Author Archives: Alexandra

GoPro Hero4 Silver

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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.

My new toy is here and it is amazing. It is so tiny though and I need to figure out what the main settings should be because it’s gonna be in a plastic shell and I can’t use advanced settings without the touch screen. I am so excited to try it this weekend when I will go surfing in Ventura with Poly Escapes.

Other things that happened today were the library… And that’s it. I was there all day today, I just went home to make dinner before my 7pm class. But I did manage to do most of my homework for Transportation Engineering which is due tomorrow morning. There was one problem I didn’t even bother to try. I hope the professor doesn’t choose that one to grade. He only takes one problem and grades thoroughly and the rest just by looking at the effort.

Class today was about sustainable development within food systems. It was interesting but I was tired and it was hard to focus. When I went home I finished my homework, played with my GoPRo and now all of a sudden it is almost 2am… It is not gonna be fun waking up in 4 hours. But the homework needed to be done, and I kinda had to make a cheat sheet for the midterm next week. Having all the equations written down will help me tomorrow when I will start studying for it tomorrow or on Friday. So much to do all the time. But I am still happy, I am in California! (And my cold is almost on its way out of my body!)

First GoPro picFirst picture ever taken with my brand new GoPro Hero 4 Silver. Can’t wait to use it outside of my tiny dorm room! GoPro APPThere is an app from where I can control the camera, like see on my phone screen what the camera sees and then take photos with my camera from my phone. Super cool!

Studying

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This morning was scary. I have passed out (like for real when I get unconcious) three times in my whole life. And after this morning, if I didn’t know the signs for it that number would have been 7. Okay, it wouldn’t… But whatever. In the timespan of an hour I had to lay down on the ground four times. First it happened when I was making breakfast. I had to sit down for a few minutes, but when I stood up slowly I could only do so for a couple of minutes before I had to sit down again. But I managed to take the food into my room and sit down. But that wasn’t enough. About ten minutes later I couldn’t even sit on my chair, I had to lay down on the floor for five minutes. And that same thing happened again. I was afraid I wasn’t gonna make it to class so I emailed my teacher, but at 7:25 I felt okay and rode my bike there anyway and wasn’t even late. I’ve been feeling crappy today as well, but I didn’t feel like passing out again which is good.

I didn’t go home during my four hour break, so first I had lunch with Kelsey and then I went to the library to try and do the homework. But three hours later I had only finished 1 out of 8 problems. And at three I had to go to my lab class. Those homeworks are stupid. Way too hard. But I am gonna work on it the whole day tomorrow!

After the lab I finished my paper but I am not gonna hand it in just yet. I wanna reread it at least one more time. And after that I have been trying to summarize the last few weeks in Architecture History. The midterm is coming up and I want to be prepared. Since I won’t be able to study this weekend I wanna start early. For those of you who don’t know, I am going on a surf trip to Ventura with Poly Escapes. I am super excited and I will get my GoPro camera tomorrow so I will be able to document the whole thing :).

Now I will go to bed and read, I haven’t done that in forever so my eReader automatically turned itself off, which it does after like three days of being inactive. I have to start reading again, otherwise my 800 books long list will never shrink.

Another cold

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I just got rid of the cough I had and now I have another cold. This time it’s not the throat though, but my nose and sinuses. The ClearQuil works, but when I wake up it feels like half my head is gonna explode. And during the day I feel feverish and I didn’t accomplish much today unfortunately. I was gonna get up at 10am to first finish my paper and then start on my homework for Transportation Engineering. I snoozed for 40 minutes and then realized that I would not be able to leave the bed for at least two more hours, so I went back to sleep and woke up at 12:30 sometime and went up for some breakfast at 1pm.

I wrote a lot on my paper and now I only have a short ending to the paper to write. So that is good. But I didn’t do the homework, I was feeling way too crappy for that. So I will buckle up and do it tomorrow instead.

I bought some very expensive ice cream at the Village Market and now I will move my computer to bed, watch The Flash and eat ice cream. Hopefully fall asleep early…

Soccer: Cal Poly vs. UCSB

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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.

