Swedish Bottoms

Last Monday I received a call from someone who claimed they were a employment services officer in the program "workplace introduction for certain immigrants." It turns out that I fit the category of "certain," and she wanted to meet me. I reluctantly agreed to a meeting on Friday. I have been to the arbetsförmedlinging (employment agency) quite a few times and alternatively been treated like dirt or received no help numerous times. The most fun I have there is when I happen to bump into my brother-in-law there and we have a grand time talking about our unemployment woes.

Here is an excerpt from my meeting on Friday:
Officer - "It is so hard to get things moving in Sweden. There's just lots of papers that a person has to have and lots of waiting. Everything is slow here. Before anyone can make a decision on something, there is lots and lots of deliberating and then finally everybody comes to an agreement, but by then the situation has changed and the decision is irrelevant." (sounded like Quakers to me). "But," she continued, "I am not Swedish, but Russian. I have called some people and have a job interview for you with a local Christian kindergarten. Is Monday at 11:00 ok? I will pick you up."

So, finally, after having sent out many applications to different organizations and only being rejected sight-unseen, it took a Russian to bash through the Swedish system and get me a real live interview. This Monday, I walked out of that interview with a job in the Dolphin division of Skällbyskolan. My officer was convinced that the interview was a disaster. It probably was, since it was one of the few interviews I've ever had in my life. But I partly think she isn't used to the kinds of evangelical Christian subculture banter that are crucial for this kind of deal to go down. While I talked about my denominational backgrounds, she said she was thinking, "Good Lord, lets get moving with this interview! Talk about your relevant experience and personality!" She says that if I have to do another interview, we will do some training first. I will start at Skällbyskolan as an intern. Since I don't have all the right papers, it helps the employer feel better about possibly giving a chance to a potential psycho nut case from America. Even though I won't be making much money while I am an intern, I figure it is good for me too, though. I mean, what if they are all psycho nut cases!

I have been feeling a twinge of disappointed pride. After all my education, experiences, and loans, I will not start with a prestigious job of transubstantiating things, but will instead wipe poopy bottoms. It is a small twinge, though. I am super excited to finally have a job. to finally get to be "in" somewhere. to get to make some money. to get to be important enough to have somewhere to go and something to do. Plus, I will get to work with little people that will accept me immediately and judge me later instead of only encountering the big people that judge first and accept a looooong time later. I will get to play outside and color and laugh and build things and have people to which I matter. I get to be with people whose Swedish language skills aren't exponentially better than mine and we can play with words and learn together. I start on Monday. So now, the most relevant thing is that I get to buy some new clothes at last!

That leads me to the final exciting revelation of this blog entry. Swedish pants fit my bottom! I have always dreaded shopping for pants in America and was completely led to believe I have an anomalous posterior due to the difficulty of finding pants that fit. Every size 38 I found here, though fit perfectly. I don't know if it is because swedish pants fit my bottom or if it is because eating all those semlor has caused my bottom to evolve and morph to fit swedish pants.