Tag Archives: studying

The Princess Bride

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I have overcome my fear and watched this movie for the first time since I was like 8. At that time I had crazy and horrible nightmares about this movie, the Rodents of Unusual Size especially. Can’t really say that I remembered anything else. But today, 15 years later, I saw it again. I’ve been meaning to for a very long time, but we are watching it in German right now, without subtitles and I can’t understand it, so I watched it tonight in English so I hopefully will understand more tomorrow.

Nothing really has happened since last time I updated, which was, wow, a week ago. I apologize. The weather last week was bad, not more than 15C and cloudy and I didn’t really have anything I could do. Not too much in school, so most nights I played a lot of Guild Wars 2. I kinda just wanna go home now, and have been withdrawing from my friends. I don’t know why, it would make more sense that I would wanna hang out with them as much as possible. But everyone is so stressed out about deadweek (this week) and finals week next week. Everyone will relax and leave when I am leaving. It is a weird thing leaving a place after a long time. I know that I only have 11 more days here in SLO, but having a set date when I am leaving and know that I have a lot to do before then just makes me wanna skip that hard part with packing, preparing for departure and saying goodbye to friends. Also, I am not super happy about my living situation, but I won’t go into details about that. It has been hard having roommates, and I am happy to go back to not have that. And living with mom is not gonna be the same. I know that it is nice living with her.

This weekend was sunny and really nice for the first time in a very long time! It was about 24C and sunny three days in a row. On Friday I was at the pool with Aidan for many hours. I spent all of Saturday at Avila Beach. I spent the whole time studying and preparing for the presentation I have either tomorrow or Thursday. Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon at the pool reading. I have come a long way in Sea of Sorrows (the third Guild Wars book). All of them were really good!

Today beachvolleyball was canceled but I went to TRX and that almost killed me. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t work out at all last week, it was hot today, or because I just finished taking antibiotics. It wasn’t that hard of a workout, so I don’t know what happened, but I saw stars after and almost passed out. Scary.

An hour break before German where we watched the first 30 minutes of Die Braut des Prinzen.

I went home after that, took a shower and then went back to campus to let Rosie take portrait pictures of me in the studio. Judging from the camera screen they turned out really well. The black background, my blond hair, tan skin. It all looked very good! I am very excited to see the final results this weekend. When I was leaving the studio there were a couple of guys there who started talking to us. They were lab technicians, and one of them saw the video of me and said when I came out that he recognized me and told me what an interesting person I am and so on. Haha, I am famous! So on Wednesday I am gonna hang out with Rosie in the studio and talk to this man who wants to know more about my fascinating life. Haha!

The last thing I wanna write tonight, is that when did it become June 1st?? It is June today. CRAZY!

Study, study, study, study…

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Right now is not a fun time for me. These past two weeks have been so hectic with so much to do. One more day, and I should be able to forget about school for 4 days. I can’t wait!

Today I spent almost 14 hours on campus studying and being in class. I have a German midterm tomorrow and I don’t feel prepared enough. We didn’t get enough time, or I was too busy with everything else going on right now. I can’t wait for school to be over in three weeks! There was a project due this morning in Land Use and Transportation Studies. We were pretty much done, just some formatting in Word. We did adjustments to the intersections but the teacher looked at us like we were stupid when we told him about them. He told us to be professional about it, and honestly; how the fuck can we be professional about something he never thought us?? I am so upset with this class and especially the teacher. If you ask him a question he always answers in a condescending tone, like we should already know that. It shouldn’t be like that. I am seriously afraid of asking him questions! Questioning him though works sometimes I’ve noticed. I saw some errors in the data we got for this assignment, and he accepted my changes gladly. But the other parts are not okay for a professor. We did our best with the resources we got, and we actually sat down for many hours yesterday and discussed mitigation options. We thought about lane changes all throughout the intersections compared to other groups. Ugh! I just hate this right now. I hope we sent it in anyway and hopefully will get at least 90% on the assignment. Because everything before the last mitigation part is a very well done job!

