Author Archives: Alexandra

The pool and studying

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This weekend was over so extremely fast. I know I have one more day of weekend, but kind of no. I can’t sleep in, have to get up at 8am to go to the office hours of Transportation Engineering because I don’t understand the last two problems of the homework which is due Tuesday.  And then I guess I have to study for my midterms on Thursday. I did some studying today for Architecture History. I read some at the pool in between the mandatory stays in the water (it was about 95F (34C)) so I couldn’t stay up on land for more than four pages. I read a whole chapter on the Greek world while talking to friends. It was fun. We were gonna go to the beach at first, but we decided to go to the pool. Easier to study there.

Went back to the apartment at 5pm, had dinner, took a shower, and I’ve been studying since. I am doing a summary document of all the names and dates and pictures and short descriptions. It takes time. So far I’ve gone through two out of six time periods. I will hopefully be done with it tomorrow and then I guess I need to do some studying for Transportation Engineering as well. I look forward to Thursday evening. All homework will be handed in, my two midterms will be done and I am going out with Julianne to Farmer’s Market and we are also having sushi for dinner. Hopefully this week willbe over as fast as the rest of my four weeks I’ve already spent here. Where does time go?

Internet again

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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.

That only took a few days. Boring days. But early-to-bed-days.

Yesterday I was at the library for most part of the day studying. Doing homework in Transportation Engineering. It took 4 hours to do 6 out of 8 problems, and another two hours of trying with the last two in the evening. It didn’t work. So I will go to office hours with our professor on Monday morning and ask for some help. I guess most students might go. We had two problems which we haven’t even talked about in class.

At 8pm I went to salsa lesson with Johanna. My roommates dissed me because they wanted to go to the social salsa dance tonight, but they ended up not going. I had fun last night. I was so much better than the first time.

I went home and spent the rest of the evening talking to people. Everyone was at the toga party, I wasn’t in a party mood so I just waited until everyone got back and didn’t go to bed until 3am for some reason.

This morning I went to Pismo Beach with Johanna and the Cal Poly beach volleybal club. It was very very foggy this morning but the sun came out eventually as it always does. I couldn’t play as much as I wanted though. I pulled a muscle in my upper but and I couldn’t stretch it out. It still hurts, even if I’ve been on a foam roll a lot this evening. I should probably do some more before I go to bed (which I should have done a long time ago).

Pismo BeachBeautiful Pismo Beach! New bikiniMy new bikini (Victoria’s Secret) is beach volleyball friendly. A little more athletic than my other ones. The neon color makes my tan look nice. Retrieving a flip flopWhen we were getting to the car I dropped one of my flip flops down the rocky side down to the beach. It stopped in the middle, so first I tried throwing rocks at it to make it slide dow to the bottom. Then I decided to walk down there (walk all the way to the staircase and then back on the beach) to try to reach it from down there. It took me like 30 minutes to finally get it. Stupid flip flop…

When we had had a cinnamon roll at Old West Cinnamon Rolls we drove to Avila Valley Barn where there was a pumpkin patch. All the holidays are big here in the States (I’m sure I wrote the exact same thing last year) and a pumpkin patch is where you buy your pumpkins and do stuff like ride horses, feed fat goats, buy locally grown fruits and vegetables, go on hayrides, and buy corn on the cob and stuff like that. It was a fun event and I am going back next weekend with my roommates. We are gonna by pumpkins and carve and put in our windows for everyone outside to see. I so look forward to that. Today we went there with the international students. I only saw a few though.

Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin Patch Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin Patch Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin Patch Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin PatchI got three small pumpkins to have as decorations in our apartment. They are soo cute. The big ones are being bought next weekend. I also bought a lot of fruit. It felt good buying something from a farmer’s market. I do buy a lot of organic food here, but it still felt more special.

When I got home I did my Sustainable Environments homework. And that was a fun homework actually. By taking a test (you can take it HERE) I found my ecological footprint and wrote a 1-page paper about it. I took the test twice, once for my life in Sweden and one for my life here in SLO. If everyone in the world lived like me we would need 1.44 Earths (Sweden and 4.09 (USA). I compared and retook it again to see if some changes made big differences. Very very interesting.

