Monthly Archives: January 2015

Study at the library

Posted on by
1

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I don’t know if you guys know this, but I am not very fond of the library. I don’t know why, but I guess I like my own room better even if there are more distractions here. But today I had too much that needed to be done so I spent four hours there with Matt. I actually got a lot of stuff done. First I looked at what my partner had written for the report that is due tomorrow afternoon. It looked good, so I finished the reading for the Urban Planning quiz (we have one quiz before every class (twice a week)) and then did the quiz. 97%, not too bad. Then I wrote down ten German verbs and conjugated all of them. We have a quiz tomorrow on the prepositions and ten verbs. I hope that will go well. I feel like I know it all, but I am not good at forming sentences. Cross your fingers for me!

At 11 I felt that I was done, so I went out in the cold and headed home. Here I have watched funny cat videos and put together several different potential schedules for next quarter. I am waiting for responses from several people about different classes. But I have all my options saved so when February 10th comes, I will be ready to enroll. I am hoping for CRP 214 – Land Use and Transportation Studies, ENVE 331 – Introduction to Environmental Engineering, GER 103 – Elementary German III, and CRP 409 – Planning Internship. I am also considering KINE 181 – First Aid/CPR/AED on top of all of those to renew my certification. But I am not sure about that yet (it is two extra hours every week). The Environmental Planning Methods that I wanted to take only covers the California laws when it comes to planning, so it might not benefit be at all if I don’t end up here. And that one was also early mornings and 4 hours each time, so I want to take the Land Use class instead. Better times and seems better suited for me no matter where I end up. I hope I can take the Environmental Engineering class too, but that is completely up to my advisor at Chalmers. I think that environmental engineering is definitely good for all types of engineers. But I am patiently waiting for my advisor’s email reply. If it is not okay, then I will just take a class called CE 421 – Traffic Engineering and have three out of five very early mornings, and also have class on Friday’s. Let’s cross all your fingers again for this NOT to happen! I also want to take the Planning Internship class which will give me at least 60 hours of work experience in planning, and also 2 units to my transcript. But it might be too late to find a company to work for even if I got a thumbs-up from my advisors here at Cal Poly regarding my visa status. If I get that internship, it could be my way in to stay permanently in California. But if I don’t, it just means that I have to contact companies directly and apply for a real job directly instead. Probably more work, but since I really want this, I am ready to put the effort into it.

I’ve been very productive today, and I will end this long day with the latest episode of The Flash and then prepare for a long long day tomorrow (Thursday’s are the worst, 6 hours of consecutive lectures, no breaks, and all in different parts of campus of course).

German quiz 2 This is my German quiz #2. Don’t mind all the errors. But read the questions. My German teacher is the best! Today in class he had brought a light saber and a sonic screwdriver, he also went on an on about a guy’s feral cat invasion in his house and joked about it. I have never laughed in class as much as I do in his class (he is a good teacher too and teach us so much). Heil Edler Graf von Anderson!California sunsetI can’t get enough of beautiful sunsets and they seem to be endless here. I love it! They make me happy.

Still not 100%

Posted on by
Reply

The last two mornings when I woke up I was feeling great, like nothing was wrong. But as the days progressed I got worse and the day ended with me feeling sick again. It is not too bad, but I do feel dizzy and it is hard to focus in class. Especially yesterday afternoon in Public Transportation. It was an interesting class because we had a guest speaker. But he was in Oakland and presented over the computer. Impressive technology. It was not a very interesting subject, but still pretty cool that that is do-able.

My nose is still very congested at times and I am coughing. I don’t even know why! But it feels like something is stuck in my chest and I can’t get it out of there. Annoying like nothing else.

I wrote a list today of what I have coming up and it is actually a long list. And it made me realize that I have two midterms next week. Oops. I did not know that until today! But I am sure it will be fine.

This afternoon I felt better than yesterday so I actually managed to do a lot of things. I started on the Planning assignment where I will answer questions about my hometown. The German homework is done. Prepositions are hard, but this went better than the Perfect Tense. I also finished my part of the San Diego public transit report that’s due on Thursday. A productive afternoon/evening. Now I am thinking of calling it a night. I don’t have to get up early tomorrow or anything, but the bed is calling more than usual tonight.

Getting better

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday and today I’ve seen a lot of improvement in my health. Yesterday when I woke up I could breathe. I wasn’t feeling like I usually do, but definitely better than the day before that when I was in bed all day. Today was even better, I coughed a lot this morning, but my nose was clear and I only had a little headache. It is so awesome that it is going in the right direction! I just hope it stays this way and I won’t get it back in three days.

Today I did a lot of German homework, watched TV shows and then played some Guild Wars 2. The big announcement yesterday morning was the first expansion pack. It seems really cool, but I don’t know when it will be out. No date was announced. Today I finally learned how to use the crafting system, long overdue, I know. I actually managed to get a character to level 40 (from 27) by doing it for like an hour.  Definitely the easiest way to level a character.

