learning along the city, among British citizens.
The total price of the course for the 3 weeks including accommodation was about 2000 Euros, devoting the remaining 1000 to afford the flights and the usual living expenses. Unfortunately due to an obvious organizational disorder of EF I had to move each week to a different residence which in advance was inconvenient but which led to meet people from many nationalities. The school’s location was absolutely great. It was located in the very center, a 5-minutes walk to the nearest tube station, Waterloo. I had never been in London before so I seized the opportunity to visit the city and to learn more about British culture. I visited the Tate Modern art gallery, the British Museum and the National portrait gallery, the Parliament, the London tower, the London eye, the St. Paul’s church, and the most interesting sights seeing placed around the city. The school offered discounts for some of the excursions which made it rather comfortable to book. Although with time limitations I also tried to look for a job, approaching some agencies and making different contacts. In this respect, EF school provided me with some suggestions and helped me out to touch up my CV for the specific demands of the English market. The experience overall was great, It is remarkable my English skills improvement, the diverse contacts I made, and the pleasure taken from the wide cultural offer and beauty of the largest city in Europe.
I promised International Relations to upload some pictures so here they are…
Munich 09′
Around November we decided to seize the cheap prices of the low cost airlines so we book a pair of tickets to visit Munich. Eventually, the journey was quite harsh since we had to take a ferry, a bus, waiting couple of hours for another bus outdoors, the plane, another bus and a train…If I remember correctly we´re travelling around 16 hours so I do not really recommend it… Anyway once there we had a great time and we visit most of the city and the famous Neuschwanstein castles that are located roughly 1 hour by train from Munich… Even though it was the end of November and it was already pretty cold, there were some surfers enjoying the waves produced in a strecht of a tributary of the Eisbach (Ice River) located next to the English Garden, just right by the famous museum “Haus der Kunst”. Although forbidden in the past it seems that Surfing is now (2010) officially allowed. A new sign next to the wave warns that “Due to the forceful current, the wave is suitable for skilled and experienced surfers only”, It seems that the wave wanted to be removed but a Surfers association got the power enough to keep it, It is really curious for visitors… Enjoy the silly music 😉
S.T.I.C.S – Apocalips by Philip Koziarski
Would you like to work with 3D design or animation? why not both at once?
If you are interested, the video below represents the sort of projects that you may work with when studying Cinematic 3D graphics design and animation. This video clip is the work of Philip Koziarski, a last-year student of Filmisk gestaltning 3D-grafik och animation at Gotland University, who designed, filmed and animated the entire project on his own. The group on the video clip, S.T.I.C.S is a Swedish band that diverts against the normal conception of modern hiphop & soul inspired by the multicultural roots of its singers (Denmark, Sweden, Bosnia & Zanzibar). Personally I think that both the video and the song are great… enjoy it 😉
Visit S.T.I.C.S at myspace if you would like to listen more of their music.
On the contrary if you have some comments regarding the video you can contact its designer at, Philip_fprn_8@hotmail.com
HGO channel
In order to promote and to give a better perspective of the quality at Gotland University. The university launched a channel in youtube with short clips of interviews to Students and Employees. I include in this post the opinion of some of my fellows about the master in international management. Specially for those who are thinking about HGO as an option, you will be able to see the broad cultural diversity we enjoy in our program. Listen to this students from Venezuela, Croatia, Azerbaijan and China.
TRANSLATION – TRADUCCIÓN – TRADUCTION – TRADUZIONE – ÖVERSÄTTNING – Перевод – 翻訳 – DỊCH THUẬT – 翻译 – اللغة العربية
ENGLISH
For those who do not understand English well, press here to download google toolbar. It allows you to translate whole websites into a wide variety of languages.
