ABC blog: Final reflections

For the whole series, click on the letter

Previous entries, A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X Y Z  Å  Ä  Ö 

A marathon is a marathon, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. Running like this through forty plus years of my academic career, covering my main areas of interest, noting my achievements and failures, has been gratifying. The format of a blog post is a bit like an encyclopedic entry where you are given two hundred words to cover a subject on which you'd prefer to write a book, or in fact have written a book. But it makes you think carefully. The day-by-day rule implies that I didn't have time to consider my entries. Looking back, I probably would have chosen a different word. But it is the way it is now. I am not going to cheat and edit. And yet, the selection of words really reflects what I am doing or have done, and it was particularly interesting to consider some areas where I haven't done anything for a long time. Shall I revisit Jung or is he completely outdated? Shall I try to resuscitate kenotype or is there no need for this term? Will I ever use syllepsis again?

Of course it is also clear from the entries that certain topics are pervasive: narrative and time and Bakhtin. While five years ago I would not even consider empathy.

I have had some very good responses to this series, so obviously it hasn't just been useful for myself. Thank you for your support, y'all. Several people have suggested that I should publish it as a book, so if there are some publishers out there, I think it is a brilliant idea. With illustrations by Clémentine Beauvais.

ABC blog

Once upon a time in the Stone Age I had a webpage. Nobody is impressed now, but in the Stone Age it was rather unusual to have a personal webpage, and I learned how to build one with simple html in a half-day course at Åbo Akademi, Finland, where I was a Visiting Professor. As a small university, Åbo Akademi thought it was worth while to teach their employees to build their own webpages. It was uploaded on the university server, and I was allowed to keep it there for a while after I had left them. Then I moved it to Stockholm University server, because it was still Stone Age and nobody in my department had webpages, but when I left Stockholm I had to find a web hotel, buy a domain and pay for service. It was rather cumbersome. Finally, when academia.edu was launched, there was no point in having a private page. Academia is a great network, and it has many superb features. Except one that I had on my Stone Age webpage. I had a subject index to my work. Of course I have tags on my book and paper publications on academia, but they can never be as detailed as a subject index, and I have so many weird subjects in my work that academia does not acknowledge.

It has been a while since I did a blog marathon. In the coming weeks, I will be running a Subject Index to my work, focused on the various subjects I have written about, particularly terms and concepts I have invented. Some have become established, some haven't. It's a good way to look back on my professional career at this dark and cold time of year.

So watch this space: the ABC of children's literature research.

New blog challenge

Eleven questions as a blog challenge from my daughter

1. What is the best book you have read?
Winnie-the-Pooh, but it's trivial. If we take is as "recently" it's John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (Julia's recommendation)

2. What hobby would you like to test? 
Falconing.

3. When was the last time you did some crafts?
Yesterday. I made a miniature ananas from a pine cone.

4.  How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Less than ten.

5.  What would you look like if there were no limit, professionally or monetary?
I guess the same. I might get a personal make-up artist, provided they were as good as Julia.

6.  What would you buy if I gave you 500 kronas [about £40] right now?
Some crazy kitchen utensil.

7. What are your secretly scared of?
 Forgetting one of languages I use professionally.

8.  What city would you like to visit?
I guess it means a city I haven't yet visited. I am not particularly fond of cities. Buenos Aires?

9.  What is your best home-maker trick?
Having my home-maker around.

10. Whom would you like to give a bun?
Literal or symbolic? With or without cinnamon? If it's big enough I'd share among my students.

11. What was the most recent thing you sang?
 Schnappssongs at a Swedish-Finnish party last weekend.

Another blog challenge from Julia

I love these games. 31 – is it Propp's functions? And once again, you can see clearly that the questions were compiled by a very young person.

