Tag Archives: Cal Poly

First day of finals week

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This quarter’s finals week started off good. I got some stuff done, like finished my part of the group project about the bus routes here in SLO. That felt good. I sent some emails, finished writing the definitions of some concepts for my Urban Planning final tomorrow. And that is it. I missed the beautiful day, but I was in a weird mood today anyway.

So, tomorrow I have the final in Introduction to Urban Planning, but it is not exactly a final since it is not cumulative. It’s gonna be 50 questions, mostly multiple choice. I already have an A in that class so I am not too worried about this. And on Wednesday I have the German final, but I can’t study for that one. We are gonna watch a movie and then have group discussions about it afterward. I am so thankful for these past two weeks that was very relaxed and with not too much work. Even if it’s been super chill, I can’t wait for spring break. Traveling again will be so much fun.

I made an appointment to cut my hair on Thursday after a sunrise hike up Bishops Peak, we are having dinner at Firestone, and will go to Slodoco. This week Kelsey, our former roommate from Iowa is visiting for her spring break with three of her friends. The place is packed. I am just glad I don’t have too much to do. It is so nice to have Kelsey back, I really missed her! But it is a weird situation to have her here with her friends from back home and “sharing” her. I am still very glad to have her here, today we went to dinner downtown and last night we hung out in our living room for ever with some of our neighbors. That was fun.

I think I will hang out in my room tonight, watch a movie or read and then go to bed early.

Dead week

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I have to say that this dead week is very dead. Last quarter I had stuff up over my ears to do. This quarter pretty much nothing. And I am so thankful for that. I’ve not been feeling so well the past two weeks because of all of this stress (non-school related obviously). I got my prescribed sleep pills on Monday and those are weird. I guess I need time to adjust maybe. They do the trick though, I fall asleep very fast after I take one, but exactly 8 hours later I wake up and can’t go back to sleep even if I want to. Today I woke up 4 hours before my alarm went off and I just couldn’t go back to sleep. Very annoying, and I was tired still! I read some, texted some and I think I fell asleep for another 40 min or something. What’s also worth mentioning about these pills is that they make me remember dreams (maybe that’s why I wake up?). Last night I dreamt I was roadtripping to the Caribbean with a big fancy car and I went on strange-shaped ferries, fell in the water a few times, but just swam with the car in my hand to the closest yacht (the car was not heavy at all). So I hitch-hiked with this yacht the size of a small island through a small channel with luxurious hotels right next to it. Weird! I also go on a fun trip right before I fall asleep. Last night while I was reading I remember thinking that I had to go to bed because all the letters on my eReader turned to fabric figures and stood up so it was impossible to keep reading. They get the job done, and I will consult with the doctor about all of this again on Friday. And I will also talk to her about the stomach pains I’ve been having the past two days. It has to do with the mono, but I think it will be good to tell the doctor about it.

Today I last-minute studied for a quiz I have tomorrow in Public Transportation. I did my cheat sheet and that’s all I need I think. I try not to stress too much about it, it is only 10% of my grade. But still, wish me luck on it tomorrow! This cheat sheet thing (I don’t remember if I ever wrote about it before, but it is worth writing about again) is a very interesting thing. In Sweden we are not allowed to bring anything except ourselves, a pen, an eraser and maybe a calculator. And we are maybe provided with a paper with equations.  But here, we are allowed one (sometimes double-sided) page with our own notes on it. We can write pretty much whatever on it. So if you can write superdupertiny, you can put everything on there! I kinda like it, because I learn better when I write stuff by hand.

It’s pretty late now, and I should go to bed. And read a couple of pages in Day 21 before I start trippin again. I finished The 100 yesterday. Even if I watch the TV show, it is still entertaining to read the books. Somehow the books always have a different and better story. And it is interesting to see what has been added to the show. I can recommend both the TV show and the books!

Tired and dizzy

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This day was not very long, but it felt like it would never end! I didn’t have my first class until 2pm, and was done by 5:30 and then spent two hours at the library doing two Urban Planning quizzes and all my German homework. After that I was completely done, had dinner, watched an episode of Once Upon a Time and now I am all ready to go to bed. I hope I can fall asleep. And also, there are people in the apartment so I guess that won’t happen anytime soon. Why are the walls so thin in this country??