How did November get here so fast?? I’ve been here for almost 2 months now, but it really doesn’t feel like it. So weird. I don’t like it. It has been pretty fall-y the past two days. It’s been cold and I’ve worn jeans and a sweater even during the day. I hope it will get warmer soon again.

Today’s big thing was the soccer game and before that I didn’t do anything else than waking up at noon and then going grocery shopping with Kelsey. My sinuses has been congested today as well, but I bought ClearQuil, pills that will help sinus & congestion. I hope it works, I don’t wanna get sick again.

So going to a big soccer game, the biggest of the year actually (they say that Cal Poly and UCSB has the biggest sports rivalry within college), was probably not the best idea ever. But I didn’t scream and I do feel okay. I feel a bit feverish to be honest, but I hope that will be gone tomorrow. I am off, but I really need to finish my paper and start on my Transportation Engineering homework.

Anyway, the game was fun, except that the level of the game was pretty low. The arena was filled to the limit and everyone was super into the game so it was definitely a fun experience. For some stupid reason I forgot to put on my Cal Poly hoodie and went to the game in my new knitted sweater instead. Stupid. But it is warmer so it was nice. A lot of people meant that we stood like packed herring so it wasn’t too cold. We lost by 2-0 and we missed a penalty shot.

Alex G Spanos Stadium

I am gonna try and go to a lot of Cal Poly games. Not many within each sport, but at least one in each. There are a lot of sports, but the ones I want to go to are women’s volleyball, men’s baseball and basketball. I just love the school spirit everyone here has. So different from Sweden.

Goodbye pumpkinsBefore I went grocery shopping with Kelsey we brought our pumpkins to the top of the parking structure and kicked them off the ledge. That was so much fun, haha!Cauliflower-spinach-feta-cod casseroleI also cooked tonight again, cauliflower/spinach/feta/cod casserole. I made the mistake of putting cod in there so it got very runny. But it was still very good and Toby enjoyed a homecooked meal for once. He will pay me back by cooking for me.

New shoes

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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.

It is the day after Halloween, most people were hungover but there were still a lot of people at the library. On a Saturday… It was a bit sad going there, but it was fun being there with Kelsey and dark-haired Cody (there’s a blonde one too). I did get work done, I wrote about one page on my Field Trip paper.

Walked back home after a few hours, talked to Lauren for a while and then wrote some more. At 8pm me, Kelsey and Lauren went downtown to meet up with the fourth, Rachel, and we had dinner at Habit. Really good burgers and sweet potato fries.

On our way to the car we stopped at Ross and I found two pair of shoes that I accidently bought. What’s good about Ross is that it is very cheap, and I kinda wanted to have high-heels. Converse isn’t that pretty when you go out. I am still looking for sandals, but those are hard to find in the stores now since it’s “fall and going towards winter”. I still want my sandals. Maybe I should look on Amazon. They have everything! And I am gonna order some things from there tomorrow or maybe the day after. I am gonna buy a GoPro (I think I said that before), snorkeling gear, and a garlic peeler. I might as well add a cute pair of sandals.

This morning when I woke up my sinuses hurt. I have been sneezing this whole day. I really don’t wanna get sick again. I just got non-sick! I hope it will be better tomorrow. Because tomorrow’s the big soccer game!

New shoes

Halloween 2014

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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.

Well, this evening did not turn out as I was hoping. I have to say that I am pretty disappointed. For the first time in like 200 days the rain finally came and that made everyone crazy. First, everyone hated it and didn’t wanna go out in the “freezing cold”. So after like one and a half hour of discussing how we were gonna go downtown (which was after a long discussion on whether we were going to a house party first, but then decided no because we had heard rumors that they were full) and we finally found a ride, the three girls I was with decided to skip the whole thing. That’s when my party mode totally disappeared so I just went to my room, wrote a little on my field trip thinking paper for Sustainable Environments. Then I started thinking about the Caribbean and started researching what to do there. I have a nice list now. So many beautiful beaches, and I’ve found many tours that sound nice. But I’ve decided that I will need a car most of the days on Puerto Rico. I might skip the car the last two days if I take tours on those. I will start looking into Jamaica now, unless I fall asleep, I am kinda tired. These lists will be updated, but it feels good to have something already. I am still very very excited about this. For example, google Flamenco Beach, Puerto Rico. I am totally going there!

