Tag Archives: Cal Poly

Study at the library

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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 don’t know if you guys know this, but I am not very fond of the library. I don’t know why, but I guess I like my own room better even if there are more distractions here. But today I had too much that needed to be done so I spent four hours there with Matt. I actually got a lot of stuff done. First I looked at what my partner had written for the report that is due tomorrow afternoon. It looked good, so I finished the reading for the Urban Planning quiz (we have one quiz before every class (twice a week)) and then did the quiz. 97%, not too bad. Then I wrote down ten German verbs and conjugated all of them. We have a quiz tomorrow on the prepositions and ten verbs. I hope that will go well. I feel like I know it all, but I am not good at forming sentences. Cross your fingers for me!

At 11 I felt that I was done, so I went out in the cold and headed home. Here I have watched funny cat videos and put together several different potential schedules for next quarter. I am waiting for responses from several people about different classes. But I have all my options saved so when February 10th comes, I will be ready to enroll. I am hoping for CRP 214 – Land Use and Transportation Studies, ENVE 331 – Introduction to Environmental Engineering, GER 103 – Elementary German III, and CRP 409 – Planning Internship. I am also considering KINE 181 – First Aid/CPR/AED on top of all of those to renew my certification. But I am not sure about that yet (it is two extra hours every week). The Environmental Planning Methods that I wanted to take only covers the California laws when it comes to planning, so it might not benefit be at all if I don’t end up here. And that one was also early mornings and 4 hours each time, so I want to take the Land Use class instead. Better times and seems better suited for me no matter where I end up. I hope I can take the Environmental Engineering class too, but that is completely up to my advisor at Chalmers. I think that environmental engineering is definitely good for all types of engineers. But I am patiently waiting for my advisor’s email reply. If it is not okay, then I will just take a class called CE 421 – Traffic Engineering and have three out of five very early mornings, and also have class on Friday’s. Let’s cross all your fingers again for this NOT to happen! I also want to take the Planning Internship class which will give me at least 60 hours of work experience in planning, and also 2 units to my transcript. But it might be too late to find a company to work for even if I got a thumbs-up from my advisors here at Cal Poly regarding my visa status. If I get that internship, it could be my way in to stay permanently in California. But if I don’t, it just means that I have to contact companies directly and apply for a real job directly instead. Probably more work, but since I really want this, I am ready to put the effort into it.

I’ve been very productive today, and I will end this long day with the latest episode of The Flash and then prepare for a long long day tomorrow (Thursday’s are the worst, 6 hours of consecutive lectures, no breaks, and all in different parts of campus of course).

German quiz 2 This is my German quiz #2. Don’t mind all the errors. But read the questions. My German teacher is the best! Today in class he had brought a light saber and a sonic screwdriver, he also went on an on about a guy’s feral cat invasion in his house and joked about it. I have never laughed in class as much as I do in his class (he is a good teacher too and teach us so much). Heil Edler Graf von Anderson!California sunsetI can’t get enough of beautiful sunsets and they seem to be endless here. I love it! They make me happy.

Still not 100%

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The last two mornings when I woke up I was feeling great, like nothing was wrong. But as the days progressed I got worse and the day ended with me feeling sick again. It is not too bad, but I do feel dizzy and it is hard to focus in class. Especially yesterday afternoon in Public Transportation. It was an interesting class because we had a guest speaker. But he was in Oakland and presented over the computer. Impressive technology. It was not a very interesting subject, but still pretty cool that that is do-able.

My nose is still very congested at times and I am coughing. I don’t even know why! But it feels like something is stuck in my chest and I can’t get it out of there. Annoying like nothing else.

I wrote a list today of what I have coming up and it is actually a long list. And it made me realize that I have two midterms next week. Oops. I did not know that until today! But I am sure it will be fine.

This afternoon I felt better than yesterday so I actually managed to do a lot of things. I started on the Planning assignment where I will answer questions about my hometown. The German homework is done. Prepositions are hard, but this went better than the Perfect Tense. I also finished my part of the San Diego public transit report that’s due on Thursday. A productive afternoon/evening. Now I am thinking of calling it a night. I don’t have to get up early tomorrow or anything, but the bed is calling more than usual tonight.

