The Airportline: Observations

Airportline was recently encouraged to write a short presentation message that would be sent to his new colleagues. This is what he wrote:

I’m originally from Karlstad, Sweden but have lived in Malaysia, the United States and The Netherlands. I really enjoy working and studying in an international environment and appreciate the fact that I will be able to continue to do this at Spark. I finished my Masters degree in European Communication Studies at UvA in October last year, in my master thesis I researched the role of organizational culture and core values in Greenpeace International and Philips. At SPARK I will mainly work with communication aspects and try and develop the newsletter and website and figure out how we can use social media to make an even bigger impact and hopefully intensify the community around our projects. On my spare time I am an aspiring fiction writer, floorball (kind of indoor hockey) player, music nerd and excellent meatballs chef.

Let's get personal, Belle and Sebastian sounding gay New York band The Ballet sings in their song Personal. Airportline will also get a bit personal. As many of your have probably noticed the 25 things about me list swamped the world of Facebook a few months ago. I'm bridging the void between the social network world and the so called blogosphere (which is a highly contested concept) by posting my own 25 list here, on my blog, starting, today.

1. I have cried during two movies: Lassie when I was seven, and The Diving Bell and The Butterfly one year ago.

2. Once I got kicked out from a Cat Power concert because I was yelling for her to play the song Maybe Not too many times (I blame youth, and Jägermesister). Interestingly enough, she played the song first, and had me kicked out afterwards.

3. I have been blogging four and a half years, first in Swedish and since January in English. I've also written for several music fanzines, this has not made me rich. I’ve also written for some magazines, also didn’t make me rich.

4. When I lived in Malaysia I knew two music nerds that worked in a music store in Kuala Lumpur. They fooled me into believing that the best Sonic Youth album was Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. With this I want to say that I am easily fooled.

5. I’m what Wikipedia describe as a Private Christian (Believe in God and in doing good things, but not within a church context). This surprise a lot of people, maybe due to my lifestyle, and my love for rap lyrics about dealing cocaine.

Friday evening and I’m sitting with four newly showered floorball players in a car on the way from Amersfoort to Amsterdam. I like going between cities in the Netherlands during daytime cause it gives me the chance to see some cows. I tell this to the floorball men who are fogging the windows in the car. They laugh, no one tells me their favorite animal. Maybe they don’t have favorite animals? When I lived in Malaysia I spent a lot of time thinking about favorite animals. And now it’s Monday and I went to yoga for the first time ever and stepped out in the world a bit confused with all the movement. I put on King of Convenience in my mp3 player and biked to Albert Hein to get some food. But when I got there I forgot what I was suppose to buy, so I stood in the isle to try and figure it out, starring at some asian wook sauces. Then I went home and read in the Swedish authors Bodil Malmsten’s book ‘Hör bara hur ditt hjärta bultar i mig’ (Just hear how your heart is pounding in mine, if I try and translate the title) where she writes (once again my translation):

Only the dumbest think thats it exclusively glamorous to break up from a country you have been living in for 50 years and settle down in another culture.