Pliska

Imagine a vast flatland, with endless wheat fields stretching towards the horizon. A dusty road cuts straight through fields and small hills. A group of riding warriors, skilled and proud, are coming back from patrolling duty. The horses are tired, the men are dirty and sweaty. Their chainmail and leather armours do not shine, made for war and not for beauty. Their swords, however, are sharp, and the reflexive bows can start spitting deadly arrows in a heartbeat. Slowly, a city emerges from the quivering hot air. The towers seem to be soaring above the ground, then the city walls appear and bind them to the earth. Fires start burning in the horsemen's black eyes, they spur on the steeds and fly cheeringly towars the city.

This is Pliska. The first capitol of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. The name derives from the protobulgarian word "Plyuska", meaning "the city in the field". Founded in 681 by Khan Asparukh, it was located about a day's horsemarch from the Byzanthinian border. This was not only a capitol, but a starting point for future war campaigns as well. The lack of nearby mountains ensured a great visibility range, thus omitting every possibility for a surprise attack. The walls of the inner fortress were nearly 3 meters thick and 12 meters tall, and the outer city was surrounded by moats and ramparts. In 892, the King organised a pagan revolt against the newly integrated Christianity and was dethroned. The capitol was moved to Preslav.

Near Pliska lie the ruins of the biggest basilica in Europe. Contrary to the popular definition of the word, synonimous to a cathedral, basilica actually means "a church with a marketplace". There were only three such churches in Europe - one in Rome, one in Kiev and one in Pliska.

The huge nave could contain hundreds of piligrims, while other hundreds could make their purchases on the market. On the picture to the left, the market is just outside the two leftmost arches and it too was covered. The two lateral aisles contain stone sarcophaguses, the resting places of honoured, yet unknown people. Outside the northern aisle there were living quarters for the clergy and a huge well. Thus only a perimeter wall is missing in order for this complex to become a fully secluded and independent monastery.

The roughcast of both the city and the basilica is unique. More than thirty years of analyses could not determine its ingredients or how it was able to withstand fire, destruction and time for more than a millennium. It is known that it consists of sand, small stones, crushed bricks and... some kind of milk. Only a direct hit with another stone can break it. I have tested it myself. In comparison, modern mortar can be scraped away with as little as a fingertip. So, even though today the city in the fields is nothing more than playground for the sweeping winds, its walls have not yet revealed their secrets.

Earth

The most basic of the elements. The foundation of all that is. It is also the most inert of the elements. Wherever one's footsteps carry them, they will always find their bearings and stand firmly on the ground. The earth will always give the weary traveller a place to rest their head. A single rock may provide them with shelter in the stormy night, and when the dreads of the world are riding the four winds, the small insignificant human will marvel at their immortal glory, safe in his hide-out. On the next day, when the skies are clear and the sun is sending its blissful rays down, they can continue their journey.

Earth - the life-giver. An assiduous farmer plants a seed into the fertile soil. And a different one, a little bit farther. A third one goes into the ground. Soon, a thin stem emerges. Some time passes and this stem has become a flower so beautiful that his son will use it to steal the heart of his beloved one. The other one is a corn stalk, heavy with the fruits that are going to feed his family during the coming winter. The last - a mighty oak, rising high above the ground, enduring freezing winters and searing summers, its myriad of leaves whispering with the wisdom of the ancients.

The desert. A vast stretch of ground, covered with sand dunes or with wind-barren steps. It is only the brave that dare venture into those unwelcoming realms. On every step they evade their doom, courting demise, meeting the cold stare of oblivion. Sometimes they succeed and manage to pass more or less unscathed. Then their hearts start longing for the hardships, the dangers and endeavours, and they enter the perdition one more time. Sometimes only bare bones mark where the traveller drew their final breath, with only the wind remaining to tell their tale. The rolling sand, the hissing grass soon consume everything.

But woe to ye, insolent worm on the face of Mother Earth, if you manage to anger her. The ground quakes under your very feet, boulders are tossed high in the air only to fall down, crushing everything with a stone fist. Fiery lava flows like inevitable painful ending, igniting clothes, skin and bones alike. The sand storm twirls, the corns grinding the flesh until nothing is left. And then the silence comes. The end has been. It is time for a new beginning.

"The Light shine on you, and the Creator shelter you. The last embrace of the mother welcome you home." (Quote Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time, Book 2: The Great Hunt)

Lactose-induced sexual attraction

Warning! This following piece of writing contains facts and opinions that may be deemed racistic and/or xenophobic. The author wishes to imply that this blog is of purely entertaining purposes, i.e. no offense is meant. By continuing reading it you accept the author's explanation. Otherwise, you may consider not reading this post. Thank you!

Before I came to Sweden two years ago, I shared the image that the rest of the world has for Swedish girls - namely the image of tall, slender, fair, blue-eyed goddesses that can empty a man's soul with but a single glance and render him unconscious using only a smile. As a side note, this was a major issue for my girlfriend back then.. Oh, jealousy, thy name is insanity. It turned out, however, this was not the truth. The aforementioned goddesses comprise only a small part of the Swedish female population. The majority has become a victim of evolution, which, as we know, does not care that much about appearance but instead is interested in keeping the species alive in the current conditions.

