Some fun days
Merry Christmas (God Jul) and wait with a smile and resolutions for the New Year, 2009. A week before the days never seemed to end but now the Christmas never seems to have put gear in the lives and the social activities. Yesterday I had been to the Christmas Eve feast at Kyrkans Hus, so get a glimpse of the Swedish way of the celebrations. One thing was quite surprising that mostly the older generation is interested in all sorts of celebrations. The food was traditional but with all varieties so that vegans don't have to be left half hungry. I gave all dishes a try but for some I just haven't developed the taste as yet. May be by next year things will be fine with me.
I did not try my hand at making the special or even a simple Christmas cake. Just did not have the mood with all the baking smell. It was a special Christmas celebration in a way for me and some of my friends, a short duration trek to Billengen. On the way up I started the tradition of falling down at least once in winter time. It wasn't the snow but some running trick leaving my just jaws a few inches from the ground, a swollen hand and a torn glove. Trekking through the short cut via rocks and trees we made our way to the top to discover some skiing going around. The temperature wasn't much just -1°C and near the frozen lake it was a view worth watching. All against the safely rules we all had turns taking the pictures right in the middle of the frozen lake. That wasn't funny with no help around and troubling the emergency on a Christmas day. But at times it's worth taking the risk.
Far away we could see a camp fire and wished for a one to defrost our hands. With all the grass and the few tissue papers we tried to light a fire but nothing worked and that was the end of our patience. Horrified at the idea of getting colder we headed for the church and then down for our sweet home. The only desire was to get a steaming hot coffee on the top. That time I thought of the coffee and other food machines set up at our college. Just drop a few coins and save yourself from hunger and thirst and cold.
The next target is shopping, the best heard part is on 26th December there are the best sales and you get all your desired gifts at really great prices. So much so that I heard that shops are overcrowded and people wait in queue for the shops to open and be the first to grab the items. The best Christmas gift for all my classmates was that we were saved to send the second version of immunology lab report. Sometimes errors do become gifts for others.
My appetite The frozen proof
The mover,
Namita
Christmas news
Indeed a very busy week. Just so much busy and exhausting that I took yesterday for a weekend and promptly wished a professor "Have a nice weekend." It's something more than the work. The air is mad making some of us including me sick with cough and cold. My self diagnosis was it was a viral infection, but now I have a doubt. Even after four days I have not got my beautiful voice back and I still sound like a parrot. This was not what I wanted at the start of the holidays for me. Luckily for me I wasn't chosen for the article presentation, the last day in this year for the seminars or lectures. Somehow the previous days I had a gut feeling that I am lucky not to pick up the disastrous chit. Luck has been more favorable towards me since I have come in Sweden.
Last weekend I was moving around Skövde and for the first time I realized what a Christmas celebration would be. The only thing missing like the Christmas celebration in the movies is the soft snow. The central library had a Christmas market and it was a small but well organized one. The small girls looked pretty in their white and red robes and the entire atmosphere could spoke for itself. There were old antiques and the paintings hosted over there some small enough with great exquisite details than can mesmerize us. Imagine a piano with all the details but smaller than the size of a small match box. Since no photography was allowed I had to look and admire them just over there. The English and Swedish songs sung by professionals held the audience so much so that few of us were the standing audience for more than five to six songs.
I didn't want to leave but who does my shopping if I don't? That's a task these days. The shops always seem to be full and I never was the first in queue for the payment. All the Christmas shopping and with good offers coming every week there is no end to the shopping. But thanks to a system of self paying the bill, you don't have to wait that long in the queue. On the way I got to task the Swedish drink glögg with pepparkakor. It sure was a warm non-alcoholic drink after a good two hour walk in the cold, but to be honest it was a bit too sweet for me. Well let's see how I get along during the X-Mas eve. Well the roast turkey was an OK story :)
My weekend destination !!
Cheers,
Namita
På rullande Valross växer ingen frossa.
Min alias-namne som florerade i förra bloggen skickade en agent att utfodra mig med en öl på kåren i fredags. Mycket uppskattat tilltag, den här veckan har annars varit fylld med ganska mycket sorg och förtretan. Det började med en hemtenta (min första någonsin), och jag vet inte om det var kursen eller just hemtentan jag var irriterad på, men att skriva den var då i alla fall ingen fröjd. Senare samma dag fick ett gammalt groll med en bekant ny glöd och som garnering på den här bajsmackan till vecka så fick jag nobben av en bedårande tös. En gratis öl på kåren var den första ljusglimten på flera dagar.