Kelsey baked banana bread tonight and I’ve been trying to figure out what to wear on Halloween. It is not easy. And I feel like it has to be something good since holidays are big here. I have four options so far. What do you think?

Halloween 2014Minion from Despicable Me, Viking, Penguin or a Zombie Fairy? Or something else?

I also got to see the car I probably will buy in December. It is a small convertible and it works perfectly. I so look forward to buying my first car!! And it will be a VW convertible! An international student bought it the other day, but he is only staying this one quarter so I will buy it together with Johanna to use for the next two quarters. I am so excited! And about the driver license. I called the DMV office in Sacramento and they told me I didn’t need to retake the tests. I just have to show up with all my legal papers, take a new photo and wait for the plastic card. I am so happy! Everything works out in the end, like is has for the past year. Life is good.

Volkswagen Cabrio 1999

I really need to go to bed now. I am planning on going up at 8am to study before going to the beach around noon. (And I don’t have any trouble going in and out of bed anymore. I was extremely sore yesterday (3 days after TRX) but now it’s better. I played some beach volleyball at the PCV court Thursday late evening and that removed the last of the soreness. Too many people there though so it wasn’t fun. Next time I will exlusively invite only three people to play seriously with. I look forward to a new week of exercise starting on Monday, for real this time, I will take it even easier this time.)

No WiFi

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Yep, like the title says, the whole village of Poly Canyon is without WiFi and has been since early last night… I think it is really not okay, how are we supposed to do homework? How are we supposed to be antisocial on social media? How are we supposed to know what is going on in the world around us?

It sucks…

I have no idea when it will be up and running again, so bye bye for now, readers!

TRX

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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.

Today was my first day of working out and I feel awful. Right when the TRX class ended I was sore. I couldn’t lift my arms and my legs transformed into spaghetti like right away. And I guess it is only gonna get worse from here. TRX again on Thursday doesn’t sound so fun right now. But I am gonna be serious about this now, no skipping work out days! And working out is the best medicine for muscle soreness.

Green lunchMy super green and healthy lunch; spinach, cucumber, avocado, grapes and pearl couscous and an egg. I definitely get my share of greens here. My problem (especially now when I am gonna start working out seriously) is protein. I am thinking about buying protein powder and drink shakes. Anyone know a good brand? I’ve hard that the best is the 100% whey protein powder and I found a brand on bodybuilding.com called Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard. It’s 100% whey and according to their site it is the best protein powder 9 years in a row. Half price right now. I should probably try it. Salads are healthy, but I need more.

It was pretty hard going to class after that. I was tired and it hurt, but the class was over pretty fast and I was done 45 minutes early so that was nice. We were learning a GIS-program (Geography Information Systems) called ArcMAP. Thursday is all individual and we have to show the teacher what we learned today. He didn’t call it a test, but it seems like it is. I feel okay about it though. I’m doing pretty well so far. I haven’t gotten any grades in any class yet except for that class (transportation engineering lab), but I am doing good. On the first assignment I got 10/10 and now on the second I got 19/20 on the paper and 8.5/10 on the presentation. He is gonna add all points at the end of the course and that will be the final grade. So far I have an A or A- I think. Not too bad for someone who aims for a C.

This morning we got our second homework, this time in transportation engineering. 8 problems that we need to solve before Tuesday, and the midterm is on Thursday. I solved the first one today, but all the other one were like Greek… I will study with Eric probably Friday. I feel lost. Usually I have some clue of what to do, but this was just weird.

Tomorrow I will stay in bed all day reading ARCH history. I have a lot of catching up to do. And now I will go to bed. Early for once! Which means I can get up early tomorrow and get things done, like calling the DMV office in Sacramento. So looking forward to that.