So, Halloween didn’t turn out what I was hoping, but I think we are a bunch going out tomorrow, so I guess I can use my $50 costume then.

The day in general was pretty okay. I finally sent those two packages, it was a bit annoying since I had to go downtown to do it. And it was even more annoying that I got an email when I got home telling me that I got a thing that should have been in one of the packages I just sent to my brother. Stupid!

I started writing the paper in the afternoon and I made a spinach/mushroom omelet which turned out really well. The only thing missing was the feta cheese. Next time!

Halloween 2014, viking The British boysThe two British boys living a floor above us. Adorable!

Pumpkin carving

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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 didn’t get much sleep last night. I hate Wednesday evenings, I get out of class at 10 pm and I have to get up early so I am in class at 7:40am the next morning. It sucks! But tomorrow I don’t have to get up until 10:30am, yay!

After my first two classes today I went to the bike guy and traded my bike (and a 6-pack of Corona as a processing fee) for a new one. It is way nicer, the breaks works and the tires are wider so it’s more stable to ride. Love it!

New bike

On my break today I painted my nails and watched the latest episode of The 100. Love that show!

In the lab we handed in our latest lab report and got a long introduction for our next lab which is a four class project about AutoCAD Civil 3D. We are gonna design a road in the coastline mountains north from here. That will be fun. It s a 30 point lab. Normally they are 10, so this is big.

I went to Target with Kelsey to buy LED candles for our pumpkins. And when we got home we started carving them. We were a few people sitting on the floor on the third floor carving. This year I made a similar design as the one I did last year. But instead of a howling wolf, I made a cat. The problem was that I carved out the whole moon before I realized that I shouldn’t have done that. I got really upset, but went to my room instead, picked up the tape I bought yesterday (that was lucky) and taped the whole piece back onto the pumpkin and started over on the other side. It turned out pretty.

Pumpkin Carving in PCV Gypsum 3rd floorToby, Rachel, me, Cody, Ryan, Margarita and Lauren. (Ryan’s pic) Pumpkin 2014The five steps to the end result. First an ugly design which now looks like a mutilated Mew Pokémon, then the taped pumpkin, the new cat design, the carved cat and the cat pumpkin in action. It’s funny when the cute cat is facing out, and Mew is visible from inside our living room/kitchen, haha.

After that the same people hung out in our apartment, eating ice cream and brownies. A very nice evening, many many laughs with Ryan’s weird horse head (those are very creepy, but very funny) and Kelsey’s funny video when she brushed the horse’s teeth. Hilarious!

Hanging out in our apartment

Our pumpkins are decorating our living room window and tomorrow’s Halloween! I am so excited!

I am going to the CARIBBEAN

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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.

In 43 days I will be sitting on a plane on my way to my biggest adventure so far. Sure, moving to San Diego for 13 months was pretty big, and moving to San Luis Obispo to try out the life of an American college student was too. But going on a more-than-three-week-vacation alone to the Caribbean is pretty frickin big! It is still not completely 100% certain that I will go all by myself, I am still trying to convince my mom and Toby and his brother. And I will of course meet lots of people at the hostels, but I will go there by myself. And I couldn’t be more excited!!

So, on the late evening of December 11th (my last day of finals) I will jump on a plane to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. It is pretty far away so it will take me 14 hours before I land at 2pm on December 12th, and that’s when my adventure will begin. I will stay in Punta Cana for 8 nights (Dec 12-20), then fly for an hour to San Juan in Puerto Rico. The hostel there has a 7 night rule so I will be on my way to my third and last destination on December 27, to Montego Bay on Jamaica. I will stay there for 8 nights and then a 12 hour flight back to San Luis Obispo on January 4th. I am beyond excited and I was literally shaking when everything was booked this afternoon. In total everything will end up at $3000 and I think that is a fair amount of money to pay for 23 days in paradise.

