How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

It feels peculiar to sit in a room with 130 other people listening to speakers talking about why right-wing bloggers outnumber left-wing bloggers in Sweden (the left is more consensus-driven and averse to the individualism that characterizes blogs? The left dominates the media already so it already has an outlet that voices its opinions?) or what it will take for blogs to become a full-fledged medium comparable to existing media (a disaster wherein other media are unavailable and people naturally turn to blogs for information?).

It feels peculiar because, well, I'm just used to seeing these kind of conversations on a computer screen and not in real life.

Which is not to say it wasn't a very good thing, because it was great, in fact.

What really made it seminal, though, was that there were about 130 people there and that members of the "mainstream media" were there covering it.(Yep, mainstream media still calls the shots.)

It feels nice to have been in the vanguard.

But my 43-year-old grey-haired white self couldn't help wondering: Who were all those grey-haired 60-year-old white guys sitting in the second row?

Then afterwards, the initial awkward greeting of people whom you feel as if you know already from reading what they write, but you don't really, which slides into something more comfortable and well-oiled after a couple of beers, and you even end up feeling a bit frustrated because you don't get quite enough time to talk as much as you'd like with all these interesting people around you. In fact, I completely lost track of the time.

Well done, Stefan. Erik.

(Now, can someone tell me what Steffanie is saying about speculation that I didn't really exist, that I was a woman, that I wasn't an American? My grasp of German is a couple of notches below tenuous, and I can't help wondering what exactly she and Martin are talking about, other than julmust.)

The Swedish verb for the day is att anta. It means to assume.

- by Francis S.