University of Skövde

Did you think I quit blogging? Not at all, rather I enjoy doing it. It was just that I was preparing for my play exam. The assignments are now just a part of my life, so I have ultimately stopped complaining about them. Well the one I just mentioned was a general, general knowledge quiz. It was on Bellingen. Since it was my second trip I was successful in discovering some shortcuts to reach the top. You have to walk to the next question and ultimately you walk up to two Km, that's approximately 1.24 miles. I learned that it is held every Sunday and the winner is honored. Although all the questions were in Swedish the walking groups were kind enough to translate them for me in English. I am not sure if I was happy after reading the answers. Then there was a hair dressing meeting and wow...I got to see many hairstyles and that too some colorful. I discovered that you are allowed to fish with a valid card and that too not more than a few; I guess that must be to keep the balance. Every time I miss out my way and this time I was no good. But it was good in a way as I discovered that there are some families staying up over there. I actually never thought that anyone will like to stay in a jungle. They actually own a piece of some forest land and they were busy cleaning and planting some new plants. They were so eager for the summer to arrive. I guess everyone does like the weather a bit more bright. Even my friends say if it were their choice they will like to have summer through out the year.

With the advent of summer there is cricket being played in the campus and I got the undisclosed news that there is going to be a cricket tournament. Good luck for all the teams. Hey there is a cirkus coming up on this 20^th. I wish there are no animal tricks being played. They look good in their homes and forcing them to do tricks for our amusement is no fun. It feels so inhuman. If I were a talking and writing animal like Tarzan's chimpanzee I would have written an article describing how it hurts. I never understand why snow and sun can't co-exist through out the year. It's fun to play and beat others by snow balls. I find one incidence very amusing. I thought that jogging was reserved only for morning and at times evenings. But here every hour of the day I see someone jogging. Well it's more important to maintain your spirit rather than skip the day's work out.

On the day of international dinner I encountered a hidden work out style. Salsa..a spicy flavor. It is in a sense really cooool dance. A fast-fast- slow or other type of dancing beats. Its origin is a subject of dispute as it is a fusion type of dance and it has many styles in different countries. The food over there was really delicious and so was the entire program. Such parties should be done more often. The dancers weren't tired at all even after fifteen minutes of vigorous dance and all were made to dance to the tune, a big train.

Nej, sorry that's a tit-bit of my Swedish learning. I am becoming a computerized zombie, just trying to remember the deadlines and work on them accordingly. I just remembered I have to check a summary. Oops, life is not what I had imagined. It's more like a jigsaw puzzle. The only relieving part is I don't have a tentament for one of my course paper. But I need to have a group project. The first one has actually drained my brain. We had a dress rehearsal of a scientist thinking. The jigsaw puzzle kept on getting more and more complex and we wrote just the double of the recommended length. The activity was a tough task. Working out theory is quite different than thinking practically. Instead of few I got hundreds of possibilities running in my head. Choosing the best is quite a tough task for the scientist. I wonder how they hypothesize which is the best method.

I am gaining more and more time for studying and moving places as the day length is increasing. That's quite a funny feeling. I mean you turn your clocks an hour forward. To be honest I had bad time sleeping in the mornings. For the past two weeks I am getting up at half past five (I am learning this Swedish time talking style) then realize I should be asleep and try hard to tuck myself back into the quilt.  But that's not a sound sleep and then I doze during the day. Summer is going to be quite tough for my sleep. Being a nocturnal is going to make it worse. So when you find any girl having unusual siesta then that's me for sure. Right now also I am yawning. The other thing I find annoying is the sun. Not that it's really bad, but the sun is always at an inclined angle which directly enters the eyes. This adds more one thing in my back pack, my goggles!! But one thing is for sure with the onset of the warm temperature I see more people in Skövde than I have ever seen before. Even the gardens are getting some of the most vibrantly colored flowers and I am looking forward to see the tulips. The pets also seem to be in a happy mood. Now that reminds me of my pets. Not all the animals are allowed to be kept as pets. If one wants to have a wild animal as a pet then special permission from the concern forest or wild life or government department has to be obtained. 

