Let's start this out with thanks to everyone who left me messages on Facebook and sent me emails and cards and stuff for my birthday, it meant a lot. Thanks also to the people who forgot, that meant a lot too.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but well, Sweden yeah, really pissing me off at the moment. Before I go on, let me just ammend that statement so you don't get all preachy and this-was-your-idea at me: it's still fun and all that, and I wouldn't change anything, but at this point in time, I'm just a little bit over it.
Where to start? Yesterday was my 21st birthday, and I spent about four hours in a lab, which in itself wouldn't be so bad except that it was my birthday and the weather was nice and I do not know where Swedes get their reputation for being efficient from.
Picture the scene if you can (which you probably can't because it involves science stuff -that means you mum- but try anyway, it's more of a conceptual thing): there are 20 groups, and each must load 3 PCR lanes. That is the sum and total of the day's task. It takes almost 2 hours. As the MasterCard ad says, "Time spent waiting: priceless".
Then we have 45 minutes while the PCR runs, which is spent as a group in the cafeteria drinking bad coffee and going over some poorly explained concept from the lectures in preparation for our Friday exam. No problem there.
We need some bacteria samples to re-run a few tests, but the demonstrator doesn't know where they are and promises to have them at the end of the break. I say 're-run' there because the tests that we did on Thursday didn't work since the demonstrator left dead bacteria on the side bench and didn't tell us that it was dead, meaning the two hours the Kristen and I spent on Thursday preparing broth cultures and dilutions were a total waste of time. Oops, totally sorry says demonstrator, her bad. That's all well and good, but can you give me back my two hours biatch?
Alas, when we return to the lab, there are no bacteria waiting for us, and we spend another hour faffing around trying to get some, and then the demonstrators spend some more time trying to decide if the test they want us to run will work, and basically by then all I want to do is go home and have a nap. Oh, and don't even get me started about the nasty Swedish girls in our lab. Look bitch, I don't care that you're blonde and speak Swedish fluently, you aren't better than me and you aren't smarter than me, so enough with the attidtude. And seriously, would it kill you to smile? Apparently.
They said that the bottom of the U-curve would come, and we all thought that somehow we'd be just having such a great time that we'd be immune. But unfortunately that isn't the case, and more unfortunately, it's come down on all of us at the same time. Maybe it's just because Uppsala is kinda small, maybe it's because the stock in the clothes stores seems to only change every four months, or maybe it's that all the research about this U-curve-mathingojingo is right, but as my friend Ron put in when he rang me to say happy birthday yesterday, "Sweden's just not really doing it for me right now. I'm not really feeling it." It's very difficult to explain, because it's not that we want to go home, or be doing anything else, it's just that Sweden is...wearing us down. There's only so long you can go before it starts to get to you.
But then as an upside, I saw a pheasant in a tree yesterday; when we were talking about pheasants on the weekend (as you do) Lauren misunderstood and said, "I saw one of those on a leash the other day," and as I tried to imagine how exactly the owner got the bird on the leash she finished by saying, "it had a big bushy tail," then the penny dropped and I realised she meant ferret.
There are good times and bad in this country, and some time I'll try to explain the Easter candy sale at ICA to put it all in perspective. It's 9.20pm now and just on dusk, Valborg is this weekend and I'm going to drink like it's my 21st birthday, and right now I think the only way I can cope with life in Sweden is to take a nap.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but well, Sweden yeah, really pissing me off at the moment. Before I go on, let me just ammend that statement so you don't get all preachy and this-was-your-idea at me: it's still fun and all that, and I wouldn't change anything, but at this point in time, I'm just a little bit over it.
Where to start? Yesterday was my 21st birthday, and I spent about four hours in a lab, which in itself wouldn't be so bad except that it was my birthday and the weather was nice and I do not know where Swedes get their reputation for being efficient from.
Picture the scene if you can (which you probably can't because it involves science stuff -that means you mum- but try anyway, it's more of a conceptual thing): there are 20 groups, and each must load 3 PCR lanes. That is the sum and total of the day's task. It takes almost 2 hours. As the MasterCard ad says, "Time spent waiting: priceless".
Then we have 45 minutes while the PCR runs, which is spent as a group in the cafeteria drinking bad coffee and going over some poorly explained concept from the lectures in preparation for our Friday exam. No problem there.
