Author Archives: Alexandra

Another day of fixing

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I am starting to really enjoy being free like this. I have so much energy to do those tiny things I didn’t do before. Like tonight I sat for several hours making small funny signs for everything I will offer my guests on Sunday. That was a fun little arts and crafts project. I have also started to transfer movies and tv-shows from my big external hard drives and putting it temporary on my computer so I have something to watch next year (and don’t have to carry heavy ext. HDD).

I also went grocery shopping with mom. I bought alcohol and snacks for Sunday. And before that I scanned my German book and class notes from last years German I course in San Diego. I will need to go through it all before German II after this Christmas. And I don’t wanna bring extra books to Cali.

Around lunch today I had an interview with a girl for Cultural Care and then I guess not so much more than watching Glee and eating tomato soup with feta cheese.

It was a nice day, and the beautiful weather made it better. It has been pretty cold lately, but today it was warm, like really warm. I hope it will stay like this until I leave.

Tomorrow I will go up early to put the big chunk of beef I bought the other day in the oven and let it cook for five hours until Felix and Sara comes over to take a look at the apartment and share a lunch with me. And after that I don’t have any plans, I think I will read. Just sit down for a few hours and read! The third Throne of Glass book was released today, but I need to finish the prequel before I start reading this new one. I don’t think I could handle reading several books at the same time. Or maybe I could, but if I started reading a couple of books, then that would probably escalate to more and more books at the same time and that would most definitely not work.

Free

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With no work, no studies, no nothing, the energi just keeps flowing. It has been a very productive day and I have done so many things. This morning is so far away so the earliest I remember doing was going to downtown for some errands. First I bought a noteboook for my upcoming year abroad. I need somewhere to collect all my to-do lists, budgets and just things I want to write down linked to Cal Poly. I’ve already made a nice front page and written down a lot of things. For example, I did an approximative budget for the whole year. I already got my first (of three) payments from CSN. I got almost 52000 SEK today! I will also get my last paycheck and the holiday pay on September 15th and that will be quite a lot I guess. And in October-November I will get the scholarship from Chalmers for being a part of this exchange program. I didn’t put that in my calculations so without those incomes I will have around $350 each week after the rent is paid. Food is not part of the calculations, but I think I will have a pretty sweet life this year aswell. I will not shop as much, but travel and save. I have a big trip planned for Christmas.

After buying the notebook I went to Forex to exchange money. I had a lot of cash and got $350 cash. I hate cash, but I don’t know when I can have an American bank account up and running. The line was long, so I took a number and went to vote in the upcoming election. And when I was done it was just a couple of minutes until my turn. Perfect!

Right after that I went to the gynecologist to do more tests. I talked to the doctor before the tests and he told me what would happen if this showed some abnormal results as well and we decided how we would handle it. It took a while and several tests were done and I was told that the results wouldn’t be ready for another six weeks. But I was told that cell changes were visible through the microscope. Fuck! How severe they were couldn’t be told, but apparently there are three stages of cell changes. Stage 1 and 2 isn’t dangerous and they aren’t treated, just checked more frequently to see if it gets better or worse. And if I have those I will just get a new appointment as soon as I get home to Sweden again next year. Stage 3 on the other hand means that it needs to be treated pretty much right away. And if I have that, it will be a bit problematic. I will have two choices, either do it in the US and pay between 5000 and 10000 SEK for the surgery, or I can go home and do it for free. Both options suck. My insurance in the US won’t cover this kind of thing, I’ve already asked them. I should probably call them again.

I feel okay now about it. I will be going to California, but I will forget about it for six weeks and deal with the problem when it comes.

My next errand was emptying my locker at Liseberg. But when I got there Kläderiet was closed because they were in a meeting for the rest of the day. So typical! Now I need to go there tomorrow again. It’s a good thing I don’t have that much to do right now.

After that I went to 4-gott and bought a bag of candy, I felt that I needed it after the rough news earlier today. I did some grocery shopping too. But when I got home the gynecologist appointment was completely forgotten. By instinct I felt that I should log in to my Chalmers account and see if they had posted the result document for the structural engineering exam. And they had! When I saw the document my heart started racing. I didn’t want to wait and make myself more anxious, so I opened it and I passed!!! When I saw the grade 3 (3 is pass, 4 is more than pass, and 5 is the highest grade) my heart almost jumped out of my chest! I did it! I fucking did it!! No spare points, but that still counts. I am so relieved I can’t put words on it. I’ve tried four times over the past two years. This means that if all goes well next year I will have my bachelor degree of science in building and civil engineering in June next year. I am so happy!!

