The earliest memory of a literary experience,

…was from when I went to fifth grade, 10 years old. We lived in a two storey villa and I remember how I walked with my nose snuggled up between the book pages everywhere I went; The toilet, the sofa, for breakfast, for lunch…even walking up and down the staircase! What was this book, that could snare a 10 year old deep into its mysteries?

The year was 1999,

… and a debut author from U.K. had gotten her first book translated into Swedish, in the end it would be a 7 book series. If you haven’t figured it out yet, it was Harry Potter och De Vises Sten (Philosopher’s Stone). Certainly I’ve read books before that time, but Harry Potter was the first book that captivated me beyond reality… and it is that feeling that I search for in every book ever since. If a book manages to draw me into its world in such a degree that I can’t put it down and I forget all about time… then it is a hit!

Books like that are rare.

I can count most of them on my fingers, mostly fantasy and historical fiction, but nonetheless:

• J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings
• Stephen King’s The Talisman
• Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina
• Deborah Harkness A Discovery of Witches
• Kader Abdolah The House of the Mosque
• …

Reading are always both ways.

It can be magical and it can be plain dull. But in the end, I always read for myself – no one else. And that’s the way it should be. However, having blogged now for nearly 4 years, something that is only for oneself can still be shared.

***

What book(s) have captivated YOU beyond time and space?

I have always been fascinated by literature.

Most of my readings have focused on historical fiction, and fantasy. I am honest when I say that I don’t know if I’ve ever read any book called a ”classic”, but then again, it all depends on how you define a ”classic” work of literature. Because there are ”classics” that no one really likes – and there are just as many that are loved by thousands – therefore, a ”classic” is perhaps just definition of a really well known book (?), but then I still have to ask myself, why I never really felt intrigued by them before. Up until now.

For several months now,

I’ve been reading the posts over at 101books, and very often I end up reading by the comments. This time I found myself over at ”A room of one’s own”, a wonderful blog that has this romantic, almost chic, atmosphere flowing of the pages. In the end, it has inspired me to join in with her ”Classics club”, to read no less than 50 classics over the course of up to five years. So my first step in this new journey for me, was to establish this list of ”classics” which I would like to explore. My list includes many of the traditional ”classics” such as Dickens, Tolstoy etc. but also a few Swedish writers such as Strindberg, and von Heidenstam, mixed with some more modern classic works.

My personal goal…

…is to finish this list in four years time, that is by 30th of April 2016. Some of the books might be read in parallell with others, for example, the bible and the koran will most likely be two longer reads over the course of this journey.

The list I’ve put up is in no way a complete list, and it’s not meant to be read in any particular order. I’ve chosen, so far, 100 books from various sources, but I reserve the right to revise it as I go along.

Quick Facts:

• Rereads: 3(100)
• Most looking forward to: Tales of 100,1 Nights, by Anonymous, The Bible, and The Koran (Hard to pick just one..)
• Most dreading: Jane Austen (Never read that kind of genre before)

***

Read as of: 2012-April-03 … 0/100

This is it:

Read the rest of this entry

2011 has been an advanterous year.

• I presented my thesis on ”Improvement of Commutation Failure Prediction in HVDC Classic Links” and graduated with honors from University West.
• I got my first long-term job, hired by ABB HVDC in Ludvika three days after my thesis presentation.
• I was the first in my class to receive my Bachelor Diploma in May.
• I received an award for best thesis at the institution of engineering.
• We accepted to rent a house 30 minutes from my work and moved in the last of January.
• During spring I went on my first assigments abroad to Papenburg, Germany.
• In the summer worked three weeks on Sardinia, Italy – and my fiance flew down with me.
• I spent an entire morning on the beach, first time in my life.
• We have spent approximately 30 000 SEK on decorating our new home.
• I started sketching, and painting more frequently.
• I tested new drawing techniques: stompf, dot painting, line art, abstract.
• I started painting with acrylics on canvas and finished my first series for the kitchen in the summer.
• I found the best of friends in our new neighbours.
• Together with our new neighbours I enjoyed a great dinner and an evening on Ladies Night in Örebro.
• Spent joyous time at a number of partylite gatherings in the fall.
• I tasted the ”Tr3 apor” white wine, and it tastes like pear lemonade.
• My fiance got employment.
• I started on a course for a Hunting License.
• We bought a brand new car- 1 month out of the factory! – a Mini Cooper D, red with stripes and everything.
• We’ve spent many hours watching tv-series included, but not limited to: Charmed, Big Bang Theory, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bones.
• I started this blog with its own domain.
• I got nail extensions for the first time in my life in November – an interesting experience.
• I read 56 books during 2011 – and going for more this year!
• I’m drinking more coffee since I graduated – it’s a contagious habbit at the office!
• We finally bought a christmas tree (plastic) this year, since we actually have the space for one.
• Found out that we save approximately 30 % on each filled grocery bag while shopping after we moved north.

To discover things unknown, was the very beginning of what we today call science. From hundreds, thousands, of years back, humans have tried to describe the world around them – to understand why things are as they are and how things will be. It started with consulting the stars… the mesopotamia, egypt, and the arabs. To find answers in the sky have always been present to this day.

Disciplines have been many: astrology, alchemy, math… but the further we get, the more questions arise. It is not always as clear as it seems, and some things are not always as difficult. I am currently reading a book by Rasmus Dahlberg: Det avgörande ögonblicket (eng. The defining moment) – where he writes about the unlikely causes of major world changing events in history. In the introduction Rasmus correlates historical moments and how they come to pass with mathematical equations and similarities to caos theory. A quotation stuck with me, of Pierre Simon de Laplace’s description of the goal of mathematics:

After the days of Newton, the goal of science came to mapping all the equations ruling the universe, from its smallest to its largest pieces. Thereafter, it would be possible, from everything’s position at a set time, to calculate how everything would act in the future. And for someone with this knowledge, nothing would be impossible.

(Freely translated from Swedish.)

Page 14, Det avgörande ögonblicket by Rasmus Dahlberg

Rasmus continues to write a short history of mathematics up to this day and the start of caos theory – he relates this to the happenings of history, how things are not always as they seem – and how they may have the most unlikely of causes. He writes of Lorenz, a meteorologist in the 1960′s, who, by sheer mistake of three decimals, corresponding to the flutter of a butterfly’s wing, came to the prediction of a hurricane on the other side of the earth.

The Lorenz Attractor (google search)

Sometime during 2005 I started painting models out of plastic & metal. My fiancé had a box standing around, filled with plastic models for the fantasy strategy battle game Warhammer. He hadn’t played for a couple of years – partly because he didn’t like the painting part of the hobby… and playing around with plain grey plastics isn’t very much inspiring. Good then that he had found someone like me (?) – who loves to paint and make creativity flow… here’s a picture of my very first model painting of an Empire Wizard:

~*~

~*~

I remember how I chose this particular figure simply because of the roses… I also remember how I felt as if I would never be able to create a flow in the robes, and the face I won’t even mention… but for a first try, I’m proud. A few years later I did my second wizard, and these two are one of the few figures I’ve ever painted that has a (living) human face (with flesh):

~*~

~*~

______________________________________________________________________________________

This is a Creativity post, a category where I write about all the things I got going outside of work. Feel free to comment, and give criticism.