By current conditions I mean temperatures that can drop from plus 10 (here this is considered warm) to minus 20 in a single night. It is very hard for metabolism to switch over for such a short time period. This is why insulation is needed. In other words, lots of Swedish girls have amounts of soft tissues I do not consider attractive. In the rare cases they do not, I am discontent with their facial features. (Picky, aren't I?) And in the extremely rare cases they fit the northern goddess image, they express either an Ice Queen attitude or you can do the infamous cartoon experiment with a flashlight beam coming out of the other ear. (Extremely picky, aren't I?). I guess a couple of hundred years of isolation and inbreeding can do this to a population.

At first, I though my infatuation with another female representative would have an impact on my judgement. Even without this factor though, the conditions described above remained in power. I started wondering if there was some serious misunderstanding between my visual input and my endocrine functions. This theory was also nullified by the fact that currently I am high above Cloud 9 (called Seventh Heaven in other cultures) plus I find some international students both well-spoken, intelligent and attractive. Purely aesthetically speaking, of course.

Now, I did not want to be the odd man out, i.e. the Queer-that-does-not-like-Swedish-girls, so I kept my opinions to myself. Furthermore, it is not very polite pointing out other people's imperfections. It is a luxury kept exclusively for friends. You can easily imagine my relief when an Indian guy, whom a lot of women here consider very attractive, complained about having the same problem. Now, we are both men of science (he is conducting some kind of research on bovine fetuses), so we put our heads together in an effort to elaborate a theory about the reasons and solutions for our predicament.

We started out like this. First, we clarified, we do not find Swedish girls that much of attraction. Then we got into account the famous statement that "All men are the same", shouted on multiple occasions by frustrated or infuriated women all over the world. If this was correct, then the Swedish men were also not quite happy with their women. Thus the theory quickly faced its first major problem: how is the Swedish nation still alive?

For thousands of years mankind has through trial and error encountered many substances with peculiar physiological properties. Some of those had a major impact on the secretion of certain hormones and other metabolites, leading to increased libido and lust. Those, as we know, are called aphrodisiacs. Potent ones include oysters (I can vouch for the effects of this one), sepia bone and rhinocerous horn among others. Those can be really expensive, not to mention poisonous if ingested in high amounts (rotten oysters.. ouch). Our aphrodisiac had to be both potent, inexpensive and easily accessible. After all, the fate of a whole nation was at stake.

Our choice fell on milk. The denizens of Scandinavia consume copious amounts of milk and dairy products every day. Thus, a simple backbone theory was introduced: In order for the Swedes to be attracted to their women, they have to ingest a lot of cheese. Being true men of science, we decided to test this theory ourselves and eat a lot of cheese every day while at the same time monitor our internal reactions to the native females.

Around this time the bar closed and we went home. We soon discovered that the theory did not work quite as expected. My friend fell in love with a German girl and I am enamored by a member of my own tribe, the Bulgarians. It was still a nice theory, though.

Eluding the meshwire

All of us have either cheated or tried to cheat at an exam. Sometimes the cheat method is so cunning that it has to be remembered. Let me tell you of two methods, very similar to each other, developed independently in Bulgaria and Germany.

In high school, we used to have a term exam in Mathematics. Actually, we had term exams in everything, but it was in Mathematics where we had to chat smart. In the beginning of every term, our teacher would give us a one or two hundred problems. Four of those would then comprise the exam. Mathematics was definitely my subject but I still managed to hold my head above the water. There were some of my classmates, however, that were Maths geniuses, as well as some that could not solve their way out of a wet paper bag. What we did, was following. Those of us who had some idea how to solve the hundreds of problems, we put our heads together and solved them probably two weeks before the exam, writing them down really nice and readable with all the small details. Then we photocopied that for all our classmates whose only task was to sit down and study the questions. On the day of the exam, one copy of the solved problems was hidden in a convenient spot (I am not telling which one) in the restrooms. So, if one or more of the exam problems would seem unsolvable, you could always feign (or have a real one, even better) toilet emergency, go to the little humanoids' room and take a look at the elusive solution. Et voilá - the test is passed.

This works fine only if you know the questions or problems that are going to be given. For example it is very useful in the aforementioned situation, as well as all exams where you have to write on one of a series of known questions. This is how the university exams in biology or history can be taken. However, if the exam is a multiple choice test, nothing can ensure that you know all the questions. Unless, of course, there are some unchanging test variants and you acquire them all. Provided the latter is not possible, there are still ways out of the situation. Here, the German students come to help.