The day went on in that mood. When I am happy I am so productive. I did the budget, wrote a thorough packing list, made two Rainbow Loom bracelets (I removed the three Hawaii bracelets, they were getting worn out and I didn’t want them to get broken, so I thought I would remove them before that happened), I’ve planned some things for the party on Sunday (it will be epic), gone through all my papers I need next year and sorted them into different plastic folders. I’ve packed two bags with Chad’s things that he forgot and I’ve cooked dinner. And oh, what a dinner! I made hot spinach and artichoke dip with crispy bread. The dip was easy to make and it was so good! I bought a small baguett and was planning on making garlic bread and dip in the dip. But I didn’t have any garlic. Not even garlic powder so I had to improvise, but it turned out good. But I did forget about the bread in the oven and it was way harder than I was planning it to be. But it was good too and probably better like this.

Here’s the recipe if anyone wants to try:

Ingredients
1 cup (2,4dl) thawed, chopped frozen spinach
1,5 cups (3,5dl) chopped artichoke hearts
6 ounces (180ml) cream cheese
0.25 cups (0,5dl) sour cream
0.25 cups (0,5dl) mayonnaise
0.3 cups (0,7dl) grated parmesan
half a red bellpepper, sliced
salt and pepper

Directions
Boil spinach and artichoke in 1 cup of water until tender. Drain the water.
Heat cream cheese and grated parmesan in the microwave for 1 minute or until hot and soft.
Mix all the ingredients and serve it hot.

I didn’t follow the exact measurements and it turned out well anyway, so don’t be afraid of the weird measurements.

Spinach and artichoke dip

 

Yesterday  I had my last day at Liseberg. It was a bit sad. I said goodbye to all the attractions on Berget but not the people. We hung out at a bar at night and most of them are coming to my party on Sunday. It was a nice last day and I will be back next season. I look forward to having that to look forward to when I come home from Cali. Last time I didn’t have anything to look forward to when I came home.

Goodbye muffinsWhen you have your last day at work you’re supposed to bake (or buy) something and give to your colleagues. I got up extra early that morning and baked my chocolate muffins. They were as appreciated at Liseberg as they are at SCA :).

I think I need to go to bed now. I actually wanted to go to bed at 10pm, but I felt that I had too much to do. Like going through my purse and taking out everything I won’t need in California. I tried playing some RollerCoaster Tycoon but got bored right away. So many tiny things I want to do. Tomorrow I have an interview for Cultural Care and then I think I will read and prepare more for the party. In the evening I am scanning all my German school books so I don’t have to bring them to California when I am going through it all before my German class after Christmas. That’s German II and it was a year ago I took German I so I will need to rehearse.

Good night!!

10 days at Balderado

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I have now been at Balderado a total of 10 days. Today and yesterday were number nine and ten. I can honestly say that I was a bit dissapointed both yesterday and today when I found out that I was at that area when the supervisors told me last weekend that they were gonna try and put me at Berget my last few days because they understood how lonely and monotonous it is to only have three single-manned attractions. Yesterday they tried putting two people at Spinrock, but because someone went home during the day I had to be alone that last hour anyway. Today I had half an hour with someone at Spinrock but right when I was on my way to my last hour at Spinrock I was told that someone was closing it with me. Yay!! That made my day. Working with my colleagues makes Liseberg way more fun to work at. I know it is supposed to be about the guests, but we employees must have fun too and it is easier to have that when we are working together.

But tomorrow and on Sunday I will be at Berget, I have that confirmed. Yay! I can’t believe my last day is coming up in just a couple of days though. This summer was over way too soon. I feel exhausted and I need the time off, but I’ve had so much fun this summer. I am so lucky to have gotten a job at Liseberg, and at the attraction department. Lucky lucky me!

I think I need to go to bed now, I have 11 hours of work tomorrow to look forward to. But before that, I will watch the season premiere of Doctor Who. I have waited so long for this day to come!!

P.S. Two weeks until departure!! In exactly fourteen days I will have 30 minutes left in the air before landing in LA. D.S.

Structural engineering exam #4

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Today was definitely not a good day. I am still very angry with Chad, but  right now I am also very angry at the exam I did today, my lost necklace, the girl I was interviewing today who stood me up and told me way too late and I am not allowed to donate blood.

