Tag Archives: Cal Poly preparations

It takes a lot of preparation to be an exchange students in the United States of America.

Pizza and candy

Posted on by
Reply

My last day in Sweden is over. It ended the same way it started in February, with Swedish candy and pizza. First of all, what happened today was that I moved to mom’s and Felix moved to my place. We drove back and fourth twice and on the way back to mom’s she and I did a little grocery shopping so I could have something on the ridiculously long flight tomorrow. I changed my mind in the last second at ICA Maxi and decided to get a bag of candy anyway. I also bought a few bars and Vaniljgifflar (Swedish tiny cinnamon rolls but with vanilla flavor) and knäckebröd. I will get food on the plane, but I wanna make sure that I don’t have to be hungry.
That would suck…
Pretty much right after that mom drove me to Andrea’s place where I, Andrea and Emma had a cozy girls night with wine and pizza. We hung out for three hours, having a great time and then it was time for the goodbye. I will miss those two, that’s for sure!

On the bus home I listened to Maroon 5’s latest album “V”. It is so amazing. I hope there will be a possibility to charge the phone on the plane so I can listen to music. It is a bit hard to believe that I will be leaving this country again tomorrow. Last time feels like a dream and getting a second chance at moving to California is so small it shouldn’t be possible. It is too good to be true!

I have had a great time in Sweden these last seven months and it will be hard leaving. I am leaving more behind now than I did last time, but on the other hand I will only be gone for ten months instead of thirteen.

image

This is my company for the night. My beautiful and cuddly Chip! ❤

I am really excited and more than ready to start a new adventure!
Goodbye Gothenburg and Sweden!
Hello San Luis Obispo, California and USA!

Packing suitcases

Posted on by
Reply

In 36h I will be leaving this country again. I will go back to California and I am getting really excited. I’m starting to realize that this is really happening. This last week has gone by way too fast though. I have taking it very easy, playing a lot of computer games and also read a lot. And I’ve realized that I want to eat a lot of Swedish things before I leave, but it is too much for the few days left. I will end this stay in Sweden the same way I started it though, with Swedish pizza.

Today I packed my suitcases. Well, my check in bag and my carry-on. I managed to stay under 20kg which is Norwegian’s weight limit, but just with 3kg. That will be tough on the way home… I will leave a lot of things before going back home, but I will probably have to send a package home. My carry-on is so far only 4kg and can be 10. But I haven’t packed my computer yet and all my paper and everything else that is going in there. But I think it will be okay.

The other thing I did today was say goodbye to dad and Karin. We had a nice evening at the bar at the corner of my building. It wasn’t really a hard goodbye, I will see them so soon again. And I am secretly hoping that they will visit me :).

Right now I feel like playing Aion. I started playing that yesterday again after about 18 months. It is a similar game to Guild Wars but at the same time very different. I think Aion is a more complicated game than Guild Wars, but that might be because I’ve played Guild Wars for 7 years and Aion for three months. In Aion you can fly and there are instances which are PvPE, if you aren’t paying attention you will get killed by the other faction. Yesterday I also got my own house which I can decorate and stuff. I really wonder why they put that in an update a year ago. Kinda uneccesary in a MMORPG, but still fun since I like both killing monsters and building houses in The Sims. Aion is a very beautiful game, the graphic is better in GW, but the scenery in Aion is still amazing. The best thing about Aion is that it is free of charge. That’s actually why I started playing it 2 years ago, when they removed the monthly fee.

Instead of playing I will go to bed. I want to read and get a good night’s sleep. I didn’t sleep very many hours last night. And I have a day of cleaning tomorrow. In the afternoon I will move to mom’s and my brother will move in here. I hope he takes care of this amazing apartment.

Parties and packing

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday was a busy day. First I got up pretty early so I had time to get myself ready to go out to Stora Lövsjön where there was a big birthday party for Karin among others. I knew almost everyone there and I had a nice couple of hours out in the woods. We barbecued and the food was really good. I had bread on a stick for the first time since I was probably eight. And shrimps marinated in a chili sauce and beef and a good pesto salad. I wouldn’t have mind staying for a while longer but I had to go home to prepare the for the party.

Stora Lövsjön

This time I had a goodbye party and I probably should have had that last time too. It was a huge success and everyone had a great time. Since I haven’t been working or doing anything at all this week I have been planning and been excited about the party. I didn’t have that much alcohol to serve so I decided to have a lot of snacks available. Like chips, candy, exotic fruits, the hot spinach and artichoke dip I made a week ago, punch and vodka marinated watermelon. The last three were the most popular. People asked for the recipe for the dip and the 4.5kg watermelon was gone long before the evening was over. The punch was made from Asti Cinzano which is a delicious sparkling wine, and raspberry soda. Frozen raspberries and grapes kept the punsch cold for the short while it was still some left.

We played Cards Against Humanity and talked all night. The last people left at 5am when the trams and buses had started going again. Such a fun evening!

Goodbye partyBlomman took my phone for a while and took some photos. Why hadn’t I thought about that?