I am going to eat some ice cream now, watch Big Hero 6 and then go to bed. School tomorrow again. I am crossing all my fingers and toes that I will be fully recovered tomorrow.

Guild Wars 2

Posted on by
Reply

Being sick has made me start playing GW2 again. Tonight I finished the latest Living World Season episode and it was crazy! Tomorrow morning there will be a big announcement for what is coming. It is something big, that’s for sure.

The whole day, I was in bed reading. I slept really badly and am still pretty sick, so a day in bed seemed right. I finished the last third of Fire, the second book of Graceling Realm Triology. It wasn’t exactly a sequel to the first one, all of the books takes place in the same world, but at different times. The third and first seems to be connected though. A good series!

I have felt better today than the days before, but my nose is still very congested, but I didn’t feel feverish today so that is good. My eyes have been runny though, which is a little bit weird.

For dinner I had pulled chicken which had been cooking the whole day. I actually smelled it, but couldn’t taste as much. The little I tasted though was really good.

I can’t believe it is already midnight. But the bed didn’t seem that inviting after spending almost the whole day in it. But I think I have to give in now and start reading Bitterblue. Tomorrow will probably be a similar day to today. I really want to get rid of this cold!

Sick again

Posted on by
Reply

Why does this keep happening to me? How can I be sick again?? It was like the cold took vacation with me in the Caribbean and now it’s like: Hey, guess who’s back?!

My sinuses are all messed up, my nose is runny and I’ve been feverish this whole day. And tomorrow will be a busy day and also the day I say goodbye to Toby. He leaves SLO tomorrow and I still can’t really believe it. But I know for sure though that I will see him in the summer and fall again. Sweden and Germany are very close to each other. It will be very empty when he is gone.

Except realizing the truth about my health today I went to two classes. I got my quiz back in German, I was several points above average and only one point away from max score. Go me! Public Transportation is not as interesting as I thought it would be. The teacher is hard to follow (he is Indian and speaks very fast with an accent). Maybe it will get better.

In the evening we were a bunch of people going to Firestone for Toby’s goodbye dinner. I just love their pulled pork sandwich. The best! And today I saved half for tomorrow. Then we had a little bit of froyo and the rest of the evening we all hung out in Toby’s room playing Cards Against Humanity. Even sober, that game is hilarious! I came third, not too bad.

Now it is really late, I don’t feel too well, so I should probably go to bed so I can wake up early and say goodbye to my best friend here. I am gonna miss him so much!!

Hike and drive-in movie

Posted on by
Reply

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

The summer keeps going on and I love it. I slept until noon today (I didn’t end up in bed until 3am). I was planning on doing laundry but realized I would barely make it til 2pm when we were going on a hike. So I postponed it once again. But tomorrow morning it will most definitely happen.

At 2 we were a bunch of people hiking up to Serenity Swing. It was the perfect day for a hike, the sun was out, but not too warm. The hike was not too bad, but we did take shortcuts over the hills and that was hard on my calves. But I survived. We will see how bad they are tomorrow. The view from the top was amazing as last time. Except this time it was greener. So very very pretty.

The way back was hard on the thighs since it was downhill all the way. I didn’t have much time at home after that before Matt picked me up. We went to Sunset drive in. I have never been to one before, but it was really cool. He had borrowed his mom’s car in which you can take down the back seats so you can lay down. He had a lot of blankets and it was very romantic. We saw two movies, Taken 3 and Unbroken. The first one was okay, but the second one was really good. Extremely sad, but a very good movie.

After he dropped me off I hung out with Toby, David, and Rachel for a bit, but now it is definitely time to go to bed. School tomorrow again. Today we were off because of Martin Luther King day. I like these American holidays!

Serenity Swing SLO is so beautiful!Serenity Swing roomies The girls of 310! ❤Serenity Swing This time I actually went on the swing.Serenity Swing

Beach and banana bread

Posted on by
2

It is January, isn’t it? Today it definitely didn’t feel like it. The afternoon was spent at Avila Beach with Matt and his friends and it was like any other Swedish summer days. Maybe a little bit colder, but not much. We played a lot of beach volleyball, Kan Jam (which is a Frisbee game, actually pretty fun), and then ended the day by going in the water. I still find it incredible that it is even possible to be at the beach in January, and go in the water even! I can’t say that it was warm, but after a while of just standing there, watching the sun get lower and lower in the sky, it didn’t feel cold anymore and I jumped in. According to internet it was 60F (15.5C), which is cold. But definitely not too cold. Maybe I am embracing my Swedish Viking heritage more when I am away from home?

We stayed until the sun set and on our way back the whole sky was the most amazing pink color I have ever seen a sunset be. It was so beautiful!

