Paper, paper, paper...

Safely in Japan, I collapsed after the flight, and in sheer delight at having an air-conditioned room and some privacy after 8 days of intense social activity, I spent the first day in Japan reading, feet up and close to the amenities of a japanese translation of a european bathroom.

Today I had a quest: I needed a new plug for Japan, as I arrogantly had assumed they would use either European or Oceania type of plugs. Of course not, theirs were American. Oh well. After that I went to paradise. Me and Helen Kennedy, who was kindly guiding me to the local designer stores with a sure eye for what we can want, but afford, ended up in Itoya, the paper store which has everything, and then some. So, if you expected some kind of flashy present after my long trip, forget it, I am sorry. My suitcase is packed with handmade japanese paper.

Access issues

Still no real internet connection, so I am just letting any who wonder know: I am doing fine, Perth is cool but nice, and the conference was good. More later - sometime.

Sloooooow

The computer that is. PerthDAC 2007 isn't, it's compact, small and friendly - well, most of the time. What it isn't is online. Since I also don't have an internet connection where I stay, and I haven't seen an internet cafe just yet, I am painfully cut off from a lot of obligations, not to mention the fun stuff. I
ll try to mend the situation, but it's not happening today.

Perth next!

Tomorrow I am off to Perth, for DAC 2007. I am going to present a paper I have for once suffered over, meet some great friends, and eat and drink in one of my favourite places for just that. Afterwards I am off to a totally new place for me: Japan!

While Umeå is picking up as more visiting scholars arrive, I think it's time for me to get some air under the wings. They still haven't managed to get the equipment I need, and as long as I am not here to be annoyed, they have almost three weeks to get it in place. By then I'll have 8 more months here, so I guess I'll still have time to play around.

Bleak Friday

The start is always hard, I know. The change, getting things established, figuring things out, it's always tough. And the social part, trying to find people to connect to, or just make light conversation with, when I am suddenly alone after 25 years living with a family; I knew these things would be difficult and take time, and that I had to make an effort to make it work.

I have however had a clear deadline to offer everybody I have talked to about practical considerations around my situation in Umeå: I am leaving 12th of September, and that means I really need to have it all in place at least a week before, for my final preparations.

Of everything I said I needed before I arrived here, I have three things; a place to sleep, a good office chair and a rollermouse. Of all the things I have been offered - well, let's say there have been some delays. Delays which are by now making my days strained, unhappy and uncomfortable.

I hope I'll at least get paid before I leave for Australia and Japan. If not this can get unpleasantly tight. But I am happy I am leaving right now. I am sure the slow and deliberate ways of the northern Swedes will feel familiar and welcome after Tokyo, and coming back will feel good.

At least I hope so.

"Can I talk to Jerry?"

As I moved to Sweden, I went out and got myself a handsome little phone with a telia account. They asked me what number I'd like, and I got one that was not too far from my Norwegian one, something I could learn quickly. So I had a phone, I had a number, I had a fully charged card, and I was ready to take calls.

"Hello, is Jerry there?"

"Wrong number," I said politely. "Isn't this xxx-xxx-xx?" "Yes, that's correct." "Then I'd like to talk to Jerry." "I am sorry, my name is Torill Mortensen, this is my phone, recently bought, and I can't help you." "Are you absolutely certain you can't get hold of Jerry?" "Yes. There is no Jerry here, and there never was a Jerry here. He must have terminated his account and by accident, I happened to get the same number. I can't help you, I am sorry."

Over the next week or so, I got used to telling people that there was no Jerry at this number any more. That's when I started to get a new kind of calls.

"Detta är om erans annons, vi skulla vilja..."

"Excuse me, but what ad?"
"The ad about moving, and needing help with your apartment. I'd like to talk to Anders." "EEeeehh, I have no ad anywhere, and there is no Anders here." "But you are asking for help to clean out the apartment." "No, that must be a mistake." "You see, you have this ad at xxxxxx, and it says you are moving to xxxx, now I'd like to help you with the cleaning..." "I am really sorry, but there must be a mistake." "Isn't this number xxx-xxx-xxx?" "Yes, and that is my number, I am Torill Mortensen, I am not moving anywhere, I don't have an apartment in that part of Sweden and I don't have an ad. Somebody must have put the wrong number in."

After several days of fielding those calls, I just had to check. So I googled my phone number, and yes, there it was. Some Anders had an ad, and he had my number in it. Somebody with the same last name as him had a company, and this company used my number. I had not just inherited a mysterious Jerry with a lot of english-speaking friends, I had also inherited an Swedish company.

