Category Archives: USA

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!

Packages

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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.

For a day off, it’s been a busy day. I didn’t get a sleep-in since I had to be at the library at 8am to work on the paper and presentation which is due tomorrow. We worked for about two hours before I had to go home and have a skype date with Lovisa. I miss her and it would be so much fun if she decided to come back and visit.

I did laundry today as well and picked up packages at two seperate times. In total I got five packages today (and one yesterday, my beach volleyball ball came :D). I am still missing three things, but I’m sure I will get them tomorrow or Friday. So today I got my mattress pad, the dishrack, my reading lamp, a new purse, storage boxes for my bathroom stuff, the two flags and pins to put them on the wall. My room is starting to feel like my room and not a hotel room as it have for the past two weeks.

I went back to the library at 2pm to work some more on the lab project. Left an hour later because the others had to go to class. I went home, did a little studying, mostly preparing for the presentation tomorrow. I made a pearl couscous salad (I’ve never had pearl couscous before, but it was good, I don’t think I cooked it correctly though, so I will have to give it a few tries). Unpacked everything and folded my laundry and then it was time to go to class. Sustainable Environments. It was tough at first, I almost fell asleep, but then I woke up a little bit. We watched two short movies, one was called ”The Story of Stuff” and that was interesting. I think it would have been more fun if it was about my cat Stuff, but still. I didn’t feel too bad about not reading anything before class, because no one else did it. We got out of class 35 minutes early which I am grateful for. I have a very long day tomorrow and I couldn’t wait to get home to my ”new” bed. I have a feeling I will sleep like a princess tonight.

PackagesIt was like a mini Christmas Eve today! 🙂 Memory foam mattress padFor this 3 inch thick memory foam mattress pad I paid $99 instead of $530 which was the normal price. Yay! Roxy Abroad 2My new purse, since my old one is falling apart. I have to get used to having a colored purse instead of a black one. My room!And this is what my room looks like now, it still looks a little bare, but I guess that’s okay, it looks clean ;).

A normal Tuesday

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Today was just a normal day at a Californian university. I got up at 6am, had a little breakfast, went to class, didn’t fall asleep, worked on the transportation engineering project about Swedish roundabouts, had lunch, took a short nap and then back to class where I worked on the second project I have right now. The one about California High-Speed Rail system in transportation engineering lab. Right after that I went to an information meeting with Poly Escapes which is a club here at Cal Poly. They have a lot of outdoor activites throughout the quarter and I have signed up for one and I am on the waiting list for a second one. They are popular, so next quarter I am gonna sign up as soon as they are released. The one I am going to is a surf weekend in Ventura November 8-9. And I am on the waitng list for  a stand-up-paddling weekend in Yosemite Valley. I do hope I get that one, otherwise maybe next quarter.

Right after that I went grocery shopping with Ryan and when I came home at 9pm I finished my part of the 15 page paper (California high-speed rail), watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory and now I will go to bed. Early for once! I can’t sleep in tomorrow though, I am meeting with HSR group at 8am to make the presentation which we will presentin front of the class on Thursday afternoon. I guess I could sleep by the pool after that.

Vacation planning

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This Monday has been super lazy. I got out of bed at 11am because something was going on in the apartment. One of my roommates, Lauren had a very bad back muscle spasm and I helped her get through it until herm om came. It looked so painful but there was nothing I could do really, except try to talk to her and make her think of other things than the pain. It went away after a while fortunately. When it did she went to the library to study and then I went back to bed and watched the season premiere of Once Upon a Time. It is available first the day after it airs on the TV apparently.

When I got bored I started looking into what I will do on Winter Break. And that’s what I did for the rest of the day. It took me probably 6 hours to plan that 23 day vacation. But now I have it all figured out. I haven’t booked anything yet, I am waiting for people who wants to go with me so we can book together and so. But in a couple of weeks I will book anyway. I want to have it done, I want to have something definite to look forward to. Okay, so on December 12 I will go from San Luis Obispo to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and stay there until December 20. December 20-27 I will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico and December 27 – January 4 I will be in Montego Bay, Jamaica. I am more than excited. I want to book it now!!! But I will have to be patient and wait at least one week. I think Julianne (a girl from my WoW-group) wants to come with me to DR and my roommate Kelsey really wants to go with me to Jamaica. I think it will be hard finding someone who wants to go to Puerto Rico over Christmas, but what do I know, there are probably people here in California who doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas. Let’s hope so.

I spent a little time with Julianne in her room, and then I just hung out with my roommates, who by the way are the best. I love them! ❤

A day of studying

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I did not do much today on this lazy Sunday (which was my second Saturday). I went up at 9am, had a banana/egg pancake and then wrote on my paper in Transportation Engineering lab. I wrote two whole pages and will probably add a half more tomorrow. I then took a break when I ordered a lot of stuff from Amazon. I got Amazon Prime yesterday which means I can get free two-day shipping. I ordered a mattress pad, 3 inch thick memory foam for $99 instead of $530. I so look forward to when that comes! I also ordered two flags to put up on my walls, a Swedish one and a California Republic one. Pins to put it on the wall, three bathroom baskets so I don’t have to have those things in my desk anymore. I also got a cheap memory foam bathroom rug, a small LED lamp to have by my bed, a dish rack, a small cutting board and a new purse since mine (which I’ve had since like 2009) is falling apart. I also found my black/see-through-neon-green sunglasses that broke this summer and ordered them too. All that for $220, yay!

Then I sat on the couch for a while reading about the old Egyptian kingdom in Architecure History.

At 5pm I went to the library for the first time to study with Johanna and Eric on our project in Transportation Engineering (yeah, it is two different classes, Transportation Engineering and Transportation Engineering Lab). We decided that we wanted to look into the Swedish roundabout and right of way system and compare that to a city of the same size here in California. We are gonna compare to the 4-way stop intersections they have here and maybe take a look at the enviromental impacts. This will be a fun project I think.

After that I got home, Kelsey was baking almond bars, but muffins. They were delicious so I got the recipe. It almost tasted a little bit like marzipan. Yummy! Right after we went to Target so I could buy some food, but I guess Sunday evening isn’t the best of days to go grocery shopping, it was completely empty. So I guess I have to go to Albertson’s tomorrow to buy ground beef and onion and stuff so I can make spaghetti with meatsauce. And since I am almost done with my homework this week (that I know of so far) I will hang out by the pool. I need to work on my tan ;).

After Target me and my roomies just talked for a long while and now everyone’s in bed earlier than ever before. I will go to bed now as well and watch the season premiere of Once Upon a Time. Goodnight (/goodmorning)!