We need some bacteria samples to re-run a few tests, but the demonstrator doesn't know where they are and promises to have them at the end of the break. I say 're-run' there because the tests that we did on Thursday didn't work since the demonstrator left dead bacteria on the side bench and didn't tell us that it was dead, meaning the two hours the Kristen and I spent on Thursday preparing broth cultures and dilutions were a total waste of time. Oops, totally sorry says demonstrator, her bad. That's all well and good, but can you give me back my two hours biatch?
Alas, when we return to the lab, there are no bacteria waiting for us, and we spend another hour faffing around trying to get some, and then the demonstrators spend some more time trying to decide if the test they want us to run will work, and basically by then all I want to do is go home and have a nap. Oh, and don't even get me started about the nasty Swedish girls in our lab. Look bitch, I don't care that you're blonde and speak Swedish fluently, you aren't better than me and you aren't smarter than me, so enough with the attidtude. And seriously, would it kill you to smile? Apparently.
They said that the bottom of the U-curve would come, and we all thought that somehow we'd be just having such a great time that we'd be immune. But unfortunately that isn't the case, and more unfortunately, it's come down on all of us at the same time. Maybe it's just because Uppsala is kinda small, maybe it's because the stock in the clothes stores seems to only change every four months, or maybe it's that all the research about this U-curve-mathingojingo is right, but as my friend Ron put in when he rang me to say happy birthday yesterday, "Sweden's just not really doing it for me right now. I'm not really feeling it." It's very difficult to explain, because it's not that we want to go home, or be doing anything else, it's just that Sweden is...wearing us down. There's only so long you can go before it starts to get to you.
But then as an upside, I saw a pheasant in a tree yesterday; when we were talking about pheasants on the weekend (as you do) Lauren misunderstood and said, "I saw one of those on a leash the other day," and as I tried to imagine how exactly the owner got the bird on the leash she finished by saying, "it had a big bushy tail," then the penny dropped and I realised she meant ferret.
There are good times and bad in this country, and some time I'll try to explain the Easter candy sale at ICA to put it all in perspective. It's 9.20pm now and just on dusk, Valborg is this weekend and I'm going to drink like it's my 21st birthday, and right now I think the only way I can cope with life in Sweden is to take a nap.
My bike got stolen while I was away. SHIT.
Takes pictures
I don't think I'll ever really understand the appeal of ski jumping.
4/16/2007 01:20:00 am
I tried to do some things which I didn't do on my last trip to Oslo because I figured it was stupid to go again and not do anything new. So, I spent large portions of my time eating, sleeping, and watching shows in english on Norwegian cable because it's far better than in Sweden. I was lucky enough to catch an Anne Hathaway movie set in mediaeval England, complete with American accents and an elf; an extremely moving, and I daresay histopolitically correct, depiction of the American defeat of the Soviet Union in Ice Hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics; as well as something with that old guy, who generally plays grumpy old men, portraying a grumpy ex-republican-president of the US who, along with an ex-democrat-president of the US, discovers that someone wants him dead and so must spend the movie escaping said aspiring-assasin in a variety of humourous and unlikely ways.
I went outside a few times too.
The Botanical Gardens at the University of Oslo.
Norwegian seagulls.
But ever since I heard Australian Sam say that they look like they got curious and dipped into a bottle of ink they'll always be blek-hoder måke to me, ink-head seagulls.
Oh, such inspiration. That is art. And I'm so glad to see again that across the world, some things just never change.
Yeah, so I'm a nerd, what are you gonna do about it?! I've been looking at these birds now for months thinking how much they look like magpies with the black and white and wondering what they actually are. Well, that would be the Eurasian Magpie, I love how they have block colour on their bodies, and they really look so similar to Autralian magpies but they have longer tails and plumper bodies.
From the very top...
...to the very bottom...
...this is what it feels like to be 417 metres above sea level. Why anyone would want to ski down this is a little bit beyind me but Holmenkollen ski jump is apparently very important in the history of Norwegian skiing and jump skiing in general, it was first used for competition in 1892 and they're about to tear it down and build it again for the 2011 world championships. Actually, when we were on the train on the way up to the top of the hill (it's a big hill) lots of dirt-covered sporty-looking people got on with mountain bikes, and there was also a group of abseilers going off the side of the jump tower, so maybe there's just an obsession with going down really steep things really fast in general.