A small group of students synchronise their watches before the exam. The smartest of them solves the questions in a flash and then gives a sign. The others start note the time. After a couple of minutes, the smart guy goes out - either to the toilet or hands in his papers or whatever. Suddenly, the others start writing and hand in their answers in a couple of minutes. The secret? Simple. When the smart one goes out, the others take a look at their watches. Let us say, it has been 29 minutes since he went out and the exam had 6 Yes-No questions. And 29 in binary is 011101. So, the first answer is No, the second Yes and so on. Apart from the obvious limitations, occurring at questions with more than one answer or exams with more than 8 questions, this is an amazing method. Go, Germany!

The moral is... cheating is allowed if you do not get caught. (Applicable only for exams, human relations are not governed by this rule).

Not everything that shines...

As I have previously mentioned, this is my third year of education in Sweden. Until now, I attended mandatory courses, common for the whole biology program. This year, the courses I take are only the ones I want to take.. which means a lot of genetics and no ecology or botanics. So, during those first two years we were more or less the same main group of students, with some newcomers and some interrupting or giving up for their own reasons. My closest colleagues were all with southern backgrounds: a Syrian, an Iranian, a Salvadoran, a Kurd girl. Together we were "svartskallarna" or the black skulls.. meaning we all had dark hairs, in contrast to the fair-headed vikings and valkyries. Well, actually, I was the only one with chestnut-brown hair, their were all black... so I was something like a honorary black brother. (I hereby want to ask any Afro-American readers.. though I seriously doubt there are any here.. not to take offense at this pun.)

This year at the immunology course there are only two people from the whole bunch of Swedes I used to study with.. and the whole black skull gang. The rest we had never seen before. We felt somehow isolated from the rest during our freshman years, therefore we wanted to mingle with the natives. As the result of a brilliant enlightening, we decided to seek contact with the blond and blue-eyed ones.

My first encounter was what you can call a lucky one. In my lab group I was assigned to work with a German girl and a short-haired blond human, whom I could not decide about: was that a soft-featured male or a masculine-faced female. Then I heard her speak and that dissipated my concerns. She turned out to be as pedantic as a Swede can be but I still think we can work nice together.

Today, during the 20 minute break we had, me and Peter, my best buddy at the university.. that he is a black skull goes without saying.. were standing in the cafeteria, wondering where to sit. An extremely blond girl and a guy of equal blondness, both attending the same course, invited us to them. In a couple of minutes Carlos, the Salvadoran, and a Swede joined us and we started a discussion. The first order of business were the recently passed elections. Now, I do not care at all about Swedish politics - as long as they leave me to finish my higher education without problems, the government is fine with me. Plus, as a foreigner I do not get to vote. The others were all Swedish citizens, however (some of them with non-Swedish backgrounds), so the discussion was really a lively one, even without my contribution to it.

Then someone mentioned the Christdemocrats which turned the conversation into the depths of religion and Christianity. The official religion of Sweden is Lutheran (a part of the protestant family) which included 78 % of the population but as it turned out, only one girl at the table was a Lutheran. I was starting to wonder if the aforementioned blonds were actually Swedes. Yes, the conversation was in Swedish but that did not tell me anything, even I can speak Swedish fluently by now.. though with a certain accent, especially when I am tired.. and my black-haired friends have been living in Sweden for more than fifteen years... more than enough to lose any accent.

So, our small society turned out to be extremely multifaceted - Peter is Syrian, Carlos is from El Salvador, the Swedish girl, myself - the Bulgarian... and the blond Ivana from Croatia and Adam from Poland. Discussing Swedish internal politics... I guess, yeah, not everything that shines is gold, respectively blond and Swede...

Fear

Imagine a forest at night. Not any other night though. A cloudless night, with the moon a needle-sharp sickle. The stars are tiny dots of light, enough only to reveal their own existence. No breeze can make the tree-tops sway. One can almost believe they see a broom-riding silhouette pass across Selena's face. Through this forest I had to pass, nearly two hours after midnight. Actually, it was my own choice, in order to avoid meeting the police. The thing is, I had forgotten my bicycle light on my desk. And the fine for cycling without lights is 300 SEK (33 EUR). For a single light. If the officer is feeling nasty, the fines can go over 700 SEK for the lack of front light, back light and wheel reflectors. Add to this that yesterday was Saturday night and the police were patrolling in search for club brawls, drunken students and lightless cyclists. Not eager to part with that sum, I chose to walk until I reach the forest, then cycle straight through it.

Usually, this is not impossible. Cycling through the pitch-black woods at full speed. I have done it more than once, using the slightly lighter colour of the track as a guiding rail. One time in winter I even did it without being able to see anything, only with the crunching of the snow under my tires telling me if I am still on the track or have veered away. So I knew I had the guts and the keen night-vision to pull myself through again.

Tonight, it was different. My pupils were probably the size of my irises, yet I could still see nothing. An eerie silence had set over the forest, cushioning every sound. Even the cars, driving on the street 50 m from me, could not break this shroud, void of even the tiniest chime.