Long Thursday

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I only have two long Thursday’s left before this quarter is over. Today I was doing stuff non-stop from 11am until 7pm. It was a long day with my feverish and very tired mood. I survived though and got some new information about the internship process, I can’t really say the Urban Planning class was very giving today, German was okay and fun as usual, and we had a guest speaker for two hours at the lab. Was rough. I thought Shannon and I would be able to analyze the peak hour bus routes after the lab, but since it was after 6pm it had to be the off peak. But we needed to do that too. So we basically just sat on the bus route all the way around, wrote down the arrival and departure time of all the stops and also how many boardings and alightings. It wasn’t too bad.

Then I spent I short while at the Farmers Market and had dinner downtown before going home where I had a big slice of warm cookie/cake with ice cream. I see double now and so look forward to sleeping for as long as I want tomorrow.

Bake a cake

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This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I thought this week was gonna be super hectic, but turns out it is my slowest week this quarter so far. I am so happy about that!

But instead I am tired and have no energy for nothing, so after I got done with everything today I baked and then just watched TV shows. I baked an American cookie(/cake) with chocolate and caramel. It turned out divine and now, after a piece, and dinner, I am so full I can’t stand it. It is only 9:30pm, but I am definitely going to bed as soon as I am done with this post.

Today was very chill, I went to my two classes, and sat out in the sun in between for an hour reading Bitterblue. It is a thick book and with the lack of freetime and energy I’ve had lately I haven’t read as much as I would have wanted. I have such a long list of books I wanna read, and Cassandra Clare released the first book in a companion series to The Mortal Instruments. I so wanna read that one now, but I have told myself to stick to one book at a time, otherwise this would be chaos!

The quiz in Public Transportation didn’t go well at all, but I don’t really care right now. It is just one of three quizzes, and is only 10% of my grade. And I didn’t fail miserably.

Okay, time for me to call it a night, I will hopefully wake up not too tired tomorrow and prepare for a very very long day.

American Cookie with chocolate and caramel Here is the recipe for this divine piece of cake. It is in Swedish though, and I am way too tired to translate it tonight. If you don’t speak/read Swedish, use Google Translate, or ask me tomorrow. It is gonna be worth it, just ask my roommate Rachel ;).

News from the doctor

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Okay, good new first, I do not have a lifelong vitamin B12 deficiency that needs monthly injections, that is a relief. But I wonder why my values were so extremely low that one time when I did the tests the first time in Sweden?

The bad news, and I don’t how to rank these two according to badness, but the first thing; I have mono. Again! How is that even possible? I have no idea, but I definitely have it, and it sucks monkeyballs! This means no sports that could potentially hurt my stomach, and more specifically my spleen and liver. So no beach volleyball, no volleyball for four weeks. It is a good thing that spring break is four weeks away so I will be able to play down in SD at least. But I am still very bummed about this. I don’t have any symptoms once again (except for my tiredness lately). Ugh!!

After I stopped being surprised on the phone very early this morning, the doctor told me she had more bad news. What?? Apparently my blood is showing an allergic reaction to something. They couldn’t see what kind, just that I had it. I did those tests years ago in Sweden, I am not allergic to anything except bunnies and Erythromycin (a type of penicillin). What could it be? Nothing that makes my nose runny or eyes itchy or anything like that. She told me to get Allegra for allergy relief. But I hate taking medicine if I don’t know what for. So tomorrow I am gonna call the allergy place here in SLO and ask how much those tests would cost. If I am allergic to something I really wanna know what it is.

Everything is going so well for me right now, I’ve never ever had as good grades as I have now, I might have an internship, I have a great apartment down in San Diego waiting for me if I get the job, spring is coming, and I have spring break coming up with fun plans, and an awesome last quarter in school with fun classes, surfboard crafting class, scuba certification class and just amazing California in general. So why do I have to pay for all this with my health? It’s not fair :(.

I guess, as long as I don’t have symptoms and am lying half-dying in bed I should be glad.

And speaking of bed, it is time to join it under the covers. I am done with studying for the quiz tomorrow, I finished my German homework and I’ve had my fair share of ice cream tonight. Definitely time for a date with my pillow. Goodnight!

A good Monday

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This day started with a couple of blood tests to determine once and for all if I have a B12 deficiency that needs to be treated for the rest of my life. The two doctors in Sweden have so far told me two different things, so I’m hoping this will help me. I will hopefully get the results by the end of the week and we will deal with it after that.