The exam felt really good at first, during the theory questions. As usual I didn’t even understand the fourth theory question, but the other three I actually knew about.  There might be 3 or maybe even 4 points there. BUT, then comes the problems. The first one felt good, but I think it wasn’t supposed to be that easy. But I came up with an answer, the same answer twice with two different methods.That’s good, but it probably isn’t more than 3 points (4 is max). The next one would have been easy if it weren’t for the short term load instead of long term like all the problems I’ve solved. I had even written down questions in my books, how to solve this?? But no answer after. Fuck. The third and fourth problem were two jokes. I just put some equations on the paper, tried solving a few and then just handed them in. I am so upset that it felt exactly the same as the last three times I took the test. And this time I studied the whole f-ing summer!! Waste of time (maybe). I won’t jump to conclusions just because of what I felt when I left the room. It might have worked, no one knows.

Right after the exam I was supposed to do an interview with a future au pair. But when I am at our meeting spot she texts me and tells me she can’t go. I totally understand that she had to go to work when they asked her, but she could have told me earlier. And that would have saved me another anger enhancer, because then I would have gone home instead to downtown.

I have been thinking of becoming a blood donor for several years now and today I finally got my thumb out and went there. I knew I wouldn’t be able to donate any today, but I could at least take the tests and start as soon as I come home from the US again. BUT, I am not allowed to give blood until my PAP smear is okay. So I just walked out of there without even taking the tests. I am taking the second PAP smearon Monday by the way. A little bit nervous about it to honest.

And the blood central was probably the reason for my last anger today. I’ve lost my beautiful silver/opal necklace I bought on Hawaii! I probably lost it when I removed my sweater to take a blood pressure test there. I feel really naked now. The good thing is that I can order a new one online from the store where I bought it. I won’t be able to do it before I move to California though. I think I will order it the day before I leave so I will get it as soon as possible. It won’t be the same, but it will still be a beautiful necklace.

I felt like I needed to get all of this out. My blog is usually about happy things, but today I needed this. I have been so extremely tired today now that my exam is finally done. Even if I fail again, I can’t do anything about it until when I come back from Cali. So long, structural engineering!

Since I came home I’ve been doing a bit on the online course I need to do before moving to SLO, I will do the rest tomorrow. It is about being an exchange student. Good-to-know things about pretty much anything.

I have also paid the Week of Welcome fee of $175. I am getting good at making abroad payments with my internet bank. I think I better get used to it.

Not much else today. Tomorrow’s work again but before that I will sleep until I wake up (last time I did that I slept until 1pm a few days ago). Four more days at work. How can a whole summer already be gone??

Late evening

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Shit, I should already be in bed and sound asleep. What happens with time during the night? And why do I always feel like procrastinating when I really can’t do it? Tonight I have emailed a lot of people at Cal Poly asking how I will pay for my rent and Week of Welcome. Since Cal Poly is blocking web addresses from out of country I need to use PeerTransfer and it works okay. So my first rent will be paid tomorrow, $838.75 (=5957 SEK). It’s retarted that I have to pay that much for a tiny tiny bedroom. Well well, I pay for the experience of living abroad again, it’s worth it.

When it comes to Week of Welcome it’s not so clear though. I really want to be a part of it, but I don’t get any answers from the board of WoW on how to pay. When I use PeerTransfer it gives m four options for what kind of payment it is, Registration and Tuition Fee, Housing, Dining or Continuing Educataion. What to choose if I am paying to an orientantion event? I need them to answer soon. Orientation starts in less than three weeks!

Today I was up early (compared to yesterday when I slept until 12:30pm. I didn’t do that much studying. I did two problems and read through all the theory questions like six times. I didn’t want to try to learn anything new, that would have juts made me confused. So I’ve played RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 today. I will so enjoy my free time after tomorow. I have a lo of things to do tomorrow after the exam, but after that  will be free!!

Dinner was almost ready when mom came home from work. Pulled pork in tortilla bread. It has smelled amazing the whole day. But I have to admit that it tasted more last time. I don’t know if it was because we marinated the meat over the night or if it was because of the gas oven instead of my electrical one. But with some extra bbq sauce it was really good anyway :). We were both full as a small-pancake though (that Swedish saying wasn’t translated very well…).

So, the exam is tomorrow. I have to wake up at 6:30 am, and the hours until then are disappearing faster than I would have wanted. But at least I am tired now. Yesterday I couldn’t fall asleep until 3am, wasn’t tired at all!

Wish me luck on tomorrow’s five hour exam on Structural Engineering. My fourth try. And I think I might have a good feeling about it this time.

Good luck, me!

Thank you, me!

