My name is Nicklas Wicklander, and I own this website. I am from Örnsköldsvik, and I have kept myself busy since childhood. Many people around me have always been “at the moment” types of people and want to have things tidy before doing anything else. It often made them late to appointments, and many times have not made an effort to prepare for what we will do. This childhood made me very organized, and I usually try to optimize my time usage. This experience is a big reason why I always am doing something. I never try to sleep in, even though my girlfriend likes to.
1 Youngster
I grew up in a house with a big property attached and with woods and farms nearby, and we had a lot of animals around. We had mainly cats and dogs, with some smaller rodents that made the cut and were a part of our family. With extended family and neighbors, I saw all the animals you could have as pets, including mice, gerbils, ferrets, rabbits, fish, snakes, lizards, spiders, horses, domestic pigs, turtles, and many other animals. In a nearby forest, I saw some wild domestic animals too.
When I was about 6-7, my parents exposed me to my first two passions, Sports and IT, which are life-long. I started with football (soccer, for you Americans) and hockey. Hockey made for a weird experience as my club did not have a team for my year. I had all my friends in the year below, and in the year above, several of my school bullies played. So, it was short-lived, as I eventually had to move to the older team. I continued played to play football and used the school systems gym class to test out a lot of sports like basketball, handball, cricket, field hockey, and American football. Many of them I tried as a sport later but did not stick.
I remember my mom using different techniques to get us to do stuff. Some obvious like give us good relation to making food. But others were less so obvious at the time. One of these was to start reading. My mom took me to a library, and we borrowed a few books in different categories. One was “The Book of Three” from “The Chronicles of Prydain” by Lloyd Alexander. She read the first chapter and said she needed to do laundry. I was too curious to wait and started to read. It was the start of a reading journey that included a lot of different genres. This reading experience also started the desire to write my own stories.
My mom was also open that we needed to be ready to care for ourselves when we moved out. That meant we needed to learn to cook, do laundry and clean around the house. And not do some easy cooking like pasta and a little sauce. When we got better and better, we did things like chili con carne, porter steak, and homemade meatballs. Swedish cuisine mostly and a few dishes based on other cuisines.
Games were another interest for me, like many other children. I followed the development of most consoles, from NES with Super Mario and Zelda to the most recent ones. My creative side kept me from the most repetitive games like FPS as I got bored fast. But strategy and simulation games were always big favorites, with some sports games sprinkled in. This gaming experience almost made my mom insane when I constantly went in and out of the house for activities like playing games and then going out and shooting with a basketball.
A byproduct of my parent’s love for and competing with dogs is a lot of time for me to learn about them. They also had puppies and a dog hotel for many years. When raising dogs, many people are surprised; I read and respond to dog behavior very fast.
My mom and dad had a big yard. But we had to be creative to fit in all the different spices, vegetables, berries, and fruits. And to avoid using pesticides, we sometimes had some vegetables near each other to keep birds and insects away. This way of arranging plats can confuse their sense of smell.
2 Grade 7-9
My mom, a teacher, started to teach me how to improve my chances in school. From tips on studying to what to do before tests. A lot of positive thinking and digging in to get good results. “50% of doing good in tests is in your head.” The other one is a broad mix of hard work and using good techniques to remember what you are reading.
I started playing floorball and continued with football. As I was out of hockey by this time and football soon enough, I transferred to the 1st team. These sports taught me a lot about players and the player’s psyche. Some players made terrible decisions and blamed others, eventually making them switch teams. This break established a rivalry that existed until they stopped playing. At first, they saw us as the worse team as they wanted to create a super team. But we beat them regularly by will and wanted to show which team was weaker.
I also started following more local and world-famous teams in different sports. Hockey, basketball, and football especially.
Going to the woods around my parent’s house taught me much about surviving there, which I would continue later in life. I live close to a lot of protected nature.