Usually, I am not superstitious. Or, better said, I am but I never believe something bad could happen to me. I have gone under ladders, broken a mirror, continued walking after a black cat had crossed the street. In fact when I see the black cat crossing, I am even more eager to go through there, to shatter the spell with my passing, so that others can walk unharmed.
My personal safety has never been that big of an issue for me. I know my limits and I have full trust in my senses, muscles and reflexes. I have climbed sheer rocks without a support, I have been swimming underwater until I started seeing red spots, I have stood on the bow of a ship during a storm, not holding on to anything, jumped from places people are afraid to get up to. The secret is called risk and environment assessment. In every single second I knew where my body was, where the next ledge, the water surface, the nearest rope were, exactly what to do.

Tonight, again it was different. A black cat had crossed my way and this time I could not get the spell-breaking sensation. It was more that the spell wrapped itself around me, invisible tentacles grasping at my bike and at myself. Under normal circumstances my willpower is enough to make an evil donkey turn around and attend its own business. This time, after an eight hour long shift in the pub, it was not in its best shape.

As soon as I entered the forest, I was confused. I could not remember if the next right turn was after two or after twenty metres, or whether the path was supposed to pass to the left or to the right of this tree. I though my eyes still needed readjustment, so I stopped and waited for some minutes. Even while standing still in a complete silence, I could not hear anything. And I could not see the light track on the path. I decided to turn back and try another entrance.

The second time it was even worse. I could not discern whether I was cycling on ground, gravel or grass. I was forced to stop again. It was as if something was pushing me away from the forest. "Go Away, Mortal One, We Do Not Want Your Kind In Here!" As soon as I realised that, fear, terrifying cold fear trickled down my veins, nearly freezing me in place. For the first time in so long that I can not even remember, I was afraid for myself. Normally, the only way to scare (and then enrage) me is to threaten my loved ones. I turned back and started for the well-lit streets. Refusing to give in to the dread, I continued cycling at my current speed, looking for police cars. Luckily, I did not meet any and was able to crawl under my blanket without further incidents, sinking into the depths of Morphaeus' realm.

Tonight, the cat and the woods got the better of me. But mark my words, Forest: Next time it is I who shall be victorious!

Names...

"O, sancta simplicitas!" These were the words cried out by the Czech theologist Jan Hus at his execution when he saw an old woman adding more firewood to his burning stake. To be "simplus'' in Latin is both to be innocent, humble and modest - the original meaning in this phrase - but also to be ignorant, credulous and naïve. Those last words can adequately represent my astonishment at a certain Swede's profanity.

We were both working at the club I wrote about in my previous post, though not on the same occasion. A common friend introduced us to each other. When he heard my name, he immediately asked if I have seen the movie Constantine. What?! I mean, is that the association this name calls to mind? The image of a "world-travelling, mage-like misfit who investigates supernatural mysteries"? (quotation IMDb) Another piece of Hollywood Doomsday-prevented-by-the-good-guys "epic"? What about Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, also known as Constantine the Great, the man who threw such a big boulder in the lake of history that its ripples are still deciding over our lives today. The man that single-handedly influenced the fate of Europe for millennia to come. What about his magnificent capitol, Constantinople, the Queen of the Cities, where countless invading armies have broken their fangs and claws; the last bastion of Christianity in Southeastern Europe; the city that stood tall and proud for almost a century after the neighbouring lands have been drowned in the blood of their own people, shed by the Ottoman scimitar. I mean, hasn't this guy attended any history classes at all? This is supposed to be common knowledge. What brings me greatest... no, it is not anger, it is sorrow for these commercialised people... is that it was not the first time. The number lies around ten. And in the oldest and biggest University town of Scandinavia (the University was founded in 1477), this is a disturbing tendency indeed.

Well, to restore your faith in the intellectual capabilities of the descendants of Alfred Nobel and Celsius, it was in fact a Swede that made the greatest joke with my name. All of my abdominal muscles were aching when I finally managed to catch my breath after some minutes of hysteric laughter. I was working late shift in the pub. It was almost one o'clock, i.e. closing time. A couple of friends were finishing their ales when one of them suddenly asked me:

"Hey, Konstantin, have you ever considered buying an Opel?"

As a matter of fact, I have not. I am more inclined into buying a Volkswagen - a really simple and affordable car to maintain. Yes, it fully stands up to its name - A People's Car... figures. So I answer with a question, messiah-style:

"No, why would I need an Opel?"
"Well, your name is Konstantin. So, if you buy an Opel, you can dub it Konstantinopel!"

Thank you, Fredrik! I have really started considering bringing this joke to life.

Advertising and multiprofile jobs

Great news, everyone! It appears that exactly one week after it was started, Bioramblings got its first spam. There was a comment to my last post that clearly had nothing to do with anything I had written. Instead it stated content dissatisfaction and suggested that I should start advertising on my blog. Now, I do not know if it was a real life spammer or a spambot, and frankly, I don't give a rat's tail about it. If I wanted to advertise here, I would have done it already. If someone wants to put ads in their blogs, that's fine with me. The comment was deleted immediately and the same fate awaits its possible successors. This place was meant for thought sharing in an enjoyable way, please keep it like that.

With that taken care of (hopefully) I return to today's story.