DMV and quarter schedules

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Today was not a very productive day. The only thing I did was some ARCH reading before biking down to the DMV on the south end of SLO. I was prepared to just show my old CA driver license and take a new photo and then be done with it. But apparently I forgot to bring my I-94 paper, which I never got this year (but now you’re supposed to print it yourself). So we had to make a new appointment for next week. AND I can’t just renew it since my application period expired. So I need to retake both the written test and the behind the wheel test. I’m not cool with that so I am gonna call to the Sacramento head office and tell them my story and hopefully I will get away with it. But I got the Driver License Handbook just in case. I am getting a driver license this year, doesn’t matter how!

The way back was hard. Up almost all the way. I stopped in downtown for a bit to buy body lotion (my skin is so dry in this weather! I will get used to it eventually, but it might take time). I got home and had 15 minutes before I had to be at the library, so I grabbed a small snack and then jumped on the bike again. I was so sweaty. It was hot today again, but not as hot. I was at the library with Johanna and Courtney to work on our homework in Sustainable Environments which is due Wednesday. We sat there togetherfor an hour and then I sat alone finishing for another two hours. It felt good to study for once.

When I got back I had dinner, hung at at Ryan’s for a bit and then got back home where I talked to Tobi about my winterbreak trip. He wants to join me for Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. And another guy from Brazil messaged me on Facebook today telling me he was interested too. It would be so great if we could be four people, it would be cheaper and more fun. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS TRIP! I am guessing it will be more epic than my Hawaii trip in January.

Last night I also stayed up late, but I actually did something productive. I decided what classes I want to take. I am not gonna have as awesome schedule as I have now, but I will have a three-day weekend at least. So for Winter quarter I will take ”Intro to Environmental Engineering”, ”Public Transportation”, and ”Elementary German II”. 12 units in total. Monday’s+Wednesday’s 12-17:30, Tuesday’s 14-15, and Thursday’s 14-18. Not too bad. And in Spring quarter I will take ”Water Chemistry and Quality Measurements”, ”Traffic Engineering”, and ”Elementary German III”. Also 12 units. Monday’s 15-16, Tuesday’s+Thursday’s 7:30-16 with a gap between 11 and 15, and Wednesday’s 8-16 (no gaps). Not too bad either. The early Wednesday mornings won’t be too fun, but I guess I will be bored with Pint Night by then. All of those courses sound interesting. And I hope that we will have Professor Bertini on both Public Transportation and Traffic Engineering. He is a good teacher (from what I can tell after two weeks of class with him).
I can register for class on November 10th, so it’s far away. But I wanted to be sure of what to do so I don’t have to stress about it later.

It is way past my bedtime now, I should have been in bed like 1,5 hours ago. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow… My first TRX session is coming up, exciting :).

The pool (again)

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All this sun is making me so exhausted. I slept until noon today, and then I spent three hours at the pool and since then I haven’t done anything except had dinner and made a work-out schedule. It is 8pm and all I want to do is go to bed…

It was so hot when I woke up, just getting out of bed made me sweaty. I skyped with mom and then went to the pool with Kelsey. It was hot, but the water was cool. Back home I had leftovers and then I made a workout schedule. I am gonna try working out 5 (or 4) days a week and it doesn’t look too bad. Monday: Interval training and light full body workout in the gym. Tuesdays: TRX during lunch and maybe Electro Flow Yoga in the evening. Wednesday: rest day. Thursday: TRX during lunch and Vinyasa yoga in the evening. Friday: rest day. Saturday: Beach volleyball at either PCV or Pismo Beach. Sunday: 6-pack abs (30 min class) followed by 45 min of spinning (called Breakaway here). I think I could survive that.

I actually think I am going to bed now. If I go to bed early I might wake up early and have energy to do something tomorrow. Maybe workout? Or maybe some architecture history reading. In the early afternoon I am going to the DMV to renew my drivers license and then doing my homework for Sustainable Environments with Johanna and Courtney. And after that the third week of school begins. I like warmth. But I do hope it cools down, I don’t like being this tired…

Kanelbullens dag

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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.