That's when my struggle to have those numbers removed started. I have been writing ad-companies and search services all over Sweden, begging to have the ad removed. After three days it is finally gone. The company was a bigger problem. Here I had to resort to a slight case of identity theft. I went in and registered as the owner of the company, and changed the number to something which was obviously not useable. I felt justified, as it wasn't really identity theft, it was a release of identity. I am not that company, and I shouldn't be able to claim I was. By making sure nothing in that ad for the company had anything to do with me, I removed my own ability to, for instance, order 500 chairs, all in purple leather, to be sent to his office.

The last two days, all phonecalls to my phone have been for me. I almost miss Jerry.

Spikning - as Luther did it

I was invited to two examples of the same event today, what the Swedes call "spikning", literally: nailing. A little concerned, I asked my office mate about it. "OK," she said, "let's start at the beginning."

It seems that since Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the church doors in Wittenberg in 1517, nailing your thesis to a wall - "spikning" - is the equivalent of making it public, in protestant Sweden.

The tradition lives on here following the example of Martin Luther, and today two doctorate theses in ethnology are made public here at the department of culture and media, and of course I had to go have a look. Also, there's "fika" afterwards. And that's something much more polite than it sounds in Norwegian - it's simply snacks and perhaps a drink. This, the Swedes do well, too.

To Judith Butler

I have wanted to post this picture for a while, ever since I passed the poster glued to the front of the building housing the Faculty of Social Sciences in Bergen. It's praise of Judith Butler, handwritten and in a mixture of very simple and very sophisticated language. It is quite touching and quite impressive, as I find it speaks of a revelation which is more than an intellectual awakening, it is a physical recognition as well.

The first lines translate to:

We really appreciate
Judith Butler
She is marvellous and very wise! Her books “Gender Trouble” and “Bodies that Matter” have become the theoretical fundament of the queer theory/queer movement.

The reason I remembered to post this today is because I am reading/writing about subversion, and then of course I can't get past Judith Butler.

Autumn approaches

"It's the end of august, and the birches are still all green," the information officer of HumLab bemoaned, as she showed me the campus. "It's not supposed to be like this. They are supposed to start turning gold now. It's so beautiful." I had to confess that I was quite comfortable with green birches until far into september, and I was in no hurry to see the weather turn. Two days later I noticed the gold touches in the birches outside the building I live in. It seems like global warming hasn't quite turned Umeå into an all-year summer estate just yet.

"The mean temperature in winter used to be minus 9 degrees celsius," my lunch date echoed the worry. "Now it's minus 5 degrees."

Biking home through the freezing rain, I didn't quite manage to share these concerns. I am here for the people, the University and the chance to hang out with others who are specialising along the same lines as me, I really don't mind if the temperature drops only to minus 10 and not minus 30. But of course, if in the last 20 years winters have been 4 degrees above the common mean temperature, that is not just a temporary change, at least not in human years. Personally, I am more concerned with getting wet, and the darkness even of daylight setting in. I am two degrees further north than Volda. For comparison: Oslo and Helsinki are at (about) 60 degrees north, Volda at 62, Umeå at 64. The arctic circle is at 66.33. For those who want to keep updated on the campus, to see if I am justified when grumping about weather and light, check the campus webcam. It's 8 degrees today, and while that is acceptable summer temperature even in Volda..., well, it's going to be an adventure.

Update: According to the locals this weather is highly unusual, and the pond that can be seen from the webcam is just a few centimeters from running over and potentially flooding the basements of the nearby buildings.

PS: Do anybody somewhat closer to equator need a guest speaker/researcher in January or February? Just checking...

On Swedish radio

Monday 20th of August Jessica Enevold, Charlotte Hagström and I were on Swedish radio, vetenskapsradioen - forum P1 13.20. The interview took place in Gothenburg in June, durig the Games in action conference.

I haven't really listened to it, there's always something disturbing about hearing yourself on the radio, and worse so when it's in a setting like this. Sourrounded by Swedish voices, on Swedish radio together with two very nice Swedish ladies, I sound foreign, crude, and alien stomping around in somebody elses yard.

And I am that, an alien, not even a cool sophisticated alien like Sting, but Norwegian in Umeå. I wish I at least could have a glowing finger, if I can't have the superpower of lyrics and music.

Cormorants

During the morning's surfing trip, the tidbit that cormorant populations are picking up in the US, and that there is a colony in New York, leaped at me. One of the most interesting things about it is the perception of the birds in the culture:

Their arrival has drawn mixed reactions. Cormorants are big and black, with sharp curved bills and a habit of vomiting when threatened. When they stretch their wings out to dry, they seem to be wearing the black cloaks associated with vampires. They are also mercilessly efficient marine predators, with the ability to fly like ducks and dive like penguins, which has not endeared them to fishermen (or, for that matter, anchovies).