If you still haven't tried working in a wardrobe, do not miss that chance. If there was a competition for the job with a most diverse profile, that would be it. It is like working at a Buddhist temple, demographic agency, fashion store, perfume distillery, alcohol clinic and psychiatrist's at the same time. And if you have the dubious luck of working on the same day as the previous bar master - biochemistry experiment laboratory or oenological tasting... both are true.

Yesterday, the club that I work at, had a disco night. This happens every other Wednesday and together with a pregnant woman's mood is the most variable thing you can think of. Two weeks ago it was such a hit, that people could not enter... or leave, for that matter. The stress was enormous. So the management decided to hire some extra hands for yesterday night. Trust me when I tell you it was a complete disaster. There were hardly more than 40, maximum 50 people in the building. And we have had club nights with 400+ guests. Anyway, I'm sitting behind the wardrobe counter, reading specialised articles in molecular biology. One hour passes, then a second one follows suit. Well, I think, I started at 18.30, and people sort of do not like to go to clubs and pubs when it is daylight, they wait until darkness falls. Those of you that have worked in a pub will agree with me. During the summer there is not a single soul in the pub until 21.00. In the winter people are sometimes waiting in line to get in even before the opening hour.

When the cathedral's bells announced nine o'clock, people finally started showing up. But not in a steady flow, so that I can do my job with the highest efficiency. Oh, my, no! They were entering (and later leaving) in groups of 5-8, making me dance around my workplace like a happy cannibal tribe around a missionary. On the other side, it is normal that people come to the club together. It feels a little strange if you do not know anyone. People are herd-partying animals. I guess it still beats sitting and reading about mice with pneumonia, though.

So, operating and normal work frequency, I started examining the people rushing around with a drink, a guy/lady or their own heads in hand. No Sleepy Hollow associations here, it was that a couple of ladies had a little bit too much to drink. Not that they regretted it. Heh. I soon started noticing things I was glad to see... and others that left me plain stunned. Clothing, for example. There were girls... yeah, I will mostly talk about female clothing here, because to me a guy looks equally good in T-shirt, jeans and sneakers or in something more fancy. I'm not implying that badly clad men do not exist, they just decided to stay home yesterday. Like I was saying, there were girls from all regions of the hotness scale, ranging from coyote ugly (an African big mamma who was so drunk on the last Student's day that she almost raped me in broad daylight, luckily she didn't recognise me yesterday), through plain, cute, charming, pretty to stunningly beautiful. No, I lied about the last one. No stunningly beautiful ladies at that club night. Well, on the other hand my opinion is a liiiitle influenced, so come and see for yourself, you might see something you like.

A similar scale could be drawn about the garments they had on. There were very elegant tight trousers and bodies, bold miniskirts and deep cleavages as well as casually dressed fun seekers. Then there were the others. Combinations of stern shirt, vest and necktie, a knee-long skirt and... hold tight... and sneakers. The whole effect of a gorgeous yet untouchable lady was spoiled by this piece of footwear. Or knee-long shorts plus ankle-reaching tight skiing-trousers.. and by tight I mean sausage wrapper-kinda tight. If it was a panty-hose, that would at least had given it some charm. But those skiing-trousers.. thanks, but no, thanks.

Fragrances. I can not tell much about them, since I know very little in this subject. There were musky, flowery, fruity, spicy and.. none. Yeah, in one or two cases the guest had apparently decided to go by androstenone and... erm... the female sweat stink substance, whatever its name.

Then the real fun part started. The guests were getting drunk. First the ladies, later on the gentlemen. The battle-ready, rhythmic click-clack of the high-heels became a disoriented clatter, the surefooted feline grace of the parquet lions gave way to a more gorilla-like wobbling pace. Girls started entering the men's restroom... and then leaving with either reddened faces or a smile that was something in between hungry and satisfied. For some obscure reason the guys never ever confused the WCs. Do we have some sixth sense that leads us directly to the much needed urinals or we just scan the surroundings upon entry, making mental notes where the facilities are? Another possibility is that because we are able to withstand bigger amounts of alcohol, our focal focusing power is at a little better level, so we can actually see if the little human figurine on the sign wears trousers or a skirt.

Then some strange things occurred. Now, the wardrobe at the club is free of charge, its price included in the entry fee. When I told this to some of the more influenced guests, however, they were so overjoyed that some of left me tips that twice exceeded the normal wardrobe fee. Oh, well, they are not getting that back. As the night progressed, I discovered that I was able to distinguish the coin value by the sound it made when falling in my tip jar. I am not sure if that is a sign of keen hearing or just greediness, though.

Have you smelled hay that has endured the first rain and has started decomposing? A really rich and filling smell, isn't it? And not at all unpleasant. It's still hay though. Something we associate with ticks, needles, cows and Fanfan the Tulip. I guess you can imagine my surprise when the bar master, Rafael, handed me a cocktail he had named Moquito - green coloured, with a lot of ice and the taste of a whole haystack. It was great, but I couldn't recognise the alcohol. And I know, that Rafael makes non-alcoholic cocktails only when you pay him and/or threaten his life. Probably some kind of liquor. So, for those of you planning a trip to Uppsala - drop by at GH Nation, Trädgårdsgatan 9, and have a Moquito. You won't regret it. Oh, and make sure it is a disco night. Otherwise you are only going to have a beer.

