My father then joined us and we set out to explore the archepeligo that is Stockholm. We used public transport, to arrive at the ferry which left precisely when it was scheduled to. At this point I have a memory of smoking a cigarette, and moving apart from my father and brother in law’s fervent chat to do so. I observed my proximity to the water which was ice not long ago and my dizziness from the cigarette and wondered what was stopping me from falling into the water, while balancing very close to the edge. When answered by silence I proceeded to observe the ropes holding the ferry into its mooring site and followed them to their points of origin on the ferry.

After we got on the ferry I continued to move around the vessel away from the others, as they seemed so caught up in discussing History and Politics that they were not interested in the present – that being the action of the boat upon the water, the wind, the waves, and the repetition and mastery of this operation over many hundreds of years of Norsemen genetically selecting themselves to understand how to govern the sea in this way.

Upon reaching the island we were designated to arrive at, we alighted the ferry and had soon walked across the island and were looking south east towards Poland. Once more my relatives were discussing perhaps a war or the economic history of Scandinavia, and again I moved aside and climbed over an old wall sectioning off a house from its sea view and began to explore the granite rocks by the sea. The granite in this area was extremely smooth and pink and exported around the world. It appeared grey only because of the dust and the pollution. It was formed during the end of the last ice age when a massive shard of ice covered the land and when it came loose it took all the land above this granite in one lean swipe, effectively chopping off the top of a mountain, revealing this highly compressed and polished pink granite. I picked up a rock and hit it against another rock until a small piece became free. I then washed it and tried to polish it.

We then had a snack at a sparsely patronised café. The big decision was whether to have coffee or hot chocolate. That became a point of interaction between the three of us. The men continued their energetic banter, alternatively speaking and giving audience to the other. The thin veil of diplomacy couldn’t hide the oppositional nature of their views for long.

The boat trip seemed to take longer on the way back, perhaps because I sat inside with these two men for more of the time, partly in a conscious effort to be polite and participate. The discussion was still about History, but more related to war history now. I can’t really remember what happened next. It must have been around lunch time. I think I was very tired already. I can’t tell what happened that afternoon from what was the previous afternoon.

The day concluded with me standing my ground on the point of wanting to stay in Stockholm and rest. I had an argument in the corridor of the hotel with my father on this one, since he would’ve liked us to do many other activities over the next few days, but after driving hundreds of miles on the other side of the road, using cruise control and being careful not to slow down or speed up too much around traffic lights, I needed to rest.

If being a science communicator is a life profession then I’d say the day was aptly explored in terms of observing the way people communicate, on the one hand, while exploring and analysing physical processes on the other. At times the two skills can be combined to unmask relevant patterns. At other times one is in a state of listening quietly which is an important skill to develop in order to learn anything. Understanding how to learn is very important to anyone who seeks to communicate which is firstly about learning how to listen. Although a day like this one appears passive in terms of science communication, listening days are crucial to any effective career in communicating anything worthwhile.

I spent this day with two experts in their fields, who were exploring other fields as a break from their own, both seeking new information foreign to them. Sometimes the extent to which you choose to participate is set by the ‘polarity’ you are presumed to take. For example perhaps you will be seen as ‘left’ in politics if you express apathy towards English cultural dominance. When I did get involved in the conversation I pointed out that royalist ancestor adoration is a folkloric illusion since you only have to go back 100 years, 4 generations to have 2 exp 4=16 ancestors and these are shared between 7200 third cousins….2exp8 ancestors=256, two hundred years ago, produce around 128000 7th cousins at this generation. So how can one declare anything on the (understood) nationalistic grounds of ancestral loyalty and assume that all 256 of these ancestors were English. The surname anyone bears, if it goes back 200 years even, will only have belonged to one of the 256 ancestors. What were the other 255 surnames and family histories? Probably not all English, and to be fair, lets not assume connections which we can’t prove. Even if one of the 256 ancestors was a Goldstone, it means we have as much Goldstone in us as Rogers, and if another ancestor was a Muslim names Hussein and another Wrestles and another Hendrix, where now do your loyalties lie?

In early high school I wanted to be a doctor or an astronaut. We moved interstate frequently during school years so I skipped some topics and relearned others. All I really cared about for the last three years of high school quite frankly was food (I was always hungry), chatting to my friends, reading books, writing poetry with my friends. I was in the headmaster’s office once, and recall bursting into tears, and him bursting into tears in response. This was because I was in trouble for wearing a hat which didn’t have the school motto on it, but he really didn’t want to make me cry since he told me then, he was a very sensitive person too.