لترجمة مواقع الويب كاملة في طائفة واسعة من اللغات.
iNVENTIONS
Couple of months ago, while attending a seminar, the guest professor started to mention some Swedish inventions. I found myself surprised since among them, the professor mentioned some quotidian ones, such as, the pc mouse, the tetrapak or the zipper. Regarding inventions, there is always controversial opinions about the original inventor. Sometimes, ancient cultures are missed here. For instance, China counts with many inventions used hundred years before Europe. I found a video compilation in Youtube with some of the most famous Swedish inventions. As I already mentioned, the authority for such discoveries is always controversial. When watching the video, notice that the telephone was patented by Alexandre Graham Bell and Lars Magnus Ericsson sells improved version of Bell telephone.
Companies
Sweden has a prosperous economy with a significant weight in the export market. It counts with international leader companies in different fields. Some of them are known as Swedish, but not all. Did you know that skype or the newspaper “metro” were created in Sweden? Find below some of the logos of the most representative Swedish companies. Notice that SAS is not 100% Swedish but also Danish and Norwegian, as well as the bank Nordea it is also Finnish.
The famous swedish carmaker SAAB, a classical swedish company which belonged to the American General Motors, was recently purchased by the Dautch company Spyker, which is 200 times smaller than SAAB. Victor Muller is Spyker’s CEO which states: “The main reason why we think Saab will succeed is its unique brand”. The entire acquisition – including funds that will be spent to rebuild the operation – will be financed with loans. A 400m-euro loan ($544m; £348m) from the European Investment Bank was approved on Friday afternoon. You can find more details on this article at BBC news.
Celebrities
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been a brand icon for Swedish companies for many years and Stieg Larsson´s saga, “millenium”, became very popular overnight. Those are examples of characters who most of the people would associate to Sweden. But, there are other names which young generations would not recognize so easily. For instance, this is the case of the Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren, who many of you remember from movies like Universal Soldier or Rocky IV (I always thought he was from Eastern Europe) .Another example is the famous actress Greta Garbo, who played during the silent films Hollywood period. She was awarded as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. Find below some pictures of some of the most known Swedish celebrities: The tennis player Björn Borg, the Swedish band Mando diao, the inventor of the dynamite, Alfred Nobel or Pipi Langstrump.
Pipi långstrump
When I was definitively coming to Gotland I started to google in detail about this peculiar island on the Baltic sea. What a surprise when I found out that a TV series which many of you probably remember from your childhood was entirely recorded here in Gotland. We are talking none other than Pipi Långstrump. The famous Villa Villekulla is now located just 3 km far from central Visby. The name of the place is Kneippbyn summerland and it is an aquatic park. There is also a small camping and you can rent accommodation next to the facilities with beautiful sights to the sea. I visited it at the end of August, and It was an experience to see Pipi’s house and the Ship. Although, It was rather weird to see everything converted into an amusement park with mini-golf. What to say, everything is marketed today. Anyway, the place was lovely for the kids. The price to get into Pipi’s facilities were roughly 140 kr/14 euros. The aquatic part was closed when I visited so I do not know about the prices. Anyway you can just take a look around, it is for free! Click HERE to go to the website.
Here below, some more information for those who do not know about Pipi. You can also check the VIDEO section.
Pippi Longstocking (Swedish Pippi Långstrump) is a fictional character in a series of children’s books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, and adapted into multiple films and television series. Pippi was named by Lindgren’s then nine-year-old daughter, Karin, who requested a get-well story from her mother one day when she was home sick from school.
Nine-year-old Pippi is unconventional, assertive, and has superhuman strength, being able to lift her horse one-handed without difficulty. She frequently mocks and dupes adults she encounters, an attitude likely to appeal to young readers; however, Pippi usually reserves her worst behavior for the most pompous and condescending of adults.
After an initial rejection from Bonnier Publishers in 1944, Lindgren’s manuscript was accepted for publication by the Swedish publisher Rabén and Sjögren. The first three Pippi chapter books were published from 1945 to 1948, with an additional series of six books published in 1969–1975. Two final stories were printed in 1979 and 2000. The books have been translated into more than 50 languages. Wikipedia.org, 2010
Do you want to see how Pipi looks some years later?
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Spanska på Gotland 