1. Where is you mobile phone? Somewhere in my backpack
2. Where is your significant other? Buying groceries
3. Your hair? Neat
4. You mother? Perhaps brewing a witch potion
5. Your father? Since I don't believe in afterlife, dissolved and fertilised the earth
6. The best thing you know? This was difficult. Probably walking in nature
7. You dream last night? For once, clear and significant. I dreamed that our cat was still alive but very tired and wanted to lie down, but there was another cat, a grey tom with white socks, who kept poking at her to keep her on her feet and walking. Dr Freud, please explain
8. Your goal? Live long enough to see my grandchildren grow up, perhaps see my great-grandchildren
9. What do you want to be in six years? Alive
10. The room you are in? My study at home. Large window toward the garden, and a squirrel up on the bird feeder. A mix of academic books and dollhouse gadgets
11. Your hobby? Gardening, dollhouse/miniature making
12. Your fear? Alzheimer
13. Where were you last night? If it counts as “night”, at a seminar with my students, then home enjoying a good meal, a fire in the fireplace and a really good book
14. What are you not? Territorial
15. One thing you wish for? Health
16. Where did you grow up? Half a mile from the Moscow Kremlin
17. The last thing you did? Checked my email
18. Your clothes? Since I work from home today, sweatpants and a sweatshirt
19. You tv? Switched off
20. Your pet? Died last week
21. Your computer? Two-year old HP laptop
22. Your mood? Generally positive
23. Do you miss anyone? My children
24. Your car? Eight-year old SAAB
25. What do you never wear? Fur
26. Favourite shop? Hobby shop/art supplies
27. Your summer? Last summer, cruise on the Amazonas. Coming summer: finish a book
28. Do you love anyone? Yes
29. Favourite colour? Green
30. When did you last laugh? A funny picture on Facebook yesterday
31. When did you last cry? When the cat died. 
    
    
    Julia's original 31 questions are here.

Julia's blog challenge

Once again my daughter offers a blog challenge which I cannot resist. Here we go.

1. What were you doing ten years ago?

Trying to land after we had come back home from California. Fighting battles to get courses to teach and students to supervise. Finishing two books. Planning my 50th birthday party.

2. What were you doing a year ago?

Starting on a new term. Looking forward to Burns night. Editing a book.

3. Five snacks you like

I don't eat snacks, but if drink nibbles count: mixed nuts (no peanuts!), olives, feta cheese, carrot sticks with dip... hmmm... cucumber sticks with dip.

4. Five songs for which you know the whole text

Would be fifty rather than five, maybe five hundred. Romantic songs, funny songs, Soviet patriotic songs, and dirty songs.

5. Five things you would do if you were a multimillionaire

What is the definition of a millionaire? It also depends on the currency. Once upon a time I paid a million for a simple meal (late '80s in Poland, incredible inflation). But ok, it was multi-. Quit job. Pay off mortgage for ourselves and our children. Always fly business class. Get a personal trainer. Create a foundation for PhD studentships in children's literature.

6. Five bad habits

Work too much. Work too much. Work too much. Work too much. Work too much.

7. Five things you like doing

Gardening, walking in nature, talking to friends, reading, eating a good meal.

8. Five things you would never wear or buy

Never say never. A year ago I would say I would never wear a hat, and then I did. I used to wear high heels, but I would never do it again. I used to wear mini-skirts. I used to wear leather pants. I used to wear synthetic underwear. I used to wear very large ear-rings.

9. Five favourite toys

Victorian dollhouse, Tudor dollhouse, modern dollhouse, computer, camera

10. Ten people you would like to take this challenge

Alyona, Filip, Viktor, Agnes, Kory, Lotta, Lydia, Rachel, Ghada, Clementine,

Reflections on solitude

For several months this old blog post has been steadily on the list of five most visited pages. I wonder why. It is a most inconspicuous, unspectacular blog post without even a punchline. It has a boring tag that doesn't say anything. It follows upon another blog post in which I explain the difference between loneliness and solitude, and which has no visitors at all.

Five hundred silly texts

This is my five-hundredth blog post. To commemorate it, I have changed the design. I feel very ambivalent toward this change. I have got used to my page, plain and dull, exactly the way Julia created it three years ago, with a cheerful comment: "You can change it later". Well, after three years, I have.

I don't quite understand why people keep changing their profile pictures on Facebook, especially when they set in pictures of their children, cats or favourite cakes. A picture should reasonably show what you look like. I am terribly conventional. Anyway, the new pucture is taken by Elise Walck, and it is the best picture anyone has taken of me in many, many years. I am one of those people who always turn out horrid in pictures, yawning, gaping, cross-eyed, unkempt. But this picture shows what I really look like. I think.

I have stopped blogging a couple of times, but there was always someone who encouraged me to go on. So I go on. Watch out for blog post number 501.