Since it's quite a time being in Skövde many foreign students are happy finding some part time jobs. It gives them a good feeling of being some what financially independent. They do manage to visit new places and believe me it's so much of a good feeling to earn your own pocket money. The most dignified thing is that all type of work is respected, right from cleaning garage to news paper delivery to being a teacher. After all work is work!! So students never feel shy for any type of work.

Good morning!! You think I am crazy? Well, you are free to say that. But I am having a really hurried freak out. I just couldn't wait to write blog about my new exciting experiences, but I thought it would be a better presentation if I tell you more about the head on collision of the festivals as well. Since my tentaments (exams) are over and that I am having a few days off for Easter I am grabbing most of my free time. Then I had a few festivals to celebrate. It was like a rapid fire round, one after the other. There was Eid and then Holi, Good Friday and following it very closely is Easter and Rangpanchami. Above all these celebrations I am going to celebrate the victory of my tentaments (The count down has begun for the results!!)

I did miss out the traditional puran poli, the traditional stuffed sweet pan cake (This is best how I can describe it), but I was lucky to have delicious lamb meat; courtesy my friends. Well Holi marks the onset of spring season. On Rangpanchami herbal colors are played. It is said that the onset of another season brings along with it many viral infections and these herbal preparations make from medicinal plants help ward off the infections. The saddest part of my vacation is all my fellow students have left home for Easter and I am left alone. It's like a haunted place. No one to talk to or enjoy the films with.

My only constant companion is my mail box and chat window. Not a single day begins without me booting the computer before I take my shower. Sometimes I think we are becoming technology dependant. There was a time when communication was via only post. It was days before the letter could reach the destined place. Then came the telephone and now it's just a matter of login and password to start off with the voice chat and view the world via a web cam. The world is actually shrinking. There were portraits of the eminent people but now you can just click-click-click any think. I remember a lesson during my graduation. It was a hypothetical view of what the world would be after few hundred years. It said there would be no need of fresh sunlight, vegetables, fruit, and natural air. All your needs will be satisfied by the computer program, even the fragrance of fresh flowers will be imitated. The newer generation had a glimpse of the old world and a kid actually wanted to stay back in the underground old world. Sometimes I think we are actually heading towards this front.

Talking about the days from Wednesday, I was just lazying around like the cat in the photograph. I think my photography skills have become from not so bad to not so good stage. I should say that finally my prayers have been answered and the snow didn't melt until my tentaments. Walking in the snow isn't that easy after all. The melting snow did seem good near the library. I could capture a snow capped owl and the developing claws of the snow.

I am going to experience and enjoy my first Easter. I saw some kids painting some small rounds and also playing with a clown. Let's see what's more in stock for Easter.

Happy Easter!!

Eureka, I ultimately got them in my plates. Well I am not talking about some favourite food but about my successful laboratory result. I can't imagine I had to work  for more than a week just to get a recombinant bacteria grow. But I am happy that I got some of them growing so that I can show them up in my lab report. It gave immense satisfaction about the morning jogging to the laboratory

That reminds me of my golden old days. Start the laboratory with washing the glassware autoclaving the required stuff, prepare the solutions and then work out (cycle continues for n number of times). Here all the stuff was ready to use and very handy but when I heard the price my jaw just dropped. It's not just the cost of an experiment that I am really worried about, I think of how all the waste is recycled. That reminds me of the frequent use of paper towels in all aspects of life. We just use it for a second and discard it. Did we ever think of how many trees are needed to sacrifice for these paper towels? It's a complex intertwined process with more aspects added up to it. All of them contribute to the global warming in some or the other way. Is this the reason for the warmest winter in Sweden? It's the right time to think.