I went back home to bed for another three hours after first skyping with mom for a while. Before class I went to a popcorn test for one of Julianne’s classes and then I had my two classes and ended the day with four hours at the library. I was done by ten, came home, and had nothing to do. I was so happy. I sat down, watched an episode of Arrow while painting my nails and just being happy. A big part of my happiness was the apartment I found in San Diego available for me right when I am done with school. Three Swedish girls are leaving in May and needs three new people moving in. I told them I was very interested and that I could come down and look at the apartment on Spring Break. She was also gonna talk to the building manager or whatever and get back to me with more details. $860/month, everything included, two pools in the apartment complex, parking spot for $55. And it is down in southern San Diego, close to beach volleyball. It is too good to be true, but on the other hand, everything seems to go my way right now :).

I had way too much energy tonight, so at midnight I started to clean my room, then I fixed my ripped jeans, and now when there is nothing more to do, I guess it is time to go to bed.

Career Fair

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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.

The past couple of days have been very interesting. Last night I went to the career fair for architects/planners/project managers/and whatever. I had looked up a few companies beforehand and talked to a lot of them. I was nicely dressed in Rachel’s clothes and felt more professional than I ever have. I think I did pretty well actually. There were especially two companies I was very interested in, both in North County San Diego and they both offered internship which then could turn into a fulltime job. Project Engineer Intern was the title and I was gonna help on construction sites and stuff like that. What I have done before pretty much. I am gonna email them both tomorrow and tell them I will be going down to San Diego again in the end of March. One of the companies specifically told me to come down and visit the office to say hi to people and go out and see some construction sites. I have a good feeling about this! I am very excited about this and hope I will get an internship for the next 9 months.

I talked to more companies and will apply for more internships than just these two, but those are the most interesting to me.

Today I talked to the visa specialist at the International Center and I got a lot of information there too. I learned last night that there is something called Visa Sponsorship (which basically just is when a company wants to hire you and give you an H-1 visa), and I asked this lady about the specifics about all of this. I have this 2-year rule that says that I have to be home in Sweden for the next two years after this visa expires. There is a way to waiver that thing. Which I would have to do before applying for the H-1 visa. And you can only apply for that once a year, April 1st, and that is way too soon for me. If some miracle happened I guess it could happen (I am gonna email an immigrant attorney tomorrow and ask about this). So I guess I have to wait for that until next year, but I can’t start working until October 1st, so that means I would have to go home to Sweden in March and then stay there until October. I wonder if a company would still want me if that would happen. I guess I will have to do a really good internship and hope for the best.

So for now my only option is to do an internship. It doesn’t sound too bad to be honest. It would be nice to spend next summer at home, working at Liseberg, living with mom again (because I guess I would have to give up my apartment pretty soon).

But one thing at a time, first I need to get an internship. Cross your fingers for me! 🙂

 

This morning I actually had an interview with another company, it went okay I would say. It wasn’t with one of the two companies that I really want though. This was the first trip I made to campus.

My second trip to campus today was to talk to the International Center (but no one was there at 3pm) and then discuss my B12 deficiency with a doctor at the Health Center. I explained my situation, that my first doctor in Sweden told me this is something that will never go away and that I will need injections for the rest of my life. The other doctor said I didn’t have a deficiency. So I will do all the test once again to determine what is going on. I will have to do that on Monday morning though, one of them was a test that needed to be done while fasting. Three tests in total, $50, but it will be worth it. If it turns out to be what the first doctor said and I will need injections every month for the rest of my life, the pharmacy will order a 25 pack of those doses just for me. $60 for that is not too bad. I think 5 doses in Sweden was like $10. They are also gonna teach me how to take them myself so I don’t have to go to a clinic every month.

My third visit to campus was at 6:30pm when I joined an intramural indoor volleyball team for their practice. One of my neighbors invited me and it was really fun. Not nearly as fun as beach volleyball, but definitely a good way to spend a Friday evening if nothing better is offered. Not as much ball contact as in beach volleyball, and I didn’t really get exhausted from the workout, but I still enjoyed it and might go next week to. Maybe I should even join a team myself next quarter? Unless they have intramural beach volleyball in the spring quarter which I have heard rumors about.

When I came home I took a shower, baked some cornbread and now I will take that cornbread with me to bed and watch the latest episode of The Flash and then pass out.