Inner peace, coloured emotions, modern art

I was cycling through the woods yesterday, I had just finished working. The weather was great: around twenty-something degrees (Celsius, I'm not a masochist), not a single cloud in the whole wide sky. And the sky above Uppsala is really wide, there are no mountains teasing the eye, just endless fields, low-rolling hills and lots of woods. It is also kinda pale. Not the saturated blue of the southern skies, it seems like some angel accidentally dropped his milk glass, thereby diluting the sky. Far on the horizon it goes into more milk-with-blue whitish than the blue-with-milk just above your head. So the only clouds in the whole azure were the jet streams of the occasional airplane, highlighting the whole blue pureness, just as a minor defect in a diamond makes it even more beautiful. Inside the coniferous woods in Uppsala there are cycling ways that snake to the left and to the right, around big glacier-age boulders and between tree giants - pines, mostly - that have seen more springs than I have seen dawns.

I was doing my usual cycle sprint which takes me 8-10 minutes from the faculty to the place where I hang my jacket (the time it takes me to walk this distance is about 45 minutes to one hour). Suddenly I asked myself: "Where the heck am I rushing to?" I had nothing important to do, my exam had just passed, the work for today was finished. All that was remaining was an enjoyable evening of resting my senses and talking to friends. Like in a dangerous fight, time slowed down, and with it I slowed down as well. Cycling leisurely, being passed by the hectic Swedes who were hurrying to get to the stores, shop, make dinner and hit the couch in front of the TV before their favourite show starts, I was being engulfed by the magic atmosphere of the forest. A bug hummed next to my year, then a sunbeam that has managed to go down all the way between the spread-out branches danced on my face as if asking: "Do you want to play, slow one?" Before I could even start considering the question, the medallion on my chest reflected the ray and sent on the ground, accepting the challenge: "Game on, sunny!"

The blue sky, the green forest and the yellow sun made me wonder if emotions could be described as colours. Like an immense canvas, there was the deep purple majestic feeling of the surrounding trees. Then there was a warm mahogany joy that my beloved one has passed her exams, combined with the deep blue admiration I have for her - she is a great person plus she had passed three consecutive exams with only a single day to study between them, a feat
I still find nigh-impossible. And due to the fact that her work was unfairly judged - a flashing, pulsating jagged lightning of angry orange. Next came the soft green self-satisfaction that my plans and goals are slowly being fulfilled and a yellowish longing for my family, for her, for my friends. Like ink in a water glass, there was azure optimism and hope, no, faith, that everything is going to be just fine.

Then I came to the reason why I don't like modern art. The art of modernists, impressionists and futurists - it reflects inner feelings, fears, hopes and desires, sometimes things even the artists are not aware of. Therefore the best location for a modern art piece is at is creator's home. Only then and there, in the surroundings of this persons environment, the message encoded in the work can be communicated to the others. And the others... well, they are friends and relatives, people that know the artist, know how he thinks and feels and reacts. They will know how to listen to his wordless speech.

Now the time of reflections is over, it's time to plunge again head-first into the everyday challenges of life. I have lessons to attend, a project to develop, two jobs to go to and lots of people to make smile. See ya.

Congratulations

Rejoice, good folks, for today, the twelfth day of the ninth month in the Year of the Dog, is the day that my only sibling concludes her sixteenth revolution aroung this giant ball of flaming hydrogen and helium we use to call the Sun. In other words, happy birthday, sis! I do not know why the turning of 16 years is of such importance, at least in Bulgaria. According to the legislature, one stops being minor at 14, and is adolescent until 18. Come to think of it, that can be the exact reason - reaching the halfway point between child and adult. A bit like Caesar when crossing Rubicon. Heh, imagine Caesar's sixteenth birthday in the context of modern European society. Brutus, Marcus Antonius and Octavianus Augustus gathered around the birthday-boy, singing "Happy birthday to you!" in latin, and then little Caesar sighs and says "Alea jacta est", and then blows the candles.

The two years after that are filled with stress and work and fun and all the emotions you can think of plus a couple of those you can not. And by saying filled, I mean filled to the brim and overflowing. Truly a great time. Sis, I wish you that you can live it to its whole extent and never ever regret a single thing. *kiss*

In other news, the immunology exam came and went. If I have ever learned something usefil while studying, it is that you have to go to the lectures. The first two questions were horrible. Well, horrible for me, because I had missed the first lectures due to the great organisation of the Swedish migration board. Really, those guys could sleep their lives if only given the chance. But that's past. The good thing is that I attended all the other lectures, thus was able to fill the remaining five pages of the exam with my extremely beautiful handstyle, characterised by one of my Swedish teachers as "Mordor runes". Other victims of my handwriting say it's "not very readable". Strange. Seems perfectly readable to me... Oh well, c'est la vie, as the denisens of the Parisian streets like to say. I still may be able to get over the "high-score" threshold and get better credentials in my academic transcipt. *hopes so*