It was a very fun day anyway. I spent two hours at Matt house trying to get warm, he cooked dinner for me and then drove me home. The plan tonight was to hit downtown, but no one wanted to except me and Toby, so we will do it tomorrow instead and try to recruit more people.

So instead of going downtown I spent a lot of my time awake baking. First I baked white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for Rachel (and I got two) so she could pay with that instead of money to the line dancing thing. And then I baked banana bread for the very first time, and also from scratch. It turned out delicious! Why haven’t I ever baked that before?

I made my sweet cravings go down, now I am very super full and totally ready to go to bed and watch an episode of The 100. It is Saturday, 11pm, and there is nothing wrong with that even for a college student!

Friday night bowling

Posted on by
Reply

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

This morning Toby and I went for our second run this week. I wasn’t too excited when waking up at noon (after 12 hours of sleep), with hurting calves, but we did it, pretty much the same as last time, some walking, mostly running, and then walked through all of Architecture Graveyard. Up there we found some horses and slowly approached them and we even pet them. That was so cool. I have a huge respect for horses (they are huge and strong and love to bite and kick so I have my reasons), but these guys were friendly and didn’t mind posing with us. It was pretty awesome.

After a well-deserved shower my roommates and I went downtown for a little bit of shopping and then I just spent an hour or two in my bed watching Arrow. At 8pm we were a bunch of people going to the UU to bowl. For once I sucked big time! Like really really much! The person who came second to last had 30 more points than I. Embarrassing. I am usually pretty good at bowling and at least get over 100p, but today it was just 52. We played another game and I did as bad. BUT, my second to last turn I got a spare with zero the first try (so that is a strike). And my next time, the last of the whole game, I made two strikes in a row (three in total in a row which must be a record for me), and I ended up third instead of sixth. That was amazing! It was a very great evening.

We walked home and now I am ready for bed. The beach (and Matt, I haven’t seen him since Wednesday morning) is waiting for me tomorrow.

Architecture Graveyard SLO is so beautiful and green in the winter!Architecture Graveyard Toby and the horse Toby to the left, and the horse to the right. Or wait, was it the other way around?!The horse and I Bowling game 2Toby, David, me, Rachel, Lauren, Cody. I played as Zlatan since he is from Sweden. And this shows how badly he sucks! Look at my last two boxes!!

The Wedding Ringer

Posted on by
Reply

This day started horribly, but turned better. My classes went well, Toby joined me for my German class and really enjoyed it, and so did the teacher. I love my German teacher, he is the best! Then I had a late lunch with Toby out in the sun at the UU Plaza, and then an hour of working on a Public Transportation project. The presentation is next Thursday and the report is due the week after. We did most of the presentation today, feels great!

Back home, had dinner and then watched a couple of episodes of The 100 and used Uber for the first time. Great idea with private taxi drivers. Toby and I went to the movies to see The Wedding Ringer, better than I expected. Probably nothing I would pay money for to see at the movies, but it was student price Thursday and it was fun to go out for a bit.

Now I will go to bed, with an empty mind (no school things to do this weekend, yay!) and go for a run with Toby tomorrow when I wake up without an alarm. Some VS shopping with my roomies after that and bowling in the evening, a good start on this weekend!

Goodnight!

Week 2 = studying?

Posted on by
Reply

Today has been all about studying. And I wonder why, this is beginning of week 2, there shouldn’t be anything to study this early! I have seriously been studying non-stop since I got out of class today at 3pm and I just stopped. I took an hour break when I had dinner, but that was it. I had stuff to do in all of my three classes, I had a lot of reading (which took like two hours today since I was super tired and couldn’t really focus) and a quiz which I then summarized in my “questions” document in Urban Planning. Then I had a huge German homework where I first conjugated ten verbs and then tried to find ten sentences on Bild.de and change them into both future tense and past tense. Toby (my German friend who is super bored right now and helps me correct my homeworks) told me that was a very difficult homework. It took a long time too. In the middle of it we were forced to take a break because the stupid fire alarm went off. I never saw any notes in the building about a drill, but when we got out, the police officer told us about important stuff when the alarm goes off and no fire truck came. This fire alarm is the worst ever, it is super loud and actually hurts my ears.

I had mushroom soup for dinner and watched an episode of The 100 and then started working on my Public Transportation presentation/report. I wrote a whole page, which is basically all I have to do. Tomorrow I am meeting up with one of my group members to go through our part of the presentation which is the future of San Diego’s public transit. It’s pretty interesting.

Even if I am not super into going to school, being here at Cal Poly is really something I needed. I see connections in all my classes here (maybe not German). I never did that in Sweden so this last year actually feels meaningful. And it is a bit funny that the one class I like most is the one not counting towards my major, the German class. I really like it and I already feel like I know more than I did a week ago. This week we’ve been learning about the past and the future, I have never learned that before. Progress!