Studying

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The only thing I’ve done today is studying. I ended the day by writing a 8 page summary of all different types of problems this course include. It is pretty obvious what types of problems I know more about. Easier to write things when you know more. Wood and steel are nice types of construction materials. Concrete not so much…

I did feel prepared yesterday. It felt good and I felt that I could have a chance this time. But today, when I finished all the problems that I told myself I would do before the test, it doesn’t feel that good anymore. I think it is because I know time is running out to prepare and it is too little time to do everything I want to do and it just gets overwhelming and I don’t know what to do instead. I think I will do some problems tomorrow but focus on the theory. I haven’t done any of it since June!

While I’m studying tomorrow I will be cooking dinner for mom, pulled pork!! We put the meat in marinade tonight and I hope it will taste even better this time.

Lightning

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This evening has been retarted. Lightning across the sky every 20 seconds, no thunder though, that came later. The sky is being lit up all the time and with the thunder it is a bit scary. But lightning is beautiful! On the way home from work I actually caught a couple of lightning bolts on camera. My first photo and I got it. I tried for a while more on mom’s balcony but I only got the last millisecond of it, which was pretty cool too. After that I tried to study for a while but I didn’t understand the problem so I just quit halfway through the problem and will continue tomorrow. I am so exhausted from the last week.

It’s been a crazy week. I feel like it is time to make it official online. On Monday, August 18th, I broke up with Chad because of some reasons. I don’t want to go in to the details here because that’s no other person’s business. But everything bad between us has escalated so quickly and it has ended with him moving out very sudden and me living on mom’s couch for now. He hates me and I am trying not to think about him with my exam coming up on Wednesday. I need all my attention on that so I can pass this stupid thing.

I am very sad about what happened, I really am… But it was for the best for both of us.

I didn’t go in to work yesterday and today was really tough. I was at Berget and had a lot of different attractions instead of two or three at Balderado. For the first time ever I had to ”break” Höjdskräcken. And at lunch right before that I talked about how I had been on breaks on all the attractions on the mountain except Höjdskräcken (none at Balderado). A break is when the attraction is closed due to technical issues.

Mom picked me up from work and we drove to my place to pick up some more clothes and water my plants.

Now I will go to bed (=couch), watch the second half of a True Blood episode I started watching this morning. I hope I will be able to fall asleep with all this lightning and thunder going on outside! Because I have a long day of studying tomorrow…

Chip helping me to study Chip was keeping me company late last night when I was studying.Pink-blue sky at my placeA pink/blue sky outside my apartment. So beautiful! LightningMy first try at a lightning bolt photo! Success! LightningThis is the second best shot. This is at the very end of a lightning bolt. It was behind that cloud. Pretty cool.

Crawfish party

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Every year at the end of the season the different departments and areas at Liseberg have crawfish parties. A crawfish party is something very Swedish where you sit down with friends for a night in August, eat crawfish and shrimps and drink. It is a very fun occation!

Last night, at Berget’s crawfish party (kräftskiva in Swedish) I didn’t eat any crawfish though. I haven’t had time to buy anything so I did what a lot of others did, bought pizza. It was very good aswell. I will miss the Swedish pizza.

During the evening awards were handed out. I didn’t even get nominated for anything. But that’s okay, the only thing I felt that I could have won was Pooler of the year. But since I’ve almost only been at Berget people don’t really see my as a Pooler.

The evening was over at 2 and I stayed behind and helped cleaning for a bit. At 2:45am I started walking home and got home at 4. It was a long walk from Majvallen to Svingeln. Now I have blisters on my feet from walking that far in heels/barefoot.

It could have been a more fun evening if it weren’t for the situation I’m in right now, but it was still a nice evening with friends!

 

Today I’ve been studying a little bit. I only did 1,5 problems though. But all 9 problems I have left are concrete ones. And the tough concrete ones! I got stuck on the second because of way to many minuses and it got me confused. And I also got distracted when dad and Karin invited me to dinner at Öltullen, the bar/restaurant at the corner of my building. It was a nice couple of hours. And when I got home from that I saw that the information about my housing at Cal Poly was available. I will be living in Poly Canyon Village – Gypsum with three American girls. One of them emailed all of us already and told us a bit about herself and asked if maybe we should make a list of things we need in the apartment. It will be so cool living in an apartment with four bedrooms and three other girls. It is way better than what college dorms looks like in the movies. I have a good feeling about this.

I most definitely need to go to bed now, I have to get up early to be in school to study with Linnea and after that I will work. But only for 5 hours.

