Just For Fun

1965. The Ford Mustang is born, Le Corbusier and Winston Churchill die, Malcolm X is shot, first walks in space, Satisfaction with Rolling Stones and Sound of Music are big hits, first US troops arrive in Vietnam, and the Big Bang theory is confirmed. No wonder my birth didn't make any headlines.

My first memory is from lying on a floor and everything feels good. I can't walk yet. When I'm four years old, the family moves from Kouvola in southern Finland to Gothenburg in Sweden.

1972. Hoover and Truman die, e-mail is introduced, eleven Israeli athletes are killed at the olympic games in Munich, Okinawa is returned to the Japanese. My first introduction to the state sponsored mind reshaping & reorganizing facility called public school.

I never liked it but I got better than average grades the first nine years. All that changed when I entered the high school. I wasn't the worst one, but not far away. Waste of time if you ask me. Most of the thirteen years, and specially high school.

1984. Indira Gandhi is shot, Macintosh is born, Thriller, Union Carbide kills 2000 and injures 150 000 people in Bhopal, India. I'm out of school, fed up but survived, and no idea what to do.

I work sometimes, travel, do my compulsory military service, and a few years pass. I have a small house at the countryside, a work and a car. In 1992 I visit Japan for the first time to meet a girl again that soon becomes my wife. One months visit becomes three years before we return to Sweden. During three years in Japan I work sometimes, hitch hike around most the country, and learn two thousand chinese characters. Back in Sweden I study the science subjects from high school again in order to be able to apply for university studies, and finish as one of the best in class. Who would have guest! I start my university career by studying physics and japanese at the same time. I realize that my low interest for theoretical mathematics in combination with university physics is probably not a happy marriage. Instead I concentrate on japanese studies and finish as number one. Not because I am smarter than the rest, but because I'm the craziest one and put so much effort into it.Of course I will never have any use for the papers. Our daughter was born two and a half years ago.

That, in short, was the success story of my life.

Yours truly, Petri Storlöpare