University of Skövde

Good afternoon to you but semi good morning to me. Sleeping in GMT+1 time zone was once upon a time event. I sleep at 3.00 AM and wake up when it gets bright. As per the neverlost schedule I wanted to attend the last lecture before the new semester starts. As per the idiom ‘Better late than never' I decided to sneak in the lecture during the break so as not to disturb the class but to my relief  there in fact was no class and I should be thankful as because of it I at least got out of the bed and had a somewhat early start. Now it's going to be an exam and a report to be handed in and pack up the bags for a long twenty week solitary thesis work.

Room 405 in A building has a ghostly attitude. With the timers set on for the switch boards it's just impossible to work at a stretch without an unwanted break. Every thirty minutes you have to take a walk to tell the sensors that yes indeed you wanna work and not that someone has left the lights ON by mistake. The anger elevates as the keyboards don't have any back lights and you never know what you were in between off.  These days there are USB lights for the keyboards, an additional luggage to carry along with the two kilogram laptop. Why just they don't have back lights for keyboards just as mobile buttons? With the wireless facility of the college life becomes flexible with changing the studying area as and when desired. Just carry a meal and you can work the entire day relaxed on a sofa and feeling as if working from home.

Sometimes common sense is very uncommon. I wanted to travel and reach on 1 Feb. Since the bus was starting early in the morning I had to leave a day in advance from Skovde. And that's where I made no sense. I booked the ticket not talking into account that early morning means a new day and a new date. So I am arriving a day early. Thankfully I noticed this serious error yesterday evening. Just imagine me out in Gothenburg at 1.00 AM waiting for the bus with in fact no ticket. A real shame for an adult to do this error! A lesson to learn about AM and PM and decide wisely about the bookings. This entire matter left me with some financial loss but the only good thing is that the ticket can be rebooked and cancelled and the best of this was I will be accommodated a day before my initial booking. A great help in freezing nights.


                           

Innovative art           Where are these time sensors??       Fika break

Gott nytt år, rather a belated happy new year. Belated as I wanted to see and move around to see what the new year celebration is and with no internet life has come to a speed of 30 km/hr rather than 100 km/hr with the internet ON for all the awake hours. I am enjoying it as I am now more focused and organized on my work and study. Even my (time pass; passing away time) tp over the internet has come down to zero.  When I come to the A building I know that the work list has to be completed before my stomach asks me for food. I was just trying to connect my camera to the computer with my mobile USB to get the pictures. Long back I had forgotten that it's no use without the software.

I was pretty bad at night photography but managed to get one of the clock tower. The fire works were a splendid sight and the most important thing about them was being less smoky. That's what can make you enjoy their beauty for a longer time. Ultimately I decided to give up my trials to get good pictures and instead decided to enjoy the fireworks instead.  My best spot was to put my self high near the post office from where I could get a view of most of the fire works and enjoy them one after the other. The fun went on for almost an hour and wishes were screamed and equally greeted from the other end of the crowd.

The New Year resolution is ‘Let go', some things are just meant to be left at a specific point and we should stop pondering on why they happened like that. So just learn from them and move ahead. The most disappointing story is zero snow for the New Year. Finally it's back to day one, day one of work in 2009. Except for studying for my coming exam and preparing my lab report there isn't much that I have in college. This hopefully should be my last exam because after doing a master's for a second time I have lost patience of classroom study. Now it's time for some real action. Wrong experiments leading to some fantastic discoveries, that's the best way to experiment and learn science. Let's see what I do in the upcoming time for my thesis.

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 26^th 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

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

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

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

The lab reports have started to come in for revision one by one and honestly speaking my lab partner is great. The number of comments and corrections are not as many as we had during the last semester. Yeah we are growing up and doing less of silly mistakes. I will put it down this way; it's a preparatory phage for writing scientific articles in the future. When I read any article and find that just the opposite results are obtained by another group for the same question then it becomes hard for me to understand the scientific reason behind it. When in immunology course the same experiment was performed by the lab supervisors they got different results. Who is incorrect, the students or the lab supervisors? May be that's why there is always a part called as discussion where you try to justify your results. The debates in any conference are really too good to listen.

The applied biotechnology course is what most students find interesting. Why? It's a place where you try to justify your opinion and try to oppose the others. This week it was a nice fire alarm so the session was interrupted. But playing in the first snow and enjoying the chills right down till the bones. Interestingly the session continued with more vigor and oppositions and supports. This is the time the students develop their communication skills and at times back off when they know they are wrong at times in their concepts.