Rabbit Party

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Last night was the seasons last rabbit party for us Lisebergers. And because of that I decided that I wanted to go.  Preparty right after work where I spent my 7th day of the season at Balderado. All the attractions I have there are single manned from now on, so I was all alone the whole day except for 1,5h in the middle where I was at Berget. I closed Kristallsalongen so I sat there for one hour, not doing much except eating candy and mentally preparing for the party. It was actually okay sitting there solving crosswords.

I changed into my beautiful Abercrombie dress, brushed my hair and then went will all the others to Hisingen where Victor lives. The preparty went by so fast. It was fun! And at 11:30 we went to Valand, the nightclub where the rabbit parties are. I could skip the line and paid 125 as cover and wardrobe and then I was in.The music was good, but I’m not much of a dancer. I spent most of the evening on the outdoor patio talking. It was nice! At 1am the Helix song went on and we were all inside dancing to it, but that was all the dancing I did. I talked to a lot of people and actually felt that I connected with a lot of them. Alcohol makes people honest and sharing.

I was there until it closed at 3am and then walked home. Took me 45 minutes.

Today I woke up at 10am, I didn’t feel bad at all, a little, but not much. Took a shower and then went to Kosmetisk Kirurgi to do an IPL treatment for hair removal under my arms. In total it was my 7th time I think and it is definitely working. Almost all of it is gone, but I still have a little left, so after this today I will go there once more after my year in California. Then I will probably be done, but I’m not sure all the hair will be gone forever. Anyway, it hurt really bad. I forgot how painful it is. At the end of the second armpit it hurt so much that I started wincing. Normally the burning pain is there for a millisecond, but after a while it hurt all the time. Not a nice feeling. I am still a bit sore, but it’s not too bad.

Today I also enrolled in the EDES 406 class. Open enrollment started today and I now have it on my schedule. So fucking awesome to have that done!  I also tried registering to the semester at Chalmers but I couldn’t since I’m not enrolled in any classes at Chalmers. But I need to be registered for CSN to see that I am doing some classes. I sent Chalmers an email and will probably get an answer tomorrow. I will call them otherwise. I was gonna call my landlord also to tell them my fridge is kinda broken. There is always a pool of water at the bottom of it. But I forgot. That’s for tomorrow.

After that I spent the afternoon studying and talking to mom. The problem I’ve been trying to solve for two days makes sense to me now. The mistake I made was that the ”d” in the formulas wasn’t the diameter which it normally is, but it was the distance from the top of the beam to the center of the rebars in the bottom. After I realized that I actually understood the problem. Yay! I love breakthroughs. Tomorrow I will start with wood again, and I might have time for another steel problem as well. But I have a feeling I won’t be in a study mood, but we’ll see.

In the evening anyway there is Berget’s crawfish party. I’ve been looking forward to it the whole summer, it’s gonna be legen… wait for it… dary!

Crown of Midnight

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Last night I finished Crown of Midnight which was the second Throne of Glass book. So amazingly awesome! The ending was so unsuspected and I so look forward to the next book which will be published on September 2nd. Until then I will be reading the prequel The Assassin’s Blade

This series, written by Sarah J. Maas, is about a young orphaned girl who was taken in by the league of assassins and she is the best in the land at what she does.  She is betrayed though and ends up in a slave camp and the first book begins when the king’s men get her out of there so she can fight in a tournament to become the King’s Champion and then get her freedom. A lot of other things happen to around all this. Magic, demons, love triangles. If anyone is looking for a book to read, I highly recommend Throne of Glass.

Today was my Sunday and I tried to study for a while. I managed to solve two problems today before I found myself infront of a contrete problem. I decided to take a tiny break, but I ended up taking a break for the rest of the day. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is too fun. But I don’t feel bad, I did 5 problems yesterday! And I will get up early tomorrow and solve this concrete problem before work. And then I have three days off when I can study.

While I was studying yesterday I was also cooking dinner. I tried pulled pork for the very first time and it turned out great. I flavored it with honey barbecue sauce and garlic. It was served with mashed sweet potatoes. Yummy in my tummy!

Tomorrow’s 6 hours of work and then Rabbit Party! It’s the last for the season so I thought I would go. But right now I’mnot so sure. I am going to the pregame but I’m not sure about the real party at Valand. It is 100kr and I don’t even like nightclubs. We’ll see. I have to feel okay on Monday too to study.

Now I will go to bed, read, and mentally prepare for an early morning with concrete and rebars and then work and party!