Before I went to bed I actually took a lunchbox with korv stroganoff and I think that was why I wasn’t hungover today. I got up at 1 pm and another reason for not being hungover might have been the clean apartment. I cleaned everything up at like 4am. I did it very slowly so most people didn’t even notice. I have realized that cleaning up after a party before going to bed is the best thing to do. You don’t really mind when you’re still drunk. While emptying bottles and cans while hungover is one of the worst things you can do. Even if I wasn’t hungover I felt like eating something unhealthy anyway. So I took a little walk to Max Hamburger and brought it home. I remembered that last year I really missed Max so I thought that if there was a time to eat it, it was the day after a party. And it was really good!!! Goodbye Max!

After that my brother and his girlfriend came over for a while to help me pack a bit and tell me what I could leave. They stayed for a while but not too long. And the rest of the day was more packing for me. The whole kitchen table is full o everything except clothes and toiletries I will bring to California on Friday. And I actually think everything in the apartment that my brother didn’t want is packed in boxes. We will probably drive most of them to mom’s tomorrow. And then we will see when they want to move in. I am starting to think that I want to live with my mom the last few days. I’m really gonna miss her…

The clock just ticked away and it is already 12:30am. I think I should go to bed and read for a while.

Free

Posted on by
Reply

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!!

Structural engineering exam #4

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Crawfish party

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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!

1 month left

Posted on by
Reply

I can’t believe I only have one month left in this country. In exactly a month (1am on September 13th) I will be a few hours away from Los Angeles. This summer went by so fast. Well, to be honest, the past couple of years just disappeared. I have mixed feelings about going back to Cali. It will be a great experience being an exchange student at an American university, and my English will improve so much. But I have more to miss in Sweden now compared to last time. So many new friends, a boyfriend.

The EDES 406 class worked out. I tried to enroll in a new class last night but it didn’t work. So I emailed the person I’ve been on contact with for the past months about everything, and she said that as long as I’ve talked to the professor of the class everything will be fine. I’ve chosen to believe her. No point in being worried.

At the end of this week I will decide how I will go to SLO from LA, probably with a rental car. And then I will need to book a bed at a hostel in SLO for my first two nights. And that is it, except for packing which I will start doing in September. I want to live normally for as long as possible.

 

Yesterday the weather was craxy here in Gothenburg. I think it is the fall that is coming. One moment we had sun, the next it was pouring down, and all the time it was extremely windy. Almost too windy to operate the attractions up on the mountain. The sky was dark and it looked like a thunderstorm would start at any moment. But it never came. It was gone before anything happened.

I had a pretty rough schedule with just hourly passes. One hour at Höjdskräcken, one hour at Helix and so on. SOme half hours are nice. During my last 1,5 hours at Helix a guy asked me to take a selfie of them while they were sitting on the Helix train. I should have taken a selfie of myself. But the point is that he used to word selfie instead of photo which was weird. A selfie is when you take a photo of yourself, while taking a photo of someone else is just taking a photo. Today’s youth!

 

Five out of six days this week I work until closing. It takes a lot of energy and not getting enough sleep is getting to me. I’ve been so exhausted today! I should probably go to bed now, but I think Chad’s parents wanted to Skype, that would be the first time. Exciting, but I could probably be a betterm e when I’m not this tired.

Tomorrow I have a 10 hour working day. Noon to 11pm.That will be a tough day. I don’t think I will get up earlier to study like I have all the other days this week. I think I need the sleep! But I have felt really good about myself for solving one problem each day before work. On Friday I will sit down most of the day while the pulled pork will be cooking in the oven. The same on Saturday. And Sunday morning, and all the other days until August 27th.

Sunday

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday I had my 5th day of this summer season at Balderado. I had Spinrock the whole day but that was great. Spinrock is fun to work at and especially when you are two people. The day went by super fast and I was home before I knew it.

Today I was at Berget again where I only had one hour passes which is kinda slow if you have it the whole day. One hour at one attraction is a lot of time. Half hours go by so much faster and the variation makes it easier to keep the mood up.

I was in a very good mood today, but my tiredness made it tough to keep it up. I did have a nice day in general though.

My tooth, or the lack of tooth more correctly, is okay. It hurts a tiny bit, but I could eat almost without any problems at all. But being careless probably made it worse by the evening. Now it hurts when I swallow and it feels like I have a sore throat. But I know better, it is the hole. I should probably be more careful, even if it feels alright, because it probably isn’t alright just yet. It has just been three days!

I closed Höjdskräcken today again. So awesome. No stress, you get closer to the guests who actually come and you can relax before going home. Love it!

 

I found out a couple of days ago that I need to enroll in a new course at Cal Poly because I am currently on the waiting list for the environmental class that is mandatory. I was certain that I would get that class because of an email from the professor a while back. But I am second on the wait list and to meet the requirements of my visa status I need to enroll and get accepted to 3 more credits. I’ve found another class that might be similar, Sustainable Environmental Engineering. But I will also enroll in German 1. I have to get one of those three classes and will have more options. I really hope I get Sustainable Environments, my first choice, but if I don’t I will have to take that class when I am back in Sweden which will suck, but it would work. So tomorrow night at 11pm I will enroll in new classes. Cross your fingers for me that I get my first choice!