I’ve started googling on what there is to do and I have a feeling that the planning is gonna take a while. There are so many things to do, and so many amazing beaches!! Have you ever heard about the Blue Flag Organization? Me neither. But that is a ranking thing in Europe and they rank the best beaches in the world. Punta Cana has several and the Dominican Republic in general has more Blue Flag ranked beaches than any other Caribbean island. I think I will be in for a treat (since I love beaches).

I just started looking into it so I haven’t really come up with anything yet except that there is a Hard Rock Cafe in Punta Cana and that there is a catamaran cruise to a very beautiful island. It costs $90 but it looks awesome. And since I will be traveling alone I think tours would be good for me. But I will of course have plenty of lazy days by myself at the beach too. And I am planning to go ziplining on one of the islands.

I’ve also decided that I am gonna invest in a GoPro camera for $399. I am going to the Caribbean, crystal clear waters and hopefully nice fish and turtles (dolphins?) and the new series are waterproof. And with a stick I would be able to take selfies without looking too ugly up close. I don’t wanna go to several paradise islands without having proof that I was there. So I will buy it, hopefully soon. And when it comes to money, I’m not short of it. A few days ago I got the stipend from Chalmers for going here. It’s pretty great that my school pays me 25 000 SEK ($3400) to go to California to study for a year. And in a month I will get my financial aid of 46 000 SEK. I am not gonna be wasting money on unnecessary things, but I also don’t wanna feel like I did on Hawaii this January when I couldn’t buy things because of lack of money. So I am not gonna feel bad for renting a car for a whole week on Puerto Rico for example. I will save money on food, since it is a bit awkward to go to restaurants on your own.

I’m sure you can tell that I am excited since I’ve been writing almost a whole page in word about this already. I just can’t believe this is happening. I am going to the Caribbean for 23 days in just 43 days!!! 😀 I don’t want time to go faster than it already is, but I want Winter Break to be here NOW! And I guess time goes slower when you really look forward to something? So that’s good too, because I still don’t wanna leave SLO. And when this trip is over I have Spring Break to look forward to. I’m hoping for Cancun!

Anyway, this morning I couldn’t sleep in because I had a field trip in Paso Robles at 8:30am. It was an interesting field trip as well. They had transformed a street (21st Street) into a “Complete Street” I think it was called.

When I came home at 11am I booked the trip and then I went with Kelsey and Toby for some errands. Lauren had to study so she couldn’t come with. We bought pumpkins, carving tools and some other things. It was a successful trip. I got home, just had time to make dinner and then off to class. I almost fell asleep today, but I managed to stay awake by eating my dark chocolate pieces flavored with pomegranate I accidently bought today. Good thing I did though, because they kept me awake. It’s so embarrassing falling asleep in class…

Now I am home and I know I should go to bed, but I so want to go to google and look up amazing things to see and do on DR. Stupid excitement!

Punta-Cana-BeachThis is the closest beach to the hostel I will stay at on Dominican Republic! EXCITED!!!!!

Test results

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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.

Sorry for the silence the last couple of days, but I’ve been in beed watching movies until I fell asleep. I have finally watched the two Amazing Spiderman movies. I didn’t want to at first because I loved the first Spiderman triology and didn’t want anyone else to take Toby Maguires place as Spiderman. But I have to say that The Amazing Spiderman movies are amazing! I loved them.

Anyway, today’s big event was the email I got this morning. It was from my gynecologist telling me that I still have cell changes, but not bad enough that it has to be removed ASAP. A new test when I get back to Sweden was enough. I am so relieved!! This means that I can go to the Caribbean this winter. I was planning on booking it tonight, but for some reason the time just disappeared so I will do it tomorrow instead.

I got the results for my architecture history class as well and it was okay. I got 41 out of 50 on the multiple choice questions which was a B-. But then I got an F (5/10 = 50%) on the short essay questions. So the resulting grade was 76% and a C. The grades are so high here. 70% on a test is a C, a pass? I feel bad for not getting higher grades (except in the transportation lab where I am doing great). But I at least pass everything. And I found out today that I don’t have to pass all of my credits to stay in the country. I thought I was gonna get kicked out if I failed a class. I am not planning on it, but IF it happened I didn’t wanna worry about this. I just have to make sure that I pass enough classes to be able to enroll in classes for the next quarter. I don’t know how many that is, still waiting for a reply. But now I am calm again.