I morgon ska jag träffa min arbetsgrupp från logistikkursen, vi håller på med det stimulerande arbetet att skicka en virtuell kontainer till Sudan. Den virtuella kontainern innehåller vattenreningsutrustning och lite småläskiga kemikalier, så vi måste ha en massa tillstånd för att frakta omkring den här utrustningen. Det ska vara papper om farligt gods, det ska vara papper som beskriver innehållet till punkt och pricka och sen ett papper där man får uppskatta kontainerns värde. Vi gissade att en kontainer med vattenreningsutrustning var värt 700 000 kr, mest för att det blev en snygg siffra om vi översatte det till dollar. Får se om vår examinator tycker det var en lika fin siffra
Nu blir det sova, ögonlocken är tunga.
//Valross
Mitt enda julkort, en plågsam färgkombination från kåren samt en mycket trött student på biblioteket.
No accidents
Why do things start getting worse when I want them to be smooth? The mobile alarm didn't ring and I had to push myself out of bed at 7.30 A.M., getting ready just in time for the morning lab and that means no proper breakfast. The funniest part is my bacterial cells are just refusing to grow and it seems I have to wait late until evening before I can actually finish the practical. Nothing more to do in the lab leaves me sleepy and with an urge to munch on some junk food. Tomorrow will be the last day of my master's lab. The always bugging lab dugga or if not it then the assignments just before being allowed entry to the lab have sort of left some memories of few protocols in my grey cells. This should be good start up for the thesis work. A more organized work plan and prior reading of what is really expected to be done in the lab saves the time and also is a full stop to any one's bad mood building up. Luckily I did not hurt myself too much in these last labs. Maybe because using kits is much more safe and biology is safer than chemistry. Back in my home country I had made silly mistakes of adding water to acid and on other occasion assuming that I was on the right track I had made sodium fly out of the test tube. Here except for a few finger cuts I made no blunders. But the healing is taking longer than I anticipated. My brother was smart enough to know my habits and didn't send me a finger print protected password laptop. Well at times it's hard to anticipate beforehand the problems associated with the best of the technology.
Sitting here in G and looking at Billingen, the tower and the skiing slope are barely visible. In fact I tried a walk last Saturday but just as a change I visited ICA and other Thai shop and then the rest is history. I could lay my hands on turkey, a small single serving leg piece for a perfect weekend especially when you just want to try the taste of it. More students are finalizing their master's thesis and some are going further more to the Northern part of the globe. The ones who already had been there during the summer are scaring them saying that you will be one of the rare people to be seen during the winter. I can imagine how sleepy the day will be without the day light breaking before you leave home for the day. May be local people find it usual but adjusting to this weather takes more than a year. Daily I sleep during the evenings or in the afternoons just when it starts to get late and then I try to find stars during the night. The dinner is also a big issue as my body demands food just few hours after it starts getting dark, that's around 5.00 P.M. leaving me to decide if to have a coffee or a supper or dinner. 
All still as it was.
Cheers,
Namita
Stör inte en valross som arbetar i onödan.
Jag var på utflykt i helgen, en ganska spännande sådan. För en tid sedan kom det till min kännedom att det fanns en ytterligare Valross, och inte nog med det, han bor dessutom i Skövde! Först blev jag lite irriterad över att få intrång i vad jag tyckte var min identitet, men sen kom jag på att det var ju jättebra att ha en extravalross, man vet aldrig när en sån kan komma till pass. Kanske om man behöver gå på två möten samtidigt eller om man behöver ta en öl med någon som vet hur det är att vara Valross.
Hur som helst, helt låta saken passera kunde jag inte, så efter ganska omfattande lusläsning av hans blogg lyckades jag tillslut lista ut vem han var. I fredags eftermiddag smög jag hem till min namne och stoppade in ett fullkomligt oanonymt kuvert med ett av de få kvarvarande valrossmärkena jag hade. På måndagen kom det som väntat ett inlägg på hans blogg och till mitt stora nöje misstänkte han inte mig. (Inte oväntat ima jag inte tror att han visste att jag existerade.) Ursprungliga planen var att hitta på nått mer sött litet hyss att förbrylla honom med, men innan jag han komma så långt hade någon avslöjat hela hemligheten med en kommentar på hans blogginlägg. Bittert, det kunde blivit en spännande följetång. Om den andre Valross läser detta: Kram på dig broder, se märket som en tidig julklapp!