Another strange thing. Swedish exams. Now the only thing that those lack to become a "bed and breakfast" is the horisontal resting facility. We are usually given between four and six (sometimes even eight) hours for our exams. I am in my third year here and still can not comprehend the meaning of this. For God's sake, why? I have never needed more than 80 minutes to hand in my papers. Ok, so I write a bit fast and am always sure in my answers. Even if the others need twice that time, 160 minutes are about 2.5 hours. What are the rest used for? I'll tell you what. For rest. Yep, in the middle of the exam you can take out one of the many snacks you brought with yourself, drink some cold coke or a warm beverage from one of the myriad of thermos bottles, strech up, probably take half an hour nap... you name it. I wonder why we can't just bring along an HD-TV and a PS2 and have some fun. Screw the exam! The authorities explain that this is done to reduce stress in the students. The downside is that it also reduces concentration and motivation. Imagine the following: You are writing an essay and are just about to come to a personal revelation. Suddenly someone behind you starts wrestling with the candy paper bag or pouring tea in their cup from about half a metre height, the resulting splash booming in your ears and swiftly eradicating all rational thought. Huzzah for the bed-and-breakfast exam system!

I guess I couldn't finish without complaining of something. But don't be disappointed, there will be plenty of complaints in the next ramblings. And in the light that I've recently discovered what my tax money are being used for, one of them is going to be pretty extensive. See you next time.

Question times and timed questions

Funny thing that, multi-lecturer courses. Right now I am taking a C-level course in Immunology (here, at Uppsala University, D-level is the highest and toughest course level). The course includes thirty-odd lectures with about fifteen to twenty lecturers. This is thought to give us the most recent data in different immunology aspects directly from the people involved in acquiring it. Sounds really cool, doesn't it. The second someone makes a discovery, you are going to know about it. Well, as you know, the coin always has two sides. It turns out we, the students, are the only ones who know what the whole course is all about. Not the lecturers, not the administration. Which is also kind of cool.. you know, sharing the secret lore of the elders and taking delight in the fact that sometimes we know more than them.

So, the elders demand that we know everything they have talked about. To ensure that give us an allmighty Oracle who is supposed to bestow answers on all our prayers, i.e. questions. This role is usually performed by the course-leader. And here comes the fun part. The Oracle can be as unenlightened as we are. For example, we have a lecture about special kinds of receptors (you can stop holding your breath, I am not going to go into details, abbreviations or strange alphabets) and how their functionality is enhanced. The German Ph.D. student holding the lecture mumbles something of "promiscuity". For those of you that scratch their heads right now, this means "not restricted to one sexual partner, indulging in casual and indiscriminate sexual relations".. or as a friend of mine likes to tease me - omniphil, i.e. "all-lover". What has this to do with antigen presentation? How can three consecutive nights in the club scoring with different girls improve my immune system? If you think about it, chances are that it gets seriously damaged if I countinue doing this... in the name of science, of course. (*sigh* The things I do for my education).

Concerned about all of this, we asked the Oracle (the course-leader) what is promiscuity in the context of immunology. And this is not a Ph.D. student, she is a well-regarded professor with more than 20 years of research in the field of immunology (plus the hardest willpower-expressing jaw I have ever seen in a woman... don't get in this one's way, she is going to run all over you without a second thought). Imagine the looks on our faces when she went: "Pro-What?" So we had to explain to her what the lecture was about. Nope, still doesn't ring a bell. Then the whole room was filled with answers and interpretations. Luckily no-one asked for more condoms. In the end we were able to cook up some reasonable explanation about low antigen specificity and thus the ability to bind to a broad spectre of molecules.

My faith in the multi-lecturer system is kind of eroding. It would seem that I am bitching too much about minor details. After all it's only one definition. Well, not when we have to go through three-quarters of the textbook for two weeks, plus going to lectures, plus going to work. I am no plant, I can't photosynthesise my food. And so, every detail counts.

Well enough about this. It was still a good laugh. And there is going to be more in the afternoon, when we are going to extract murine thymus and spleen. This involves killing the mouse in a gas chamber, cutting the neck, opening the skin, extracting the organs and squashing them to bloody pulp. Oh, the gory happiness.

Best Friend

Truly, friendship is a bliss. And I don't mean good relationships with classmates or having a lot of play-pals. I mean real friendship, where you know you can trust the person with your life and they know the same about you. There are seldom more than 5-10 persons in the whole world that one can consider true friends. I myself have five and trust me, that is a lot.