Within a week I have got my exams, which makes my head spin a lot at times. I question why we have to appear for a theory exam. After all it is practical knowledge that counts. The scientist isn't just going to make blunders like adding water to the acid. I have done that myself and got some blisters, but a chemistry book never advised me on acid dilution procedure. Experience is the best teacher, under the vigilant eye of the laboratory supervisor. If I happen to be some higher post authority in a university I will try my best to rule out the written exams. The sickening part is to study for the whole day, try to get the things typed on your grey cells, copy and cut them in the answer paper. So much of energy wastage of the students. The best part will be if the knowledge is implemented in practical knowledge. A rank holder is not always the best scientist. Archimedes had the easiest idea just out of his head and not from a book.

GD (Group discussion) or GS (Group study) is the best way to get the concepts quickly glued up in your head. I thought till date that what I thought was perfectly correct. But when I heard others comment and discuss on it, I realized my mistake. I was wrong and so were they at places. At times it used to turn into heated debates, but that is better than having wrong conceptions.

My tummy is really empty and I am going to refuel it by the tasty ready to eat food (My friends are more tensed about my exam and keep cooking for me :)). My digital camera isn't just feeling very good, once I get it fixed up I am going to walk around Skovde and make my blog look really very professional.

Framtid day! It's a real enjoyment and a learning experience. That's the time when one comes to know more about the various opportunities and the products just under one roof. It's really interesting to know the happening things around you and then having a face to face interaction is always better. I remember when I was a student I enjoyed the educational fairs a lot. At times they were too exhaustive for the brain. Latter on sit and apply to the various universities and wait endlessly for their response. My mail box used to be full of mails and then keeping a track of them was equally bad. I just wish that all the mail systems had an automated segregated system of compiling the mails according to the sender's e mail address. It's so annoying that some of the mail systems don't even have the facility to segregate the mails into a folder. That's so annoying!! Well my guess is it has to do with some thing with patenting trade designs. Intellectual property right is a real good brain scratching work, but then my guess is at times it's the customers who suffer, as I suffer by not having a facility to create a folder in my e-mail. The same goes if you use cell phones of different companies. Functionally they are so different.

The newest thing that I really appreciate in the university is the safety regulations in the university. The other day there was some gas leakage in one of the buildings and within five minutes after the fire alarm rang off the fire brigade was present. My friends tell me really amusing stories about the fire brigade. They tried to fry some food without the exhaust ON and then within few minutes the fire brigade was there at the doorsteps. It's really funny to hear this but I just can't face them if I committed this blunder.

Everyone is having a nice weekend and I am trying to figure out what I am going to study, rather where to start studying from. There is so much of mess in my brain. The reports, study, report revisions and then the tentamens. I think I deserve a day off.  The endless laboratory sessions are really very tiring. More than the experiments themselves it's the rush that I hate the most and that's when you realize the importance of team work and proper organization. I really wonder as to why there should be disputes within the groups. This reminds me of the team game on Belligen. Mutual understanding, co-operation and faith in our and other's work potential is a real must if group work has to be successful. Yeah, but everyone has to be involved in every decision.

Now I am going to dig my books and poke my head into them to get some matter into my brain. May be next week I will be in a more unbalanced mind set.

My tired dragging steps!!     Survival of the fittest.       My boot skiing track!!       The team game.

           It's time for the celestial phenomenon, the northern light. I gather that within Sweden Kiruna and Abisko are the best locations to look for them. It's a complex process to explain may be a physics student can explain it much better than I think what it is. I just want to enjoy them.


   

.....Namita......

            My greatest disappointment was the snow. I had expected too much of it but there was none. Ek katra tak nahi (not even a single bit of it). Just few hours after the day began, again it started turnimg dark.That was it! I wanted to cry out. After the perception of dark via my retina my stomach wanted some food, and this is going on till date. It's not that I am really hungry it's only the feeling. So except my stomach rest of body follows GMT+1hr time zone. That reminds me of cooking. I am getting used to cook canned food. It doesn't taste that bad. Now I am going to try the oven, the only prerequisite is I need to understand the Swedish instructions or else I might blow it up.