Blog compulsion

"You haven't blogged for over a week", Staffan says. Yes, I know. Luckily, I have never committed myself to regular blogging so I don't go around tortured by anguish. I blog when I feel I have something to say. I have a line-up of topics in my mind: why Moll Flanders is a great novel (and not at all how you may remember it), and what a Dean is in Cambridge as opposed to everywhere else, and how much you learn about the history of shoes when making a roombox. However, the recent events in Norway have rendered me dumb. To blog about them is impossible because there are no words to describe my feelings. To blog about anything else is still more impossible and highly disrespectful. Yet I know that we will eventually "get over it" as we got over Estonia, 9-11, tsunami. Not in the sense of forgetting, not in the sense of going back to normal, because you can never go back to normal after a tragedy, whether large or small. But many people have repeated, in connection with all those horrors, that the best thing we survivors can do is to go on living and thus honour the dead. Not to allow fear dominate our existence. To raise our children, to produce great art (to everyone's ability), to tend our relationships, to go on being human.

So, My Dear Reader (if there is such a thing), just give me some time, I'll be back.

Farewell to an old friend

I have just killed one of my darlings. I have taken down my homepage that I had since 1998. I started it when I was visiting chair in Finland, and the wonderful IT person they had offered to teach all of us in the project how to make a simple website. You had to write it in html then, but it was easy as long as you didn't want anything elaborate. My first website, containing five or six linked pages, was hosted on the university server, and I kept adding to it. It was quite remarkable then to have a personal webpage. So remarkable that when I moved to San Diego I was allowed to transfer it to their server. It was still remarkable enough when we moved back to Sweden and I asked the IT person to allow me to put it on the department server. I was the only one except the IT person who had access. At that time you could mess up the whole university web, but I was trusted not to. I was the only person in the department who had a homepage. Everybody thought I was showing off. I was by now using Dreamweaver. The site was still very unsophisticated in appearance, but full of content. Many people told me it was useful. I had a huge link collection: at that time searching the web was a lot more difficult than now, and I provided the students with links to good sites. I had my publications with links first to my own additional pages (I learned from the beginning not to overlaod individual pages), then to publisher sites. I had subject index to my own work so that anyone could easily find where I had written about Diana Wynne Jones or aetonormativity.

Then we moved to Cambridge, by which time a university server would not host a private homepage. I registered a domain and found a host. I had to change hosts because updating didn't work, and the first host had poor customer support. I get upset when things don't work, because I am a user, I don't know how to solve a problem. I postpone it in all eternity. I couldn't update the site for a long time, and a site that is not updated is dead. I had emails from people telling me that my links were broken. I spent hours trying to make things work. I knew how easy it was to use Blogger or something similar. Things have changed since I sat in Finland and wrote my html. (Once upon a time in Stone Age, I wrote my own database programs).

Farewell, my old faithful friend. Everything you did for me during these years can be done easier and aesthetically more appealing today. Who needs a link collection? Who needs course descriptions? My book reviews? My hobby pages? Everything is available elsewhere, everything is connected to everything else, and an old-fashioned homepage looks like a runic stone. Rest in peace.

Reflections on blog challenge

It has been fun to write, but I have constantly wondered over the topics. Whoever compiled the list seems to have no cultural interests whatsoever. No favorite book, poem, play, film, music, museum, painting, cathedral. Was it deliberate? It is too evident and too boring?

How about favorite mountain, waterfall, cave, lake, river, desert? I have for some years tried to compile a very personal list of 77 wonders of the world, both natural and man-made.Favorite animal? Favorite bird? Favorite fish?

Perhaps this is something I can set out to do, when there are no self-evident topics

Blog challenge Day 30 – one last moment

Last moment, right now – here and gone!

Blog challnge Day 29 – Your aspirations

The older you get, the more you realise that there is a limit to what you can do with the rest of your life. When I was little I was sure that I would go to the Moon, Mars, Saturn and beyond. When I was young I hoped to go to London and Paris. I wanted to be a famous writer. I haven't become a famous writer, but I am quite a good scholar. I have tried scuba diving and found out that I couldn't do it. But if I hadn't tried I wouldn't have known. I have tried paragliding and was terribly sick. But I still remember the few wonderful moments before I got sick.