Sick again

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Why does this keep happening to me? How can I be sick again?? It was like the cold took vacation with me in the Caribbean and now it’s like: Hey, guess who’s back?!

My sinuses are all messed up, my nose is runny and I’ve been feverish this whole day. And tomorrow will be a busy day and also the day I say goodbye to Toby. He leaves SLO tomorrow and I still can’t really believe it. But I know for sure though that I will see him in the summer and fall again. Sweden and Germany are very close to each other. It will be very empty when he is gone.

Except realizing the truth about my health today I went to two classes. I got my quiz back in German, I was several points above average and only one point away from max score. Go me! Public Transportation is not as interesting as I thought it would be. The teacher is hard to follow (he is Indian and speaks very fast with an accent). Maybe it will get better.

In the evening we were a bunch of people going to Firestone for Toby’s goodbye dinner. I just love their pulled pork sandwich. The best! And today I saved half for tomorrow. Then we had a little bit of froyo and the rest of the evening we all hung out in Toby’s room playing Cards Against Humanity. Even sober, that game is hilarious! I came third, not too bad.

Now it is really late, I don’t feel too well, so I should probably go to bed so I can wake up early and say goodbye to my best friend here. I am gonna miss him so much!!

The Wedding Ringer

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This day started horribly, but turned better. My classes went well, Toby joined me for my German class and really enjoyed it, and so did the teacher. I love my German teacher, he is the best! Then I had a late lunch with Toby out in the sun at the UU Plaza, and then an hour of working on a Public Transportation project. The presentation is next Thursday and the report is due the week after. We did most of the presentation today, feels great!

Back home, had dinner and then watched a couple of episodes of The 100 and used Uber for the first time. Great idea with private taxi drivers. Toby and I went to the movies to see The Wedding Ringer, better than I expected. Probably nothing I would pay money for to see at the movies, but it was student price Thursday and it was fun to go out for a bit.

Now I will go to bed, with an empty mind (no school things to do this weekend, yay!) and go for a run with Toby tomorrow when I wake up without an alarm. Some VS shopping with my roomies after that and bowling in the evening, a good start on this weekend!

Goodnight!

Week 2 = studying?

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Today has been all about studying. And I wonder why, this is beginning of week 2, there shouldn’t be anything to study this early! I have seriously been studying non-stop since I got out of class today at 3pm and I just stopped. I took an hour break when I had dinner, but that was it. I had stuff to do in all of my three classes, I had a lot of reading (which took like two hours today since I was super tired and couldn’t really focus) and a quiz which I then summarized in my “questions” document in Urban Planning. Then I had a huge German homework where I first conjugated ten verbs and then tried to find ten sentences on Bild.de and change them into both future tense and past tense. Toby (my German friend who is super bored right now and helps me correct my homeworks) told me that was a very difficult homework. It took a long time too. In the middle of it we were forced to take a break because the stupid fire alarm went off. I never saw any notes in the building about a drill, but when we got out, the police officer told us about important stuff when the alarm goes off and no fire truck came. This fire alarm is the worst ever, it is super loud and actually hurts my ears.

I had mushroom soup for dinner and watched an episode of The 100 and then started working on my Public Transportation presentation/report. I wrote a whole page, which is basically all I have to do. Tomorrow I am meeting up with one of my group members to go through our part of the presentation which is the future of San Diego’s public transit. It’s pretty interesting.

Even if I am not super into going to school, being here at Cal Poly is really something I needed. I see connections in all my classes here (maybe not German). I never did that in Sweden so this last year actually feels meaningful. And it is a bit funny that the one class I like most is the one not counting towards my major, the German class. I really like it and I already feel like I know more than I did a week ago. This week we’ve been learning about the past and the future, I have never learned that before. Progress!

Pint night

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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.

Last night was a very fun evening. My second pint night since I moved to SLO. The first one was the first week of school last quarter.

