SvenskaIn addition to Anna’s work as a preschool teacher, she has a great hobby, as I also do, namely singing. She sings a lot of opera while I write in my spare time. I look forward to continuing to listen to more pieces of music!
I write. The book ´Generations´, with my poetry collection, was supposed to end with a trip to Israel. The unrest in Ukraine spread, and I had to regroup and travel to France (Nice) and Spain (Barcelona) instead. The unrest in the Middle East has really picked up speed, with fundamentalists resorting to weapons and death. The Iranian regime responds by silencing its population to exclude contact with the outside world. In the heat of the moment, President Trump is also informally sharing the Norwegian Peace Prize with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. This probably prevented the USA from getting militarily involved in the Middle East.
In these troubled times, a leisure occupation is needed. Since I can only watch and not help, a feeling of helplessness arises. How can we ordinary people support people in need in other countries? We need something to do. I have long prepared a box of supplies in the country house where I grew up. This house was a refugee camp for Jews during World War II.
My friend has traveled to London to maintain her clinical knowledge as an MD. I will soon be traveling back and forth. Knowledge needs to be constantly updated. She is an MD, and I am a pharmacist. To travel to the UK, an application is now required. I filled out the application, attached my passport, but then? A selfie is required. I didn’t want to be without makeup, but wait! I will try to send a selfie that I already have.
My application was accepted with the photo below. The necklace is a gift from my colleagues at the department of Pharmacology. I will also need to renew my passport before traveling to Nepal. A visa is probably required there as well. Professor Trilok Pati Thapa (Thapa) and I have been in contact at least once a year for 20 years. He visited the Department of Pharmacology in Gothenburg, and I was assigned to show him our research group’s ongoing research.
Success in today’s medical treatments in neuropharmacology is largely dependent on animal experiments. I worked with mice and used microdialysis to study the dynamics between acetylcholine and dopamine. Professor Thapa got to meet the mice that preferred alcohol solution to water, and not least the mice that only wanted to drink water. He also got to see advanced technology for detecting neurotransmitters. The balance between acetylcholine and dopamine is delicate. I will write about that with perspective at a later date.
I was touched when Professor Thapa suggested that his daughter would show me around Kathmandu. I asked if I could write about him and Nepal here, and I will! My friend told me that Buddha was born in Nepal, which I will also relate to. During these years, I have tried to understand religion, and this trip may shed even more light on the subject.
When I wrote my thesis in Gothenburg, I wished to summarize the concept of addiction in just one sentence. It became `the triumph of desire over sensibility´. In molecular biology terms, it is the serotonergic neurons that lose control over dopamine-containing neurons. I will also look for the plant that carries reserpine in India or, hopefully, Nepal. It cannot be a coincidence that there is a plant that can so powerfully block the reuptake of monoamines in the synaptic cleft.
Finally, I would like to link to today’s international militant forces. I really hope that military leaders don’t get too – what word should I use – high from power.
Stay safe 🐾