Back on my way from market the Christmas tree was being erected in the market place. The market is also getting more shinny these days.  By the Christmas time the town is going to be completely lighted up in the dark winter days. Just one wish that there is some snow to add to the beauty. More and more Christmas offers are coming up and everyone is enjoying having these offers. And why not get the same quality goods at the least prices? I heard that the most fruitful time for shopping is around Christmas. The best offers are offered during this time and people start queuing up the shops. My first item to shop will be some nice typical Swedish gifts for my family, the reindeer and the crystals.

This week I was on hunt for some exotic meat and also turkey. But a single bird was more than 4 kilograms and I did not fancy brining it. I have tasted it only once so wanted to do it myself but   :(. The winter days are making me eat a lot even though I am not hungry and my weight count is just increasing. But it's alright if I can save myself from the chills. Try out the pepparkakor and other Christmas delicacies. I did get the forms for baking pepparkakor but it's difficult to push a lazy nut to bake it.



Trying my hand at beautification :)


Wintery Cheers,
Namita

Simply Awesome!! Now it makes most of the new students happy. Although they cannot make the snow man they are happy to see the first snow of their life time and so am I. Last weekend I was away travelling and still I feel that I need to travel a bit more. The college is at its full speed but I am unable to catch up with it. I am just feeling of having a party or few relaxed days. May be now I have reached a saturation point with the deadlines and the submissions. It seems like a never ending story and gives you little way for enjoying during the weekdays. To add up to the mess is my terrible eating and sleeping schedule. When all sleep I am awake and have dinner when most have a evening snack or a fika. And the vicious cycle continues and troubles me especially when I have the labs in early mornings. Half way like a zombie I walk to G 310 just in time not to get extra assignments for being late.

May be this weather or may be just that I need a lot of change in my daily life I baked a citron kaka (lemon cake) this week. It wasn't too good but good enough for couple of my quick breakfast sessions. I am proud because this was my first independently baked cake with all the instructions written in Swedish. Since I am not good in math's I had to convert deciliter to liter and when I did not find any measuring cup with deciliter or liter I had to recalculate the water to centiliter. I got this inspiration from my friend whom I helped with baking the other weekend. She has lot of patience to manage all this with her work schedule. So now theoretically I know baking ginger cookies and Kanel Bullar and most important what ingredients to get from the market for the same. One thing I realized over the baking lessons was it gives you a "feel good" feeling if you are cooking for your beloved ones. If you're an extrovert having a company for cooking, nothing adds more to the fun time. The next time I feel like making exotic dishes I may arrange for a mini party, which gives you a good reason to cook really good food.

There are many Asian students and many a times the exotic raw material is not readily available. The nearest option is Gothenburg. But travelling only to get grocery isn't really an economic idea and also you have to waste you back sitting for couple of hours in the train. My evening walks and a shopping freak tendency has made me run to specific stores. The other day I was in ICA MAXI where they have a section dedicated to Asian countries. That was a real relief for me and also rang some tingles when I saw the long desired stuff. Some say your body builds up more fat in winter to protect you from the cold; let's see if I need to buy new clothes in the middle of the winter. Just keep your legs moving and you know what's best in different stores.

Cheer,
Namita

 
The broken citron kaka


The christmas count down begins !!

There is famous saying among the Swedes, There is no bad weather, just bad clothes. True it's time again to get the winter wardrobe ready and tug in those really warm jackets, caps and boots. Many of the new students are having a countdown for the first glimpse of the snow. That's just natural for them if they haven't seen it before.  I was just the same way when I had come down to Sweden for the first time. It's amusing to see and feel the first snow, but surely not that good when you are out for some work.  There was a survey about different opinions asking about how to stay warm in winter. I will win the best suggestion award, just try to stay in the house as much as possible and work from home. Life is so easy when there are facilities to work from home, especially if you have to travel a long distance or there are kids to be taken care of. 14^th november is children's day in India. How is it celebrated? Well kids receive sweets in the school and the senior students try to teach the juniors. It's a fun experience and especially when the elder kids have this teaching role they realize it's hard to grow up. But eventually we all have to decide our future and work on it. I realize how hard the world can be. Many of the courses require five months of dedicated thesis work and that's when the first blow comes. We realize how competitive the things are in our field of work.

Let's keep this tension talk away for this weekend and try to enjoy the not so good days. To get over my tension and enjoy my first autumn I will be travelling. The first thing before I start packing up is to check the weather so that I don't end in freezing down. Especially if travelling the northern parts I keep a check over the thermal wear to be packed. Even if it's only a weekend trip the baggage looks as if I am travelling for a week. Thanks to the bouncy wool. When I keep my eyes open I realize that at times Christmas time can be the best to shop around with discounts popping up now and then. Having a long Christmas vacation can be really very exciting especially if family get together or winter travel destinations are to be enjoyed. Is it a good idea to plan a trip to Kiruna for the northern lights this well in advance? Gud Jul.

Learning more about Swedish Christmas

Namita