I went down there at 9pm with Måns, Pelle and Toby and met up with people down there. We thought we were early but when we got to SLO brew the line was enormous! Fortunately we found some of our neighbors halfway to the entrance and sneakily cut the line. No one noticed. We probably saved ourselves an hour. It still took us an hour to get in, good thing it wasn’t too cold. And the company was great. After a little while Matt joined us too. We got in and bought cheap beer. It was extremely crowded in there and very loud, but when we finally got a table as far away from the bar as possible it was easier to talk. It was the five of us who hung out the whole evening. The three Swedes, the German and American. I am a little bit embarrassed to admit that we spoke a lot of Swedish. But it was just one night, I will go back to my normal English (and weird-feeling Swedish) as soon as Måns has left tomorrow. I don’t know exactly when he is leaving, if he stays so we can go to Farmer’s Market or if he wants to stay even longer and go to line dancing. He should, but he also has a long drive down to LA. We will see. I have a long day in school first, noon to 6pm without any breaks except for the 10 minutes between classes. I don’t think I will be a big fan of Thursdays this quarter.

Before pint night yesterday I had my first day of classes. It started with Introduction to Urban Planning at noon to 2pm. It seems like an interesting class, but a lot of work. There are only two midterms, no final, two assignments, so not too bad. BUT, we do have readings before every class. Just skip the reading you say? Nope, because we also have a quiz before every class (which is twice a week). So this time I will have to do all the reading. Ugh… This morning I read more than 20 pages and took the quiz between my two classes today. I got 88% because the short answer questions needed to have the exact phrasing. I knew the answers, but typing it wrong many times. Annoying.

My second class was German and I can already say that I love that class and that it will be my favorite class this quarter. I didn’t miss anything on Monday, the teacher just talked about the syllabus. And yesterday he went through all of last quarter briefly. I recognized everything so I don’t think I will have any problems at all with this step 2 class. And the teacher is funny. A very important trait with teachers. He made us laugh all the time, and he seems to know most of the students since last quarter.

Right after class Lauren, Måns, and I went to Slodoco to buy 23 donuts for Rachel’s 23rd birthday yesterday. She got really happy! And now we all have donuts to eat whenever. Not too good… But still very good!

Then Måns and I went to Pismo Beach to watch the sunset, and it was a glorious Californian sunset. No clouds and it was warm. Oh yeah, the whole day had been really warm. Like a summer day. Almost 30C. Winter? Nope, SLO goes straight for summer. I love it! I was afraid it was gonna be cold when I got back from the Caribbean. Today has been as nice, but I was at home most of the day and didn’t go out until in the afternoon. Still very nice though.

Pismo Beach Pismo Beach Pismo Beach Pismo Beach Pismo Beach seals Seals were swimming right next to the pier.Pismo BeachPismo Beach

After the beach I bought food since I threw everything out when I left for winter break. Pizza was ordered for dinner and I took a hot shower with our new showerhead the maintenance guys put in over the break. Awesome!

 

Today was another day of school. I did the reading, went to my German class (where we watched an old 40’s movie about post World War II), and then took the quiz, and went to my first Public Transportation class. The teacher talked extremely fast, and he was Indian so I had to really focus on what he was saying. What I hear was that we don’t have any class next week, yay! And he also talked about the different public transit modes for an hour and a half. I talked to him afterward and I was still in the class, thank god!

I went back home, watched the last part of Sex Tape with Måns, and then he started cooking dinner. He made poppy seed salmon with haricot vert/ginger/honey pasta. It was delicious!! For dessert he made us Swedish pancakes with strawberry jam and ice cream. Very appreciated and so nice of him. I am still full and this was three hours ago.

After that Toby and Aiden stopped by and hung out for a while. We all played Trivia Crack against each other and it was just a very nice evening.

And now it is past midnight so I should go to bed. Not that I have anything to do before noon.