Andra spännande saker denna veckan var i lördags när min nya lägenhetskamrat tyckte att vi skulle göra pizza. Inte för att det normalt sett är speciellt spännande att göra pizza, men vad som gjorde det hel lite mer livligt var att jag tappade min största kökskniv på foten. Ett djupt men fånigt litet hål på översidan foten blev resultatet och jag började yra omkring i lägenheten efter sårtvätt och plåster. Det tog säkert 20 minuter innan jag hittade vare sig plåster eller sårtvätt så jag tog mig en stund efter intermezzot och ordnade i ordning min förstahjälpenlåda. Sårtvätten låg ovanpå badrumskåpet, plåstrena i medicinskåpet och varför jag hade en liter destillerat vatten i hallgarderoben kan man fundera både en och två gånger på. Nu är iaf lådan komplett igen så nu kan jag leka med farliga saker igen, såsom hemtentor och studielån.
//Valross - en overallsninja nära dig. (Men du vet inte var!)
Då ska vi se: Ett hemmasnickrat buskuvert, en fot med punktering (tack Sveriges Ingenjörer för plåstren) och till sist två medeldistanslimpor bakade med honung och knådade med råstyrka. Mumsiga blev de iaf.
Sleepy days
This week was just a fast track, never knew when it started and ended. It's a sort of relief when I have to come to the school for the labs and the seminars. These days it's the only thing that gets me out of my cocoon. And then there was a small birthday party to add to the occasion. The most bugging part was when my mail was causing my Web browser to come to a standstill. The entire day I kept wondering if there was a bug in my computer. Since I got a ready to use laptop and added to it my little knowledge about the hardware and software it was a great tension for the entire day. Thankfully there wasn't any bug or spy ware in my computer and things became normal by the start of the next day.
Till now the immunology report hasn't turned up for the corrections and that gives me chance to enjoy the weekend and plan my work for the thesis and may be a short tour around Skövde. Let's see if I am lucky enough to avoid the snow. If not then I will be back to my now obsessed passion for photography and novel reading. Reading science fictions actually fills me with zeal. This week I was reading about how the future will be in the next few centuries. All mechanized and little physical work for the humans when they will be replaced by computers and robots. The greener part is humans have more time to think and develop their hidden talents and the not so good part will be the less social and may be lazy lifestyle. Especially if you are an avid reader you always want to know the climax and that's the thing that kept me awake until five in the morning. It was hell when the following day I had a lab early at eight in the morning. My head was total bonkers and in the buffering time I made it a point to grab some short naps. That helped me a bit but not too much as until evening I was in an ON and OFF state. Thankfully there was no second version report submission on the same day. Had it been that I have to study the course material then I am sure I would have been in a eight hour long OFF state.
Maybe the coming weekends will be more fun with the Christmas events in the town. The Christmas vacation is just round the corner and already all plans are set for many. Some are travelling Europe and some visiting back their families in their home country. Come Christmas and you get the air tickets at just throw away prices. But since I am strong willed on enjoying the Christmas here I will stay and may be travel around the most famous winter locations in Sweden.
I am discovering new Christmas specials this week.
Enjoy the life !!
Namita
Not a good time to start a day after few hours of sleep
För mycket punsch skickar andmaten till Fisens mosse.
Annat omuntert den här veckan var en retur jag och en labbkompis fick på en rapport. Det omuntra låg inte i att få en retur, det är ofta trevligt att få lite feedback, utan i att den enda digitala kopian vi hade på rapporten hade dött i samband med att ett USB-minne slutade fungera. Det enda vi hade kvar var pappersversionen. I en vacker värld med en bra scanner med OCR-programvara skulle man kunnat plocka ut texten från pappret, men min labbkompis insisterade på att det skulle vara i två kolumner. Sen hade vi inte någon sån scanner i alla fall så det spelade ingen roll, vi fick vackert skriva om rapporten. Vi hittade ett gammal utkast så vi sparade kanske en halvtimme på det, men detta var tillräckligt för att grumla till en i övrigt redan grumlig måndag.
Det är lite svårt att hitta glada saker att skriva om nu, men ska jag komma på något skulle det väl vara att jag har ganska mycket mat både i kyl, frys och skåp. En lyx som inte är alla förunnat och förmodligen inte förunnat mig heller om sisådär en och en halv månad. Grattis alla ni som både har knäck och extraknäck i jul, för mig blir det nog margert i januari.
//Valross - världens ödmjukaste