In the lab in the afternoon I wrote on the paper, I organized a ride for tomorrow’s field trip, and printed package labels for my two packages I’m about to send to Sweden. I am a great multitasker.

After class I made dinner, chicken filet, quinoa, a salad on the side and Famous Dave’s BBQ sauce. Healthy and easy. I did have some ice cream after dinner which probably made the whole dinner unnecessary, but I don’t care. You need sweets once in a while.

Chicken dinner

And time disappeared after that while I was talking to my roommates. And now I need to go to bed, I am not off tomorrow, I have a lot of things to do. Like go to a “green street” in Paso Robles for my last field trip, run tons of errands with Kelsey, Lauren and Toby and then go to my evening class. I don’t like doing many things in a day. It makes time go by faster and I don’t like that. I don’t wanna leave this awesome place…

Wine tasting, tattoo, BofA, shopping, frat party

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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.

Yesterday was a very fun day. It started with a field trip to a winery in Paso Robles, Kukkula Winery it was called. It is Finish and means “living on the hill” or something. The guy owning the place had a Finish father. The farm was an organic and dry farm, which means he doesn’t use pesticides, fertilizers or water. If the soil is fertile and full of porous rocks it works out in the end. It is very important to keep away weeds and have distance between the plants to keep the water competition low.

We got lunch there and at the same time a mini wine tasting. We tried 8 wines in total, one white, one rosé and the rest red. When the grapes aren’t watered the color and the taste become more intense which made the wines very spicy and strong. I wasn’t a big fan of it, but I have to say that my favorite was a red wine called Sisu.

Kukkula dry farming Kukkula Winery wine storage Kukkula wine tasting

I got a little tipsy after that to be honest but not too bad. When we got back to SLO Kelsey and Lauren picked us up and we went to the Halloween store so they could look at costumes. They didn’t find anything.

Our next stop was Traditional Tattoo. I had an appointment at 2pm with Butters. I was a little nervous, like always. It went well and it hurt more than the other two I have, probably because it was so close to the bump on the side of my ankle. After about 40 minutes it was done and it was perfect. So much better than the picture I showed him. I am very very satisfied with it. It is the biggest I have so far (but it is still not big) and it was also the cheapest, I paid $80 for it.

Butters My third tattooMy third tattoo

But when I tried to pay my card didn’t work. So it wasn’t just the ATM that didn’t work on Thursday. My whole card is wrong. I went to the bank and they told me that the card was completely gone from the system. The guy who helped me get a new card told me he had never seen anything like it. Weird. I got a temporary card and will get a new real card pretty soon.

Our next stop was for a late lunch at Panera Bread. We had dropped off Johanna before the bank and the three roommates went clothes shopping at Forever 21. I don’t have many clothes here and really needed to buy some more tops and a new pair of “longer” shorts. It was needed. And it was cheap, no fancy brands like I did last year. I bought 6 things for $80. That’s not bad at all.

That store was huge so we got straight home after that. I cleaned my tattoo, took a shower and put on the $9 dress I bought and went to a frat party with Kelsey and Margarita. It was the British boy’s Phi Psi frat and I have to admit that it was fun. Three floors in a house, bottom was a dance floor, middle one was the bar and third social floor. Nothing bad happened, we just had a fun evening dancing. I liked it and will probably be back another weekend. Luka, the guy from Chalmers is a pledge at Phi Psi as well, but he wasn’t there last night.

Phi Psi frat party

I was home at 2am I think and stayed up for a while talking to Rachel, who just got home from a line dancing evening, and Lauren who couldn’t sleep. I stayed up and waited for Kelsey and made sure she got home safe and sound, which she did.Me and LaurenMe and Lauren in the middle of the night.

I slept until 12:30pm and I am still very tired. I am not hungover, just tired, so I should probably take a nap before I start writing on my two papers. I also have to look into how to send packages to Sweden. It is more complicated here since I have to do it online.