Bishops Peak plus moon Yesterday morning I had to go up really early to buy a parking permit for Måns, and on our way back to my apartment we saw Bishops Peak and the moon.Måns cooking

Wednesday

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Today was a normal day, I got out of bed at 11:30am, chilled for a bit, took a shower, and then studied for my final tomorrow. It feels good, I wrote the summary a few days ago and felt that I knew most of it, and today I did the engineering economics problem (12 in total) and felt that I knew all of them. I am not worried about this final at all. Probably mostly because it is only 20% of the grade and I have an A up until now in this class. I think I can get an F and still pass the class. Great feeling!

The Sustainable Environments class tonight was just a long review of the whole class. The teacher basically told us the questions which were coming on the test. I am not complaining and I don’t feel too stressed out about it. It is the same situation there as it is with the lab class. I have an A so far and the final is 35% of the grade, so I will do well in the end no matter what happens on the test.

I am more concerned about the Architecture History final. The week before Thanksgiving the teacher told us 90% of the test would be on the last 6 lectures and the rest 10% would be on the first 12. But yesterday he told us it would be 20 questions out of 80 which is 20%. That is gonna require a lo of studying… I have a C+ in that class right now, and I can’t get worse than that on this test. It’s a week away, so I have time to study.

I think I will go to bed now, I have a presentation in Transportation Engineering tomorrow morning and then I have to prepare for the final at 3pm. And at 8pm I will celebrate that I survived dead week at the Grad with some linedancing and maybe a drink or two. I am excited!

Weekend ahead

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After two amazing weekends I feel very disappointed for this one. I don’t have any plans at all and I hate it. I feel restless and afraid that I will spend the whole weekend studying and go to bed at 9pm because of boredom.  I’m sure something will come up at the last minute.

Today was a normal day of class. I found out that we will have another midterm in Transportation Engineering the week after Thanksgiving (Deadweek, the week before Finals week) and an extra credit assignment due during Finals Week. We have a homework due the Monday after Thanksgiving, the project in that class is due the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and I have a Sustainable Environment project due Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Maybe I should study this weekend…

I can’t wait for Winter Break, it is only three weeks away today!

A chill day

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Today was a very chill day. I woke up, read some in Heir of Fire (not many pages left now, like 40), went to the Library for about 30 minutes to talk about our final project in Transportation Engineering, then back home, took a 3 hour nap. I didn’t wanna waste the whole afternoon so I watched an episode of The Flash and ate dinner and then I was so bored that I actually studied when I didn’t need to. I started to make a study guide for the final in Sustainable Environments. Go me!

In class we watched two movies and I wasn’t tired so I stayed focused the whole time. And at 10pm Kelsey picked me up and we went grocery shopping. Back home I had a cup or two of hot white chocolate and continued to study. I wasn’t tired. Now I am though, so I will go to bed, sleep for about 4 hours and then do my third last day of class before finals in three weeks.

Goodnight!

Midterm result

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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.

Let’s see, what happened today? First I got my Transportation Engineering midterm back and I did way way better than I thought. I got 71% (last time I got 66%) when mean was 78. With the curve it might be an okay grade. I am super happy about it!

Then there was architecture history class which went by really fast for once. Maybe because the professor went away from the subject and talked about blood sugar levels for 20 min?

During lunch I was at the UU Plaza with Kelsey. There was an event with the British boy’s frat, Pie Phi Psi. You pied guys in the frat and I think they raised money for something. Kelsey did both of the boys at the same time. It was funny. We had lunch together on campus and when I got home I was very very tired but started working on my Sustainable Environments paper which is due tomorrow.

Pie Phi Psi

Lab in the afternoon, Johanna and I got 25/30 points on our Civil3D road design. I am satisfied. My lowest grade in that class so far but it was a big assignment and it was hard. And grades doesn’t really matter for me anyway.

I was gonna go to Pint Night when I finished the paper after the lab, but I was too tired so I started watching Guardians of the Galaxy. I am one hour in, and I have to admit that it is not as bad as I thought it would be. The reason why I took a break was because I was about to fall asleep and wanted to update my blog. It will be so great getting many hours of sleep tonight!