I know that I will never go to Antarctic, although I would like to, nor explore the Amazonas, nor climb mountains. But I have seen 13% of the world (according to Facebook) which is more than most other people.

I will not learn to play an instrument nor become an extreme skier. I am quite happy enjoying music played by others, and I go skiing for pleasure, not for challenge.

I will not die young because it's too late. I will not receive a Nobel Prize because I chose the wrong subject. I will probably not be invited to a Royal Dinner because we no longer live in Sweden (otherwise, chances were good). I will not make the front page of Newsweek, and I am glad for that.

I hope to write another book. Or maybe two. I hope to see my children's succeed. I hope to see my grandchildren grow up and become something they want to be. I hope to see more of my students make brilliant careers – some of them have. I hope to be remembered for what I have done.

Blog challenge Day 28 – Something that you miss

I realised when I was baking gingerbread a couple of weeks ago that I miss Christmas preparations with my children. Baking gingerbread: you really need many hands, so that hot oven doesn't wait empty. Tray after tray, rolling the dough, cutting the cookies. We had lots of small funny cutters: stars and moons and fir-trees and pigs and elk. Pigs we most popular, and the kids used to fight for them. They also used to eat the dough, and I pretended I didn't see. Then we would select a pile that were “burned” or “ugly” or “failed” to eat at once. The same with saffron buns. We used to make different figures that all have special names in Swedish; then the kids would fight over who should put in raisins. We would listed to Christmas songs on CD and sings ourselves. We would also take out the decorations, candlesticks, wreaths. Of course I do it now too, but it's not the same. And to be quite honest: it's not that I miss baking itself. I miss the children being small.

Blog challenge Day 27 – Your favorite place

Many places can compete for this, but there is nothing like San Diego. Interestingly, I didn't feel it during my first three visits, although I did enjoy the sunsets. I didn't feel any particular difference between San Diego and other places with palm trees and sandy beaches, and I wasn't particularly fascinated by the Spanish-style architecture, and I am not particularly fond of Mexican food. I had my reasons for returning to San Diego and especially choosing it for my research leave, but I had no idea that I was moving and dragging my family to a paradise. Looking back, I cannot really explain it. Palm trees, sandy beaches, stony cliffs, whitewashed houses, Mexican food – what was so special? Perhaps it was me rather than the place. Me in that particular place in that particular time, my trajectory, as cultural geographers call it, meeting Californian trajectory on its slow fall into the ocean.

I'd better stop before I get soppy.

Blog challenge Day 26 – Your fears

In CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), the first thing you have to do is make a list of your fears. CBT implies, as follows from the name, that you understand your behaviour and therefore can cope with it. In this case, understand why you are scared of certain things. It doesn't necessarily mean that you stop being scared, but you feel better about being scared.

I used to be scared of calling up people on the phone because I was scared I wouldn't hear what they said and respond inadequately. This has had quite a significant impact on my professional life. People who don't suffer from phobias will never understand. You are not lazy, you are not showing off, you are not in a bad mood – you simply cannot do it, although sometimes you have to, and then it costs you more energy than anyone can imagine. If you do suffer from a phobia, any phobia, you will understand other people whatever their special phobia might be: lifts, planes, heights, caves, snakes, birds, cats, crowded places, talking in public. You recognise a soulmate.

I am scared of snakes, but I am ok with spiders. I am scared of driving to unfamiliar places because I am scared that I won't find a parking space and be late. I am scared of using ticket machines or self-checkouts, because I am scared of making a mistake. I am scared of talking to people who speak a broad dialect because I can misunderstand what they say, and it's embarrassing. In terms of understanding behaviour, making a fool of myself must be my biggest problem. I won't go deep into my childhood to investigate it.

But these are small, everyday fears that you either learn to cope with or you don't, and then they will spoil your life. When I was young I was scared of dying. All people are scared of dying, but some people think about it all the time and suffer from it. I was scared to go to sleep because I was scared of not waking up. I wanted someone by my side when I went to sleep. Recently, perhaps five-six years ago, I realised that going to sleep and never waking up is the best way to die. You won't even notice. This is very logical from the CBT point of view, but it won't work if you are young.