Dracula is the last thing I think about, when I see a cormorant in Norway. Here they are part of a magic uniquely connected to the land, and fairytales have them be mysterious sorceresses, wearing their black feathers when they fly to their secret skerries out towards the open sea. There they hoard treasures untold of, and lucky is the fisherman who is loved by a cormorant woman.

Parts of this is probably connected to what troubles the fishermen in New York: Cormorants are very efficient predators. This means that when cormorants return/arrive somewhere, it's because there is fish. So if you find out where the cormorants fish, you have found a good spot - your own secret skerry at the edge of the open ocean, where you can find wealth... a wealth if not of magical jewels and gold, then at least the silver of the ocean.

Honeymoon is fading

But the weather is still great, so it's not too bad. It's easy to be tolerant with all those little things which makes it hard to get started when the sun is shining from a pale blue scandinavian sky, when the paths through the forests are perfumed with pine, and elegant birches trail their green veils in a gentle wind.

Still, satire lingers on my tongue, pokes at my fingertips. And some time, in some dark corner, after a sufficient number of drinks, you'll be able to tease it out of me. The Norwegian love/hate of our brother nation is getting a good workout - as I am sure the Swedish equivalent does among the people who have to deal with me. Swedens smooth surfaces meets brute Norwegian stubbornness.

But things are falling into place, slowly and step by step. I guess that before I go to Australia, most will be settled, and by then it will be really good.

HUMlab in Umeå

As I arrived to Umeå while it's still somewhat summery, the University is quiet and everything is semi-ready. Some parts were very far from ready. Patrik Svensson at the HUMlab took me and my husband for a walk around what will be the actual laboratory, and while his enthusiasm and vision made the future clear to my inner eye, the camera caught something different.


It will be great though. Patrik also showed me the plans for how it will be, and I am impressed. They have thought of everything: design, functionality, equipment, workareas, flexibility - I have to say, these Swedes have style! I can't wait to see it all finished, and get to work in this elegant and generous area.

Umeå living

The first thing you'll notice about Umeå is all the people biking, walking or in many diverse ways moving about by their own power. Yes, they use cars, but the bicycle is a very important means of transport. To support and encourage this the place is riddled with and surrounded by paths for bikes.

The use of bikes is so extensive that it has to be regulated. Now, Swedes don't need an excuse to regulate something, but here it's pretty well justified to put up some instructional signs.

This makes Umeå a good place for one of the more original biker organisations I have seen announced, the Vegan Bikers:

But this bikers paradise will disappear under heavy snow and low temperatures in a few months, and that's when I'll be very happy about certain architectural peculiarities at the University. They have walkways between a lot of the buildings, making it possible to walk over much of the campus without setting a foot outside.

But until then I am going to enjoy the outdoors here as much as I can!

"I never said that"

Once in a while I find that I have said things I never thought I did. I try to ask to read all interviews and make sure I know what I have answered or rather - what the journalists have asked - but recently I found that a long conversation had been cut down to four sentences, two of which were like this:

Torill Elvira Mortensen tror det regulerte arbeidslivet i Norge er en hindring for veksten i bransjen.
– I USA er bransjen helt rå og skreller vekk dem som ikke takler umenneskelige arbeidsforhold. I Norge er det færre med kompetanse så det er vanskelig å være like brutal.

What the interviewer in Magasinet claims I say here is that the regulations of the workforce in Norway makes it impossible to produce games with the quality or quantity the way Americans do.

What I said was that Norway is too small to produce in the way Americans do. We can't discard talent in the same manner, we have to build it. The journalist was taken with his idea of the ruthless American labour market though, so suddenly it apepared as if I agreed. Oh well. So I sound like a right wing libertarian. No worries, I won't vote for them any time soon.

Sweden, yeah

The drive from Volda to Umeå was little more than 1000 km, and took one long and one short day. I was received wonderfully, and live in a quaint little apartment at the University's housing for visiting scholars. It's tiny, but they have promised me something bigger before the winter sets in. Otherwise the blog will be filled with pages of cabin fever - or perhaps I'll just never leave the virtual world.

I bought a new cellphone today, and so I have a Swedish number. If you already have my old one and want to know how to find me in Sweden, feel free to send me an email or a sms, and I'll let you know - eventually. I am not doing much these days except exploring, shopping for the apartment, and seeing the Botnian Bay while it's still sunny.