This Saturday was amazing. We were supposed to start it by playing beach volleyball at the PCV court but it was so windy outside it wouldn’t be fun, so I cancelled. At 11am we went to the beach instead, me, Kelsey, Tobi, Coby, Evan and Julia. We did the right thing. In SLO it was too hot, over 100F. Out at Pismo Beach it wasn’t even that warm. It was okay to lay in a bikini, but it wasn’t super hot. So we spent five hours there. We played beach volleyball (no wind out there surprisingly), went into the cold water (17C /65F), and lay on the beach tanning. It was an amazing day. I didn’t get burned and the water was so much fun. It was cold, but after a while your body got numb and all the big waves made it easier. We also saw several dolphins pretty close to the beach and also some seals. I still get very excited when I see dolphins.

Oh right, I almost forgot. I also tried skin boarding, which is when you are standing on the beach and ride on a thin board out in the water when the wave is just on its way back to the ocean. It is very very hard and I fell on my butt the second time I tried. It didn’t hurt, but I got sandy and had to go in the water again.

Dolphins at PismoDolphins to the right and left in this picture. A surfer in the middle.

Before we left Pismo at like 4pm, we stopped by this awesome place called Old West Cinnamon Rolls. I got a cream cheese frosted one and coby a walnut and we shared so we each got a half of each. So good! I remembered when we were sitting there that it was ”kanelbullens dag” (the day of the cinnamon roll) in Sweden yesterday. Then I googled it and it turned out to be today. Awesome! Not Swedish cinnamon rolls, but still delicous.

The day of the Cinnamon RollAn american cinnamon roll.

Back home we all chilled for a bit. Taking showers and I ordered a new bikini in which I will be able to play beach volleyball in. The ones I have will probably fall off if I go all in. I think it was worth it.

Then me, Kelsey and Lauren went downtown where we met up with Rachel when she got off work and we had a roommate date evening at Firestone Grill. They have the most amazing pulled pork sandwhiches. THE BEST EVER!!!

Roommate date at FirestoneMy amazing roommates. Left to right: Me, Kelsey, Rachel and Lauren. Roommate selfie

Our next thing was to go grocery shopping. I got everything I needed except pasta, but that was probably for the best anyway. I don’t have a scale here, but I am afraid that I’ve gained weight. It is hard being healthy here, but as soon as I start working out it will probably be fine. And speaking of, I just signed up for TRX classes twice a week for te whole quarter. It cost $40, but I think that will be worth it. It is every Tueday and Thursday between noon and 1pm, when I am out of class, so I didn’t really have an argument why I shouldn’t sign up for it. I love TRX and that would be a good motivator to get me to start work out again.

After grocery shopping we went to the room above ours to a party. It was fun for a while, but I got tired. So I stopped by another room on the third floor (which is my floor) to hang out for like 30 minutes before going back home. I won’t be able to get up early to go to the gym, but whatever. I feel good about myself just signing up for TRX. There were only 4 spots left. It will probably be extremely hot tomorrow as well, so I will probably just hang out by the pool. Even tonight it was hot, we were al sweating in shorts and tank tops. In the middle of the night! It was around 30C. Ridiculous.  I like it though, I get tired from it. But the oppurtunity to be in the ocean in October doesn’t come too often.

I love my life here!

New tattoo, where?! Shit, my calves look gigantic on these pictures… Anyway, I wanna get another tattoo. Any input, calf or ankle (the same foot as my first tattoo)?TarantulaWhen we came home from Albertson’s and we were gonna park the car inthe parking structure, there was a big tarantula walking around in there. And I was just telling Kelsey at the beach today that I never saw a single one in San Diego and that she probably wouldn’t see one here in just a quarter. Oh, I was wrong… I’m guessing it was about 2-3 inches (5-8cm).