Then the scuba class took four hours of my evening, I didn’t get home until 10:30pm, and after the shower and the Digital Cities quiz that is due tomorrow, it is now midnight and I haven’t even started on German. I will go through the review sheet one time tonight and that’s it. I am too tired for this. Let’s pray to something and hope it works out for me tomorrow! Wish me luck, I will need it.

One fun thing happened today (except me passing the final exam in the scuba class). On Tuesday I talked to my Digital Cities professor and asked about the grading on one of the short answer questions. Today I got an updated grade on PolyLearn. 100%! Go me!

 

The video is done, and I have to say that I am surprised at hearing my voice and accent. Neither was as bad as I thought. And the video is really good! Here is a link to it (3min), if you feel like watching it. Now, time to get back to studying… fml

1st scuba lesson

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So tonight was the first scuba lesson and it started with a swim test. It was easy, 200 yards of swimming however I wanted and 10 minutes of treading water. I probably could have done twice as much, but I was a bit tired after TRX this morning. The workout wasn’t too bad, but then came the surprise of 3.5 minutes of Moby’s Bring Sally Up, and everytime they sang “up” or something we did one repetition. We could choose from either a row, or chest press. I choose row and that was hard. I was shaking and I am pretty sure I won’t be able to move tomorrow. That was intense. I am glad it wasn’t squats!

Anyway, the swim test wasn’t bad and the pool was heated so it was worse getting out of the pool. It has been very cold for a long time now. Then we watched movies on how to scuba dive, handed in homework (I wasn’t sure what we had to do so I just did it in class, but now I am aware for next week), and did two quizzes. It is a lot of information and I kinda feel lika I want more before actually doing this on Sunday. I am super excited but also a little scared. I’ve never done anything like it and I am afraid I will do something wrong. But I guess nothing can go too wrong in the gym’s pool.

The rest of the day was pretty normal, Land Use/Transportation lab, TRX, and German. Found out today there is another midterm on Thursday next week. What we are doing now is hard, but I will just have to study a lot for it this weekend when I have time. I kinda wanna sleep. And with my busy schedule for this next upcoming week, it feels like I should try to get as much sleep as I possibly can.

I just came up with the awesome idea of when I will do my first dive with my certification. In San Diego of course! There are guided tours in the kelp forest in La Jolla. That would be a nice first dive I would think. And only 35 feet so I don’t have to freak out about the depth. So excited!!

Short novel, drive-in, Valencia Peak

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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 weekend is not over yet and it has already been an eventful one. So tomorrow I won’t do anything special except for studying for my midterm. Yay!

Yesterday during the day I worked on the group project we are doing now where we are analyzing intersections in downtown. I worked on it until I got picked up. First stop of the evening was at Firestone where I had the amazing pulled pork sandwich. The next stop was the drive-in movie theatre. Tons of people compared to last time I was there. Can be because last night they were showing the new Avengers movie. It was really good like all the other Marvel movies. The second movie was Cinderella and I have to say that that was a good movie too.

The second movie started after 11pm so I didn’t get home until 1:30am and was too tired to continue to write on my short novel I started two days ago. I used to write a lot of short stories when I was younger. I have always had a vivid imagination but I took a 10-year long break from writing because of other things. Two days ago I got a really good idea though and started writing again. I only have a paragraph so far, but it is a pretty good start.

Today I slept until noon. Did some studying and then got picked up and went to Montaña de Oro to hike Valencia Peak. It was a 2-mile hike to the top, it was a “lagom” distance and a very pretty hike. The view from up there was incredible. The peak is about 1300 feet.

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We then walked along the cliffs of Montaña de Oro, where I have never been before, but clearly was the most beautiful place in all of the park. The rock formations are so cool and I have no idea how they came to be. The waves were crashing on the rocks, and it was just a beautiful day!

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It ended with dinner at Sylvester’s Hamburger place. As good as last time!