What I am really scared of is one of those states when you are paralysed and cannot communicate, or you are losing your memory and sometimes understand what's going on but cannot do anything. Anton, who puts titles on my film-renting list, has made me watch The Butterfly and the Diving Bell and The Notebook. I am glad I have seen them, but they haunt me. McEwan's Amsterdam haunts me too. Many years ago I saw my great-aunt going senile, and it was scary. Sometimes she was clear in her mind, just to wander away five minutes later. She could also get aggressive. I am scared of becoming like that. I am scared of not being able to talk. They say that people sometimes forget their mothertongue, but not other languages, or forget one at a time. I am scared of being enclosed in myself. Scared of being in a diving bell. Nowadays, when I go to sleep I think that I would certainly like to wake up next morning, but if I don't it's not that bad.

Blog challenge Day 25 – A first

The heading is equivocal, and there are so many firsts to choose from. My first oyster was in Warsaw. My first transatlantic flight was painful. My first caught fish was a pike. My first university class was in Marxism. My first wedding was big. My first trip abroad was to Prague. My first theatre performance was The Blue Bird. My first evening gown was green. My first go at firearms was with a Kalashnikov. My first ski slope felt vertical. My first hangover was horrible. My first communion was when I was well over thirty. My first relationship was a disaster. My first handbag was red. My first grade teacher was excellent. My first attempt to spin was in Australia. My first car was brown. My first Astrid Lindgren book was Karlsson on the Roof. My first grey hair came too early. My first crossing of the equator was on a airplane. My first computer was as large as a cupboard. My first real grief was my granny's death. My first published work was a review of a Swedish poetry collection. My first husband was an archaeologist. My first cigarette was disgusting. My First Capital Connect train takes me to London.

Blog challenge Day 24 – Something that makes you cry

The safest way to make me cry is to sing or play Silent Night.

Since I have read so much cognitive science recently I know how it works. Our memories are stored somewhere in ours brain, in fragments, all mixed up. Somewhere in my brain there is a memory of me sitting under a Christmas tree and listening to a bunch of elderly aunts and uncles singing Silent Night in German, which I sort of understood, but not quite, so it sounded like a magical incantation (which it is in a way). If I just think back about it, I remember it clearly and rationally, and I can state that all these uncles and aunts are dead, which is sad, but inevitable. This won't make me cry. But if I hear Silent Night, even played in a department store, the sound of it evokes the emotional memory: exactly how it felt to be a small child under a tree covered with real candles, the smell of honey buns, anticipation of presents hiding behind the tree. The brain says: this is something lost forever,it triggers a complex chemical process which makes me cry.

On the other hand, someone has said: you can only own forever something that is lost.

Blog challenge Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better

If there are many things that make me upset (see yesterday's post), luckily, there are more things that make me feel better. If I wake up in the morning with this terrible feeling that I don't want to leave my bed, a little sunshine through the window makes life worth living. Therefore I always keep the bedroom curtains drawn back. The sight of snowdrops in early spring makes me feel better. The cat that greets me in the doorway. Birds at the feeder. A glass of wine. A cup of tea. An email from a publisher who has decided to publish my book. A good student essay. A hug from Staffan. A phone call from Anton. A chat with Julia. A haircut. A new blouse. Anticipation of a party. A present, no matter how small. And, as a very last resort, chocolate.

Blog challenge Day 22 – Something that upsets you

I am one of those people who get upset very easily. I get upset by a broken cup or disconnected broadband. I get terribly upset when deer eat my tulips. I get upset when I have worked for hours on lighting in my dollhouse, and it won't switch on. I get tremendously upset when I have been stressed and crashed the car into a gate post.

I get upset when people are stupid. Both someone in a supermarket line and politicians. I am terribly upset about what's going on with higher education in the UK. Anyone can see how stupid it is.

I get upset when students do not submit work in time. I get upset when my cakes burn in the oven. I get upset when I discover a ladder in my stocking. I get upset when I see a wine stain on my new white sofa. Silly thing to get upset about.

I get upset when I am not appreciated for what I do.

I get upset when people say that children's literature is inferior to "real" literature. No, I don't get upset then. I get furious.

Blog challenge Day 21 – Another moment

When Piglet asks Pooh what his favourite moment is, Pooh thinks that although it is really wonderful to eat honey there is always this little tiny second just before you start eating honey that is better still.