Although, the view from the jump tower literally takes your breath away. Well, actually I think that the three flights of steep and high stairs are probably the cause of my breathlessness, but it's amazing all the same.
There's a museum at Holmenkollen too, a museum allllll about skiing.
This is equipment from Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition. You know, the one where they beat the English...
Equipment including one of the sled dogs they used- The Colonel.
And then finally we just wandered around the neighbourhood near Robert's place.
I went outside a few times too.
The Botanical Gardens at the University of Oslo.
Norwegian seagulls.
But ever since I heard Australian Sam say that they look like they got curious and dipped into a bottle of ink they'll always be blek-hoder måke to me, ink-head seagulls.
Oh, such inspiration. That is art. And I'm so glad to see again that across the world, some things just never change.
Yeah, so I'm a nerd, what are you gonna do about it?! I've been looking at these birds now for months thinking how much they look like magpies with the black and white and wondering what they actually are. Well, that would be the Eurasian Magpie, I love how they have block colour on their bodies, and they really look so similar to Autralian magpies but they have longer tails and plumper bodies.
From the very top...
...to the very bottom...
...this is what it feels like to be 417 metres above sea level. Why anyone would want to ski down this is a little bit beyind me but Holmenkollen ski jump is apparently very important in the history of Norwegian skiing and jump skiing in general, it was first used for competition in 1892 and they're about to tear it down and build it again for the 2011 world championships. Actually, when we were on the train on the way up to the top of the hill (it's a big hill) lots of dirt-covered sporty-looking people got on with mountain bikes, and there was also a group of abseilers going off the side of the jump tower, so maybe there's just an obsession with going down really steep things really fast in general.
Although, the view from the jump tower literally takes your breath away. Well, actually I think that the three flights of steep and high stairs are probably the cause of my breathlessness, but it's amazing all the same.
There's a museum at Holmenkollen too, a museum allllll about skiing.
This is equipment from Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition. You know, the one where they beat the English...
Equipment including one of the sled dogs they used- The Colonel.
And then finally we just wandered around the neighbourhood near Robert's place.
As a random time-wasting exercise on Friday night I decided to look at the Mountain Goats' website to see if they're playing any Scandinavian shows this year. And they were. The next day. And yay for me, I made Kristen come to Stockholm with me because I was desperate to see the band and she was desperate to get out of Uppsala, if only for a night, and off we went. Hooray! Mountain Goats: it was fate. FATE I tell you.
The show was really really good, and by some stroke of luck it was at one of the cool clubs in Stockholm (apparently), which just tells you that deep down we are actually cool people. At least in our minds. The night bus back to Uppsala..not so great...nor was the cycle home from the station at 3am but still, you have to pick your battles right.
The whole world over there will always be that one guy somewhere up the back dancing (probably with a backpack) up an ectasy-filled storm who's so happy inside his little happy head that he doesn't notice that nobody's really dancing with him. There is always a couple right in front of you, making out graphically. And there is always a group of two or three guys right up the front who were just sooooo excited to see this band that they had a bit too much to drink and end up in a state such that all they can do for the duration of the show is kinda sway from side to side whilst mouthing the words to every song. And just so you know, there was also at least one power fister.
Ah, it's so comforting to know that some things remain constant no matter where you are.
The show was really really good, and by some stroke of luck it was at one of the cool clubs in Stockholm (apparently), which just tells you that deep down we are actually cool people. At least in our minds. The night bus back to Uppsala..not so great...nor was the cycle home from the station at 3am but still, you have to pick your battles right.
The whole world over there will always be that one guy somewhere up the back dancing (probably with a backpack) up an ectasy-filled storm who's so happy inside his little happy head that he doesn't notice that nobody's really dancing with him. There is always a couple right in front of you, making out graphically. And there is always a group of two or three guys right up the front who were just sooooo excited to see this band that they had a bit too much to drink and end up in a state such that all they can do for the duration of the show is kinda sway from side to side whilst mouthing the words to every song. And just so you know, there was also at least one power fister.
Ah, it's so comforting to know that some things remain constant no matter where you are.