Back home and I did get some studying done after the hot shower. But I was so tired tonight that I couldn’t go through more than one powerpoint. Instead I read some of my old stories. They all definitely follow a theme, sadness. But they are still very good. I also realized that I had one story from end of 2013 which I completely had forgotten about. I wrote one part of it and I remember telling myself to finish it when I was in that special state of mind. Which I am now, so I guess I should finish it.

A+

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It is ”Friday”, 11pm, and I am ready to go to bed. I need to be better at using time during the week so I am not so tired all the time. Since I moved to SLO I haven’t been tired enough to fall asleep, but now I really have to try to stay awake by taking notes until my hand hurts from writing more than I need too.

Today we had a midterm review in Land Use and Transportation Studies (I can’t find a short for that course name) and it actually doesn’t feel like a completely lost cause. I just need to review it myself, write it down at least one time with my own words and then I should be good. I will do that tomorrow. We didn’t get our midterms back in Digital Cities like the professor said, but hopefully through PolyLearn tomorrow. In German we got the results on our midterm after class. We couldn’t get the actual tests back, so when class was done a bunch of us went up to the professor to give us our results. He saw me and just said that I got an A. I was surprised. I mean, it felt great writing the tests, but this week when we went over it, I got insecure in my answers, so I was actually a little bit surprised. When I was back at my seat to put my stuff in my backpack and the professor went through the pile of tests to find the other students’ results he looked at me and said: “Oh, add a plus to that letter!” What? I got an A+?! How does that even work? Shouldn’t A be the highest? I am super happy anyway, he must have seen that I tried a little bit extra on some problems, even if I probably missed a few minor adjective endings and stuff. I am curious to get that test back.

As soon as I got home I baked cookies, just normal cookies but with a click of Nutella in them. They flattened out so much in the oven so they are boring cookies with a little bit of Nutella. Still pretty good.

At 5pm I got picked up by Ralph and Cathy. Ralph is a 60+ guy in my German class, and him and his wife are going to Sweden for a week this summer and wanted some tips on what to do. I gave them a ton after eating a really good tacos dinner at Taco Temple in Morro Bay. It was a very nice dinner and they are really fun and interesting people. I wanna be like them when I grow up, adventurous, still traveling, finding new friends all over the world, just living to the fullest. If I am in Gothenburg when they are there we will probably meet up. I got really inspired by doing this research and I have already plans on being a tourist back home, I might as well do some stuff with them if they would be up to it. I got really excited about coming home and do all of these things. I also wanna go to Öland again. Maybe to camp this time? That will be a well-planned trip though and sometime in the future.

Old me am getting tired, so I think I will head to bed now, maybe watch another episode of iZombie and hopefully get a good night’s sleep so I have energy to deal with midterm studying and the awful homework we have in Land Use. I worked on it forever yesterday (we are analyzing 16 intersections downtown and are eventually gonna determine the future Level of Service for all of them). In the lab I discovered a lot of errors in the data material we got from the teacher so I had to go through it all and correct it and then send it to the teacher. In the afternoon I managed to get 14 out of the 16 correct for the current Level of Service. One of them, just doesn’t make any sense. I did everything correct, but I just don’t get the answer the teacher got. Probably because the data flows didn’t match the intersections directions… And the second intersection I don’t even know what is wrong with it… So annoying! My group is meeting up tomorrow afternoon again to hopefully fix that and work on the next step.

Video interview

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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  actually intended to update my blog every night the past couple of days, but I just didn’t have time! I got home safe and sound on Sunday evening after 5.5 hours in the car with David.

On Sunday I went down to Mission Beach again for some more beach volleyball. It was overcast in North County but down there it cleared up, but with the blue sky came the wind as well. It was hard to play but I did actually get better very fast when I got used to it. I met up with Ko that I met on Saturday for the first time. We went to a Meetup group and I talked to them for literally four minutes before a random guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play a co-ed game. It was a very even game in the end. Me and my partner were under with several points up until half game. I guess that’s when I got used to the wind and we were actually on the verge of winning. But then we just kept giving away points, and so did the other team, so the game ended at 25-23. Such a long game! Unfortunately we lost, but it was a very fun game.