More later - with pictures. I promise.

"Vacation"

It's been cold, wet and rainy for three weeks. It's been crappy vacation weather. Luckily, I have not had much time to realise it's been a vacation. In those three weeks I have been finishing a little book on game studies.

It's not a big, important book. It's just the one I wished existed, every time I get an email or a call from somebody who needs help. They contact me, normally after hearing me on the radio or reading some paper, and they need help to find literature on games. They always start with the phrase "There's so little done on games", and go on with "it's impossible to find anything for my work". And so I spend the next half hour guiding them through the net, or possibly reading names and titles slowly to them.

If the publisher is happy with this book, I can now say: "Why don't you check out this book, particularly the bibliography, and then you go to a library and have some searches made on the names of the people I mention, because they are really busy publishing, and I am sure they have written a lot more by now."

That's going to save me a lot of half hours. Perhaps not three weeks of vacation worth, though. But there may be other benefits - at least I hope so! And monday the weather is supposed to be warm, and I still have a week of vacation to go, and then I'll be moving into a whole new place for a year.

Getting real

This has been a weird year, and I have been working with a lot of stuff that might or might not get real. Two things are now crystalising out of all that potential though.

I am about to finish the second-to-last chapter of a little book on game studies, in Norwegian. The topic I am still missing in this chapter is gender research in games. I do have a lot of stuff for it, but since this is something no female games researcher can neglect: Is there a name I really should not ignore? Is there a name which is often ignored, but who deserves to be mentioned? I have written about a lot of the women and men doing gender topics in their research under other topics in the book, but you know what it's like: If I don't have a headline for it, it doesn't exist.

When this book is done, I am moving to Umeå for the winter. I received a post.doc. scholarship from HUMlab at the University of Umeå, and Volda College has generously agreed that I can take a leave from parts of my position for this. It's a great deal for me, and I am really looking forwards to this winter. Well, I am not looking forwards to a winter somewhere even darker than here, but I do like the thought of a larger academic environment, a bigger library, a bigger town, no administration (going to miss my students though) and lots of time to read, write and think.

From Umeå I will be going to Australia and Japan this fall. I am also still looking hard at the Vancouver AOIR conference, trying to figure out how to get money for it. I have a very personal reason for wanting to go to Canada this fall, and the conference, with it's great topic, is very convenient. But I have to see how things with work out with two employers, another apartment and the costs of living in two places. And it's not like I am sitting in my tiny room in Sweden sulking through all of September...

This is all painfully close and painfully real, and getting more so every day. Changes are scary - although these are scary good.

Anyway, about those gender research hints? I'd love them.

More clever spam

Can you guess I am desperate not to write what I should? Anyway, writing at the blog again, I just checked a comment I permitted. Turned out that it was the most clever of spam.

What it did was to copy a passage from another post:

I believe that there should be gold-sinks in the game; however, make the currency sink a thing of pure fluff. In the MMORPG Ultima Online, it cost 500k (a decent sum of money) just to dye your hair a fancy neon color. The hair color did not give you a statistical advantage over your opponent, it did, however, show your high status.

This was part of the content of a comment on a farily old post of mine. It looked perfectly to the point of the post, so I didn't hesitate on permitting it. But being a curious old bitch I wanted to see what exactly that comment was about, so I checked. That's when I recognized the words.

I can't help it, the cleverness and inventiveness of spammers is impressive. All this effort and energy, just to invade the blogs of strangers! I almost feel flattered.

Gamers ignoring kids

With the increasing popularity of games, in some demographic groups it will be harder to find somebody who does not play a game, than people who do. This means that everybody will be playing, the genius and the not-so-smart, the loving parent and the abusive parent. And this is the point of Halen A. S. Popkin, as she writes about the Straw couple, parents who had their children taken away due to neglect - neglect supposedly caused by their addiction to internet games.

Popkin's point, which is a refreshing view in these days of panics and witchhunts, is that when people neglect their children, they have problems, real, not-game-caused problems. A computer game may increase these problems in many ways: if you are a compulsive or obsessive personality, a computer game will play right into that. But the game didn't make you the person you are, and if the game wasn't there, something else would be. Neglect of children is, sadly, nothing new. If banning computer games would ban neglect, crime, bad grades, social insecurity and isolation, depression, suicides, war and drug abuse - then by all means, wipe those disks RIGHT NOW! It doesn't though. Telling ourselves it's caused by games is kidding ourselves, and it makes us look at the symptom, not the cause. Obsessive gaming isn't caused by games, it's caused by the problems of the people who play games. Remove the symptom, and there will just be an other one.