3 Year 10-12
Sports did take a back roll here even though I played and practiced still. Schooling took a more prominent and more significant role in my life. I noticed my interest in IT with programming and underlying software. So, to give myself the best chance to attend university, I changed my subject from Languages to Social Sciences with Culture. This change means I learned a lot about history, geography, religion, and about different cultures, including between men and women. I found myself reading about all types of people and cultures in the library and how they function and believe.
This quiet environment was the first time I noticed I needed some sound in the background to focus. So, I, like many others, started with music, but that made the music the focus at times. So, I used other sounds, like bird sounds, to focus. From animals that were regularly around the house. That excluded the sounds from others in the class but did not block all sounds.
I got my first dog at this age. A female German Shepard came from one of the litters of puppies. This dog was also when I had my first and second girlfriend for two years. Just before I went to university, I had my third girlfriend. This girlfriend taught me much about what works and does not work in relationships. I also became known as Dr. Phil by helping others in their relationships.
4 Härnösand – University Years
I moved south to start university. The rent was cheaper in Härnösand, close to my university town, and my girlfriend attended school here.
After this move, when I experimented with different foods, I started to diversify and try many new things from the bigger cuisines like Italian, French, and Asian. This food was what we did ourselves. And later, I would find out that many tastes were not original but European or Swedish variants of them with a lot fewer spices than the originals usually.
My sports career took an abrupt stop in all sports because of favoritism towards other players (because their parents had vital roles in the club) and some problems with disorganization. Like forgetting times to send players to junior camps, so I switched to coaching. I announced to different floorball clubs I could take gigs coaching. I wanted to get a children’s team. But to my surprise, I got players emerging into division play. A women’s group had been playing in the youth division the year before. It was hard, but we turned things around and won games by the season’s end. This season was, unfortunately, my only season with this club. I wanted to continue to develop them as players.
Unfortunately, my 3rd relationship ended here. So, my next stop was my university town. This move coincided with the time my first dog died back home.
5 Sundsvall
Moving to Sundsvall was hard for many reasons. But another one was to leave my team behind. It took me a long time to decide whether to travel back to coach them. I decided it was not fair to them or me the time needed to travel every week, if it was even possible. But the positive as my next team played in the same division. Was that I could see them continue to develop.
I could also branch out to train different teams in different sports, like trainer roles and specifics like particular trainer for goalkeepers and fitness trainer. I even started training in martial arts. Years later, I coached several people to grow and play in higher leagues, with a bronze medal as a high point.
Besides my university studies, I also started taking courses in Creativity Writing. To better my writing skills further, I also started doing NaNoWriMo events. I could write while waiting for school, or we start training.
I had very little time over with school and hobbies, so after I adopted two cats, that would be more tolerant of me having a lot to do.
This time is when my experimenting with different foods took off. I was living in an area with many new people, many of whom were from other countries. I took the chance to learn a lot from these guys to get even better at cooking recipes from different food cultures. Most cuisines in Europe, Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia. Several American variants and some South American.
6 Back Home
At the end of my time in Sundsvall, I met my next girlfriend, so a move back home was inevitable.
Back in my hometown, I took a break from coaching to focus on other interests. My writing was one of these, and my volume of work increased. I also started several failed blogs before I stopped blogging for a while.
Several friends had children by this point, and I was soon known as fun Uncle Nicklas and got a crash course on children as a babysitter and helped some to learn skills like cooking and helping with homework. I also hosted almost weekly BBQs and food-related events. More friends from other food cultures increased my knowledge of cooking. This time more from Africa and Eastern Europe and an increasing number of others I have started with during university.
During this time, I also got involved in our local justice system. For Americans, it’s like being a semi-pro jury with 1-2 days a month serving as nämndeman. I appreciated how hard it is to be convinced of someone’s guilt. I also got a considerable interest in politics and how research and statistics can be misused to portray something to prove a point. I was surprised so many parties use this tactic.
Humor has been a big part of my life. I even took a stand-up course with a famous comedian during this time. The time investment in traveling made this time sensitive and hard to do, so I quit.
Nicklas Wicklander