Career Fair outfit I had my hair down at the career fair, I felt pretty. It is kinda unbelievable that I am graduating in four months. I will have a Bachelor of Science in four months!! Crazy!Indoor vball German midterm 1My German midterm, these are the only marks I had on the test, and there were two more pages. Go me! (why not post random pictures when I have 13GB on this website to fill?)

Double A’s

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All this late night studying has finally started to pay off. Two days ago I got the result on my Urban Planning midterm and I got a 90%, which equals an A-. I am happy!! And today I got my German midterm back and I got an A! My name was torn off the paper and the professor told me it was because he showed it to another professor. Does that mean that my midterm was a really really good one? Maybe even best in class? Only two or three marks on the whole test and I am very very proud of myself. All the hard work I’ve put into school the last three weeks have really paid off.

And the German class in general was so fun today, I laughed all the time! We are starting to have conversations and actually talking in class now and it was just great. I love that class!!

Another cool thing that happened today was that I got the videos of all the 8 games of beach volleyball we played on Monday evening. Here is a link to them if anyone feels like watching. I played with Chris and against Wes and Cathleen. It was such a fun night.

What else happened today? Pretty much just studying, today before class as well as after. When will this ever end? I miss sleep…

Last night I was at the library until midnight. But after tomorrow the weekend will be here and I can’t wait!! Tomorrow will be a long day though. Doctor’s appointment at 9, then two hours to kill (maybe nap in the library?), presentation practice at 11, class at noon all the way until 6pm. And right after that there is a career fair for architects/urban planners and all the others in that area. I haven’t had time to research the companies yet, I will do that tomorrow on my two hour break I guess. I borrowed some nice clothes from Rachel and I hope I will get at least a few companies attention. If it is even possible with an internship at private companies. We will see. I also reached out to all the cities down in San Diego County and asked for internships. Please cross your fingers that I will get something down there! That would be a dream come true!

Extension of my visa

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I thought it was time to write something again. I have several reasons why it’s been empty here for the past week, the main one is that I’ve been going through a breakup and it’s still pretty rough for me. But I am getting there. The school has also been drowning me in midterms, reports, reading, quizzes. It’s been really bad. But the week is over, I got a little more energy today after finding out a lot about my visa and how I might continue to stay in California.

The day started with me talking to my Urban Planning professor about internships. He told me he would help me reach out to people at the different cities around here. He will also help me with my resume and cover letter. So very nice of him! I am gonna send it to him as soon as it is done and he will give it back with feedback on improvements and then send it out sometime next week or week after. I can’t believe a professor would do that for a student. I am grateful.

My next stop of the day was at the International Center to ask questions about the internship. The professor told me that I can do the internship even without the class, and if I want the credit anyway (I don’t need it, but why not?!), he would help me work it out so I can do individual work on the side. Since the “weekly meeting” for the Planning Internship class is colliding with another class, this was great news. So I don’t have to worry about that class. So if I feel like getting credits I can do it on my own. This school is so flexible! I will get the schedule I wanted for next quarter. I will have no class on Fridays which opens up a whole day for the internship. Yay! But I wanted to make sure that this worked with my visa. And apparently it does with the J-1 (not F-1 though). Double yay! So, I can get an internship, and I can even get paid. The hard part about that was that I would have to get a SSN, but I already have that, easy peasy then! I actually don’t have to do anything in this process except for finding the internship. Another awesome (maybe sad for my mom) thing that I found out today is that I can extend my DS-2019 for up to 9 months to do “academic training” as long as it is within my major. So it is not technically my visa that will be renewed. It is my DS-2019 where it says what I am doing here, and for how long I will do it. But if I leave the country during that time I would have to go to the American Embassy in Stockholm to renew my visa. But I am considering going home in June for two weeks, see my mom again and then go back to start the internship. Or if I start the internship now during school and just take a vacation and continue when I get back. It would be nice to go home for a bit.

But I am super stoked about this opportunity that I just learned about. The International Center also told me that there is a way of waiving the exchange visitor (J-1) 2-year home-country physical presence requirement. I am not completely sure how, but this website explains it. And I am sure the city of SLO (or wherever I end up) knows how to so I don’t have to stay in Sweden for the next two years when I am done here on this visa. And if I am staying, then I have a cheap car I can buy down in San Diego from one of my au pair friends who is leaving in June. Everything is getting better. Almost everything.

When I came home I was so happy that I baked two loafs of banana bread. Rachel could smell it in the hallway and came into my room and told me I was queen for baking. That made me happy too.