Friday, August 21, 2009

Swedish national parks

If you want to discover Sweden's most beautiful nature, right in the middle of the city, you should visit this outdoor exhibition about Swedish national parks at the Raoul Wallenberg's square, just across the street from the theater Dramaten (subway stop Östermalmstorg).

100 years ago, in 1909, the first national parks in Sweden were founded, which was the starting point for an ongoing tradition of Swedish environmental thinking. The photographer and author Claes Grundsten has traveled through Sweden and captured the soul of the 29 parks with his camera.

The exhibition has free admission and is open until September 8th.

Enjoy!
Helena
Photo: Claes Grundsten

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Blogger vs Bilda and a request

So, finally the blog is launched. I do hope that you will find your way here, and that it won't be too confusing with part of the course discussion in this forum (+ all the extras I've already announced) and part of the discussion and detailed course information in Bilda (the KTH course platform). The reason for using Blogger is that the blog tool in Bilda is less sophisticated (if a blog may be sophisticated at all?).

Course start is approaching rapidly, and today I found that 96 people have already signed up for the course. Fantastic! Talking about that, please note that we have a maximum capacity of having 200 students in the course. Our excursions, museum visits, etc does not allow more than that, unfortunately. Logistics is an important part of this course, in addition to its contents, that is, so you must all be aware of that some excursions are held on Tuesdays, some on Thursdays, and at different times. This is the type of detailed information that will be given in Bilda, and that you need to check continously.

Since the course has become increasingly attractive, and that we each semester need to deny students entrance to the course because of limited space, I want to ask you who sign up for the course to think about this: Please be serious about taking this course, and put effort in doing the project work, reading, writing and exam. Some former students have decided to take the course "just for fun", without caring too much about credits or grades. But, by doing this, they have prevented students who really wanted to take the course, and were in need of the credits, to enroll. The waitlist is usually long, and there is not room for everyone. So, if you enroll, be prepared for a lot of work - in addition to a lot of fun!

Best regards (Vänliga hälsningar)
Helena

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Welcome to the course blog!

Now you have found the course blog for the Swedish society course. Welcome! (Välkommen!)Here we will post useful and amusing information about activities, events, culture and other matters which might be of interest for you as students in this course.

Here you will also have the chance to comment on course activities, ask questions and come with suggestions about topics you would like to see included in the course (we might find ways to add "your own" specific event during the course!).

Activities suggested in this blog are "extras" in this course. You are free to partake, and they are not included in the regular course schedule. They won't be graded, the course staff won't join on all activities (but probably some!), and at this very moment we do not have the slightest idea what will turn up here during the weeks to come. This is very exciting! It may be sports, music, food, language, politics... endless possibilities.

We hope you want to join and contribute, and that we will get the chance to meet outside the lecture hall or classroom in our search for Swedishness (whatever that may be) in all its forms.

Best regards (Vänliga hälsningar),

Helena & course staff

Above, production of Dalecarlian horses (Dalahästar)
Photo: Andreas Österberg/Sweden.se