But how do you determine who is your best friend? When we were... younger... we made those questionnaires for our friends to fill in. There were questions about star sign, favourite music, favourite film, pets, availability of siblings and so on. One of the questions kept recurring in every book: "Who is your best friend?". Really, who? Who is the first-among-equals of the few people you can share everything with? How can you choose the one you trust the most, when you already trust them all? Sometimes it is impossible to give a definite answer. Sometimes it is very easy. I belong to the second group. Allow me to introduce:

Yuriy Georgiev

I have the honour of being his friend during the last 16 years. Heck, that's more than three-quarters of my entire life. He may know it or not, but that is the person (well, besides the family, I guess) that had the greatest influence on me and took the biggest part in the shaping of my current self.

We met two days after a heavy rainfall. How can I remember? Well, it's quite self-explanatory. Behind our block there is a huge playground with two sandboxes. One of them is circular, the other one is oval. Immediately after such rainfalls the sandboxes turn into small lakes which then gradually evaporate or are splashed away by our war-games. Heh, those were the days! Anyway, on the mentioned day I was digging canals in the oval sandbox. There was still water left here and there and by using cunningly engineered thresholds and dikes I was able to manipulate the water flow. The result were exciting ship.. er.. I mean branch and splinter races. What can I say, I am cancer, I'm always fascinated by water. Suddenly I felt a presence next to me and a voice said: "Hi, I'm Yuriy. Do you want to be friends with me?"

Sure I did. Soon we were like brothers. Every single day we were together. Playing, reading, drawing, exploring our neighbourhood, marking the fruit trees... Apples, pears, grapes, mulberries, plums, medlars, quinces, cherries... you name it. We were able to remain outside for weeks, were it not for our parents who for some strange reason opposed to this. There blew my chance to become a tramp.

We shared a lot of common interests. Sometimes one of us took interest in something new... that quickly became another common interest. Rock music, indians and cowboys (we both preferred indians, take that, Buffalo Bill), ninja and samurai, the honour code, fantasy and science fiction... there are certainly more but this was supposed to be a brief blog... (yeah, right). He was the one who showed me how to befriend a dog, how to hold a cat, how to feed a canary... how to avoid being spit upon by a hunting fish. Yes, Yuriy had a lot of pets. He even gave me one kitten as a present.

We never argued. Sure, there were times one wanted to to something and the other - something else, but we still didn't argue about it. We just sat in the same room and did whatever it was we wanted, and later it was again time for shared activities.

He is the only person I have ever stabbed in the back. Literally. With a real knife. It was an accident but I am still deeply embarrassed.. even though he has told me many times to forget the whole story. On the other side, he is the only one that has ever succeeded in stealing a girl from me. But this is another story, as Rudyard Kipling likes to say.

And now, even though we are separated by a whole continent and see each other two or three times a year, he is still my best friend. Yuriy, my brother, thank you for being there for me!

Of trees and lecturers

Many of you have probably at one point or another.. usually on heavy-duty drinking nights or the morning thereafter... asked yourselves the question "Why are we here?" Sometimes the reason of the query is not our own presence but the person.. usally of female origin... in our immediate vicinity. Well, in the aforementioned morning at least. But I doubt there were that many variations of the question concerning... trees. Besides their obvious industrial, aesthetic and oxygen-producing applications.. oh, yeah, and one of the most important - filling of forests... trees have one more very common yet elusive property. No, not squirrel accomodation. They are rain condensers. I can see some of you blinking and reading the whole piece again, and others looking for their copy of "Soul Music". No, guys, I don't have the intention to steal from Terry Pratchett. Just listen.

It was raining. Well, it's autumn and I'm in Sweden.. big deal. It was just a small drizzle, one you can barely feel and is almost invisible to the naked eye. So I decided to leave the rainclothes on their rightful place - in the wardrobe. My jacket was supposed to offer enough protection. Or so I thought... I was cycling at full speed towards the university, enjoying the small water bites on my face, when a treacherous dendrite forest dweller cunningly poured half a litre of water in my neck. Needless to say I was overjoyed of the free shower. The next hundred or so trees I passed decided to follow their comrade's example and generously offer me the daily water supply of a small village. Ten minutes later, cursing in at least four languages, I was in the front row of the lecture hall, water dropping from my hair and forming delicate creaks, which flowed to a semi-large puddle - obviously I was not the only victim of the deciduous revolution.

The next thing I see is prof. Lars Hellman coming through the door.. completely dry. Well, I figure, he's a swede (which I am not) and probably has more experience in dodging water blows. The reason turned out to be less profound - he had done the smart thing and taken the bus. The lesson could start. And just hearing this guy speak English not only turned my frown upside-down, but it made it do a double somersault as well. Prof. Hellman, sir, if you ever see this, please don't get offended. I don't mean anything like it. You are a great lecturer and have a great smile... but you are the swedish Terminator. Guys, imagine a tall, broad-shouldered, blue eyed man with a very high forehead and deep voice. He only lacked sunglasses and a Chopper. Well, I guess you can't drive a Chopper in the Biomedical centre. Or at least not when people are around... but still, the corridors provide a great track. And when the professor said: "Yoou haave to produuce aantibodies" with the same austrian accent... well, I had to quickly restrain my facial muscles in order not to laugh aloud. Sir, thank you for a great lecture and for making my day!