The pool and salsa

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Today was a very chill day. I woke up at 11am, had breakfast and then spent five hours at the pool, tanning and playing waterball (basketball in the water) with some guys from the building. It was fun and exhausting. Left the pool at 5pm to pick up three more packages. The bathroom rug, my sunglasses and the small cutting board. And that was the last things from my big $200 order a week ago. So now I am just waiting for the bike lights from mom in Sweden and the package from Amazon which I am gonna send to my brother.

I also found a guy yesterday in the building who likes to fix bikes so he took a look at mine and will fix it on Monday when he get new parts for my breaks. So very nice of him!

Then I made dinner for Lauren and Kelsey. I don’t have any containers for leftovers yet. I am gonna by that tomorrow. I made spaghetti with meatsauce, and it was very appreciated.

At 8pm the three of us went to campus for a 1.5 hour long salsa lesson. I actually enjoyed it and will continue to go. $5 each time is not too bad and I had a great time. I’m not a very good dancer, but it was fun.

I am tired, my core muscles are sore after yoga yesterday (perhaps already from waterball as well) and I am going up at 8am tomorrow to play beach volleyball at the PCV court at 9. I should probably go to bed. At 11pm on a Friday.

CA HSR presentation

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(=California High-Speed Rail presentation)

Today was the big day. A week of ”hard work” in transportation engineering lab is over. Last Thursday we got a huge assignment, a 15 page paper and a presentation due today. I am very relaxed I’ve noticed. My groupmembers (we were four people) were super stressed out about this whole thing, while I did my thing and wasn’t panicking at all. They got me all worked up the last hour before hand-in this afternoon. And it actually made me a bit upset. I’m never worried about these kinds of things. I know that everything works out and I am satisfied with my part. But the presentation didn’t go as well as I thought. I am always very confident when it comes to presentations (at least now, maybe not five years ago) and the rehearsal before went awesome. But I choked when I was up there in front of the class. I guess there is a big difference holding a presentation in your native language and in your second language. I forgot words, I mispronounced a lot of words and I guess I stuttered a little too. I hope the teacher understands that and understood  what I was trying to say. It feels good to be done with this though. This was the toughest assignment in the lab class if I don’t misremembered.

After that I went to the rec center (Recreational Center = the gym on campus) to end this long day with an hour of yoga. The gym is amazing by the way (google ”cal poly rec center”!). I am so excited about starting to work out again. I need to make a work out schedule though. I don’t wanna go to the gym unprepared. And after yoga (first time in like five months) I realized that I need to increase muscle mass. I am ridicoulusly weak at the moment… I guess my legs are good after all the walking on this huge campus, but my upper body strenght equals zero.

The evening was spent with Lauren on the couch watching 21 Jump Street, drinking tea, eating Reese’s Mini Peanutbutter Cups. It was a very nice evening. After that a lot of people stopped by as usual which I love. It is so easy to meet people with an open door. I think I met four new people today and I think i remembered all of their names. Yay!

 

So, my day started at 5:40 with a shower, a real breakfast (scrambled eggs and avokado) and a cup of Yerba Mate tea and then class at 7:40. I couldn’t get home on my four-hour break today so I decided that I needed to wake up properly before class. The tea is full of caffeine and I think I was more awake during my first two classes than normal, but I’m not sure. In Architecture History class I sat next to a guy from Carlsbad, CA and who had also been to the three Caribbean islands I am going to. I can’t remember his name though…

After my two classes I went to the Study Abroad Fair to be one of the international students who the American students could ask questions. It was fun, but not many people who asked me things. I got free lunch and that was nice. At 1:30pm I met up with my trans lab class and rehearsed for the presentation and fixed the last things in the paper. And that was all that happened today.

No packages today. I want my bathroom rug and the small cutting board! Hopefully tomorrow. I am completely off (no homework except reading due Tuesday) so I am gonna relax by the pool all day tomorrow after I wake up. It is supposed to be around 97F tomorrow and it was the same today and that is hooooot! I love it though, where else is it 38C in October?! 🙂

I am tired, but I don’t feel like going to bed. But I probably should anyway. I really need to update the page ”Who is Alexandra?” though…. That’s for tomorrow!

Goodnight/goodmorning!