By the way, here's a photo of me if you care. I most certainly do not (can't simply understand this obsession with photos at all). And since it's quite big it might take a few years to load, but that's simply not my problem. Or it maybe it is, but well, what the hey?
My name is Ruthger Persson.
I lived in;
Våxtorp, a dunghole in the south part of Halland.
Halmstad, a midsize redneck/beachboy town without any culture.
Laholm, a beautyful but really boring town
Trollhättan, a beautyful town but with some integration issues
Vänersborg, south of the large swedish lake Vänern. A cute little town.
Ängelholm, the best one so far
Lund, another freak amongst the freaks of freaktown. A really isolated academic world that takes no impressions what-so-ever from the outside world.
I'm 27 years old. But I certainly don't feel like it. Wonder If I'll ever understand the whole age-concept.
I listen to almost all musicstyles, except R'n'B. Mostly underground music though.
I am stuck in the student world. The first three years I did study Applied Computer Science and System Engineering in Trollhättan, which was an intergalactic waste of time. Since then I have studied Archaeology and Historical Osteology in Lund.
Actually my life starts with an occurrence that is the only time I've been in time or a bit to early. In the winter of 1977 I was born in Halmstad at the hospital there, nearly a month too early. Of the following years I remember little, almost everything has slipped my mind, eroded by the wind of time. Not that I think that they're important... I guess I was as any other kid most of the time, or maybe I were not. The second statement is probably the most true one, since it would fit more with what I was to experience later during my life. Anyway, since my parents lived in a little bushback town called Laholm, I grew up there (any of you cityfolks who think that Lucas Moodysons excellent feature film "Fucking Åmål" isn't a romantic description of how it is to grow up in thinly populated areas, think again).
Just to make it worse, my parents weren't happy with just living I a thinly populated area. No, they just had to live out in the woods, several miles from potential friends for an aspiring youth. As a conclusion of this arrangement, I hardly met any other people in my age before I went to school, in the little village of Våxtorp. So there I was, my first year in school. Scared, alone and hungry... Of course, my social dysfunction led to even more problems in life, not to mention that I, at the time was considerably larger than most of my so-called classmates, or in other words, I was fat. And living in a small village, alone, scared, hungry and fat isn't easiest of life's, I can reassure you...
Anyway... since nobody actually wanted to play with me, I spent most of the time in school alone, even though I had some friends, who would later show they're real face when the testeron started bulging out of them (I mean when they went through the stage we all know as puberty). To be fair, my memory of this time is a bit clouded, so I shouldn't be that judgmental for now. I guess I was happy, never knowing anything else in my life than isolation and loneliness.
A picture of me without any hair, as sometimes is the case
After some more or less happy years during the 1st-6th grade, a miserable time started, known to us all as puberty. Never knowing which way or how I should fit in society as a result from my lack of social experience, almost everything got wrong from the start. As a result of living in a small village, the school I went to wasn't large enough to alone support a school for the higher grades (7th-9th grade) so, the classes that me and all other people were in where merged with students from three other, close villages (Hishult, Hasslöv and Skottorp if anyone care). Not longer accepted as the silent freak, some of those kids from these villages started picking on me (some of them where my friends, but I'll get to that later). As a result of being harassed most of my days in school I turned inwards, started listening to extreme music and attaining an extreme attitude towards life and everything else. I became one of the outcasts in this little village, not feeling like I belonged anywhere I also became a computer freak, when I purchased a Commodore 64. As stated in the wellknown hackers manifesto by the Mentor, I discovered a thing with computers, "When it screws up, it's because I did something wrong, not because it doesn't like me". So the years in these classes I spent in front of my computer or hanging with some other people who weren't totally respected for their way of life in this little town either. BTW, in the eight grade I had my first experience of the drug alcohol, partly as thing to kill all the pain I felt inside... partly because everyone else did it(stupid me).
Some moments I remember from these years include the time when I went drunk to school after the Swedish Lucia-celebration (an occurrence which is mostly related to alcohol). When I trashed the lockers which the school kept their teaching material in. When I thrashed my homeknowledge teachers bike, spoke of it in class and got a 1 in a 5 degree scale (and she continued to hate me the rest of the time I spent in this school). In the 9th grade, we had to make a choice for the next level of education, in Sweden called the gymnasium. Simply tired of living in this village I chosed an education at school, not located in the area of Laholm, but in the town of Halmstad called the mediaprogram. So I moved to Halmstad for a while, but things didn't work out as I thought they would work out (as usual), so it was only a matter of month before I was back in my hometown, placed with some terrible losers who hadn't grades to get to that level, and my friend PH. From this time, and about a half-year more I wasn't doing anything at all. Just hanging around and occasionally travelling to Halmstad with PH to by the latest punk and hardcore records in the newly opened store Backlist. In the winter of this year I became a vegetarian when I, for the first time in my life saw a movie from a slaughterhouse. In combination with my youth and interest in music this resulted in myself becoming STRAIGHT EDGE when I broke my foot during a nightly drunk walk in the frozen sanddunes of Mellbystrand at the Lucia-celebrations.
And a simple faked car accident picture too...
When becoming STRAIGHT EDGE, for the first time in my life I felt truly happy, and respected. Back then the edge was something mysterious to the people in Laholm and partly to myself too, things that were in a way related to violent attacks by Vegans in the northerly swedish town of Umeå and in some others places. At this time, somewhere around 1995,96 the straight edge movement in Sweden was about to explode and I too found some new friends in that movement, feeling lucky for about a year and a half. Filled with confidence for the first time in my life, I partly broke with my old life, in terms of vandalism, theft and numerous criminal events. But I also did something I've shouldn't have done. I tried to get my driving license. I finally got it, but my attitude problems (as some people experienced them) had me going through quit a hell during this episode, including 2 theoretical tests and 5 practical tests to gain my driving license crushing me mentally. The same year as got my drivers license I also finished school, having spent the last three years at the "samhällsprogram" at the gymnasium in Laholm. Needless to say, I got pretty lousy grades, mostly related to attitude problems (then again, in the teachers eyes), lack of understanding and just pure dislike for me as a person. With school finished, I didn't get a job, since "samhällsprogrammet" is an education that is supposed to prepare one for higher studies and counts for little in the eyes of people that hire other people to do their work.
So I had to go back to school, again, to repair my mistakes at an swedish level of education called " Komvux". During "Komvux" i also tried to move away from parents house for the second time, to live with som friends. This resulted in chrashed friendship and some other things. Still I haven't heard from theese people since I move out... But the year at "Komvux" helped me in some way to get back on my feet (as society would put, me myself isn't that sure about that), and with some work I managed to qualify for university. In a computer-related education called Applied Computer Science and System Engineering. The education was located in Trollhättan in VGL, so I hadn't much choice but to move up there...
At the end of this story of my life, I'll name some of the persons that been important in my life, starting here;
Thomas Karlsson, Eken, Janne Kemi, Jonas Carlsson, Mikael Ögren, Daniel Andersson (back when you lived near me, long before the engagement in a specific movement which I don't support and never will), Eric Ahlström, Oskar Granberg, Samuel Claesson, Andreas Thulin, Per-Henrik Appelquist and some others who I feel very strongly about but can't name since I think that that would get stupid... Don't think that the names are listed in some specific order... it's just pure chaos, as I should be, which is the beauty in life...
Rutgher Persson 20040620