Then I chilled for a bit before playing a second game with Ko and two guys from the Meetup group. It was also an even game and my team lost again, 21-19. And after that I didn’t wanna play more, and there were hardly any people there, so I moved closer to the water and fell relaxed for a couple of hours before I had to leave and get ready to leave.

The last 30 minutes I was on the beach I was laying on my stomach and actually think I fell asleep for a bit. When I came home to my hostfamily I realized that my bikini had slid up so a very very white part of my butt was out in the sun. It was so red and just got worse during the evening and yesterday (Monday). Now I know how my normal skin reacts in the Californian sun in only 30 minutes. It is scary! It is still very pink today, two days later. I am used to getting rid of my redness the morning after with this tan skin I have now. I can sit down without it hurting, but I still have to be careful when putting on pants. I actually burned my calves pretty bad too.

Yesterday was a pretty chill day, I went to beach volleyball practice and was all alone. So me and the coach did a lot of intense peppering and then he made me practice setting a ball which hit the net. Doing that for 15 minutes or how long it was, was very tough on my thighs. And then of course we did a lot of squats in TRX right after. My legs have been a little spaghetti-y today, but that’s not a bad feeling!

Today was a long day. I woke up and realized that I had forgotten about the quiz that was due at 9am this morning. I quickly did it and managed to get a 94% on it. I would have gotten 100% if I only had read the material… During my one hour break I sat in the library reading, because it was “freezing” outside. I was also very tired and that makes me cold. And because I was so tired, it was hard to stay awake in my two last classes.

In my German class the professor told us that he once again was disappointed while correcting the midterms. But he added that there are the few A’s too, and he said that Swedish people apparently are smarter than Americans. I guess that means I am getting a decent grade? 😀

When I came to beach volleyball practice again today it was just me again. So the coach asked me if I still wanted to do it. It was kinda windy, the sun was out though. I said no, I wanted to be prepared for the interview at 5pm and didn’t wanna stress about it.

Until then I worked on the big assignment in Land Use and Transportation Studies. It is almost 1am and my group members still didn’t do their parts. This is due tomorrow at 10am. We are meeting at 9, so I hope we have enough time to finish it.

My former WoW-group member came over with her two groupmembers and sat up all their video equipment in my room. I sat on my bed with the Swedish flag in the background while they were filming from two sides and had a LED-lamp. It was some pretty serious stuff. They asked me questions like how my childhood was in Sweden, what made me decide to finish my studies here and how I deal with cultural differences and about my travels. It was fun! I’ve never done anything like this and I have never been in front of a camera. I felt like a star! We are doing more filming on Friday but outside. I am so curious about the final result.

Later tonight I went out to the intersection here in PCV and measured it for another Land Use homework that is due tomorrow. Tomorrow night will be a busy night too… It is soon weekend again. This weekend I am just gonna chill (or not if some adventure comes up).Beach volleyball courts at the Rec Center Yesterday was a perfect day for beach volleyball! And the gym’s courts just got new nets as well!Filming in my room

PCV Honor Banquet

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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.

Yesterday was a packed day again. First an hour of beach volleyball practice in the burning (but amazing) sun. Then an hour of extreme TRX. Well, technically it was only 25minutes of workout, but it was tough. Five different exercises and six different sets. First 30 reps, then 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5. I didn’t have time for the last five reps, which was running back and forth in the room five times. I was so dead after that. My whole body shaked really bad. I can’t really say that I feel worse today than after any other workout. Somehow I don’t get sore after pushing myself to the absolute limit. A little strange, but I am not complaining. Then I had almost an hour of waiting for my German class. We started watching a new movie, Herr Lehman. So far it is good.

As soon as I got back home I took an hour nap before heading to the main building in this village for some amazing (and free) cake from Madonna Inn. I also got a certificate saying that I got really good grades last quarter. This was the PCV Honor Banquet. Feels pretty good.

