I'm quickly learning about myself that I am most efficient when I have the most to do - strange, but I find that if I only have one project on my plate I often get easily distracted and take longer getting it done. This semester therefore was a challenge because all we have to do is a thesis, no class and no other assignments to complete. As a result, I'm starting to find some other projects to help work on which have provided a much needed boost to my productivity recently. One of those projects is a competition that our apartment has entered together to address sustainability within the paper recovery industry. It is hosted by Staples and International Paper and I am excited to apply much of what we've learned here to another real-world example.

As a break to the projects and thesis thinking, this afternoon a bunch of us from the program went cross country skiing at a groomed trail about 30 minutes outside of Karlskrona. Karlskrona has actually had more snow this year then the past 15 years so there was plenty of powder in the trails (something that we only dream about in skiing on at Roundtop back home).
Having only ever cross country skiied in my backyard on an ancient set of skiis, this was a big step up. We were at it for quite a few hours and had a blast trying to keep pace with the locals (which we quickly realized was not going to happen). The place had about 10 different trails all ranked with different difficulty levels much like alpine skiing back home.

It was also an excuse for me to finally use the camelback that I had brought with me for some reason. Excited to try it out, I strapped it onto my back and as I started off on the first trail, I bit down on the end expecting water to rush through the tube. Instead, I nearly cracked my teeth as it felt as if I were biting down onto rock. Turns out it's cold in Sweden, and water turns to ice fairly quicly. Lesson learned. The numerous falls that then proceeded also helped coat a layer of ice all over my jacket, which clearly identified me as anything but experienced when it comes to cross country skiing. Regardless, we had a great time and were glad to find ourselves outside of the city center for once.

With legs that are quite sore, I'm now ready to get back into the swing of thesis. We're working on finding more effective ways at communicating sustainability to the general public. We're actually pretty excited because we've found some neat theories that we're combining to address this issue, and our goal is to produce a tool or guidebook which media producers and consultants can use in their work. We've also just decided to attend a conference in Turkey this summer where we are planning on presenting our research and findings. So there's some interesting stuff ahead of us.

Oh, and the other exciting thing is that I walked out on the Baltic yesterday. In addition to freezing the water in my camelback, the Baltic has also froze and you can now walk out on it. We went out because we thought we saw other folks out there, but after getting out there we realized we were the only ones. For the most part it was solid ice, except for the tiny part in the beginning that started to slightly crack around our feet and left a foot imprint slightly filled with water. We quickly walked past that whole part and got to the more solid ice in the center. It was such a neat feeling and view to see downtown Karlskrona from the water - definitely one of the cooler experiences in Sweden so far. (and yes, there was snow angel making involved - perhaps my decision to just fall over backyards onto the ice/snow wasn't the best idea to make the angel - fortunately the ice held, ha)