The rest of the evening I didn’t do much. I watched the new Game of Thrones episode, and then went to bed at 10pm. I couldn’t fall asleep though, so tonight I will take one of my pills so I will get a good night’s sleep.

I have kinda gotten sick again which really sucks a lot. It is not too bad yet, just a little bit of headache, a very heavy head, and a stuffed/runny nose. I hope it doesn’t get worse than this, being in the middle of midterm madness would not be any more fun with a bad sickness.

It is not too bad, because I did go to beach volleyball practice this afternoon. I actually felt better while doing it. After that I ran into David and a bunch of other Germans and hung out by the pool for a bit. But when it got hard to breathe again I went home for a shower, soup for dinner, a couple of TV shows, and now I am so ready for bed. It’s been a long day. Tuesdays and Thursdays are no fun.

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Aion account recovered

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My account was never gone. Apparently there are two different games for Aion North America and Europe. In Guild Wars 2 there are different servers for the regions, but in Aion two completely different installations. I tried to install the American version. Haha! Problem solved, I downloaded the European version and have now two Aion accounts, yay!

School today as usual. Last day of German before the midterm tomorrow. I am prepared and have done what I can. Maybe I could have done more, but I still feel like I have it under control. It is just a midterm. I went to TRX today as well, like every Monday and Wednesday. It was tough today. We did a tabata similar routine with six stations, both on and off the TRX. First 50 seconds on each station, one minute rest, then 40 seconds with one minute rest, and then 30 seconds and 20. It was tough!I survived, but I will most likely not be able to move my arms tomorrow…

I should go to bed now, read through my German notes, and hope for the best tomorrow afternoon!

Nail polish and school

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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 morning was so unnecessary. I usually have a two hour lecture in Digital Cities, but this morning we had a lab instead. We were gonna research a city given to us, groups of three. We pretty much did it individually and we are gonna hand it in individually. It felt like such a waste of time going to that class. I could have slept for two more hours…

At 11am I was interviewed by the College of Engineering which is writing an article about international engineering students. Then I spent 40 minutes in the library reading my book. And then my second class of the day, Land Use and Transportation Studies. I almost fell asleep. I need to go to bed earlier!

Last class, as always this quarter, German. The midterm is coming up very fast so I have been studying all night. Except when I procrastinated and painted my nails. This time I put a pattern on there, first time and I have to say that it looks pretty good. A very light purple grey color with a little silver in the corner.

I also finished the lab we started this morning and sent it in. Five days early. That has never happened before!

I’ve done my share of German today, so now I will go to bed and hopefully fall asleep right away. Goodnight!

CRP 338 lab 1 hand in IMG_20150422_003612The light isn’t the best, but you get the idea! And don’t mind the paint outside of the nails, that will be gone tomorrow.

Lost Aion account

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Well, this sucks. Today I felt like playing some Aion again for the first time in like 7 months. But I couldn’t log in and it said something about having to migrate the account to an email address or something. I tried logging in to the website instead to do this, but it said that my account wasn’t available anymore. WHAT? I sent them an email asking how this was possible, is all of my progress lost? That would suck real bad.

With lack of motivation to do anything tonight I created a new account (apparently Aion is completely free of charge now) and started over. I hope that my other stuff can be recovered, I miss my little panda I had walking next to me. But it was pretty fun playing from the beginning. But from the Asmodian side this time. Last time I played Elyos “the good guys”. Asmodian are the “bad”. Fun.

But I am gonna have to focus on my midterm first and most. Good luck to me with two fun computer games, haha!

Also, today I got my full schedule for Liseberg this summer. I will be working all the way to closing in October, yay! They also changed it so I don’t start working until July 1st, before it was June 22nd. This means I can spend more time in San Diego before going home :).

Another thing that has happened is that Three Days Grace’s new album is out and it is so good! I’ve been listening to them for the past two days. Great band! Even with the new singer!