February is almost here!

Ahhh! How could one month of 2011 almost over? Seriously, where does the time go?

Work has been keeping me busy, and I've been having fun doing experiments. I tried doing an experiment to check my technical skills and what do you know... I am good at doing experiments... technically. haha. Hopefully, one of these days, the experimental results will be good scientifically. Recently, I got an email from a company from whom I ordered a compound:

"Dear customer,
We have recent evidence that the compound you ordered from us was an incorrect concentration. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."


Seriously, what an annoying email. 1) What IS the right concentration? 2) "Inconvenience"? Really, you think?

So I emailed them back and asked them about the concentration. The answer? The concentration was 5% of what the quoted concentration should have been... Huh. That explains a lot... as in the past three months of NO results. When I tried to detect a particular protein with this compound for the last three months, I never detected it... who knew I was using 5% of the compound?? Sigh. Well, at least, now I know why nothing was working! haha. Hopefully, things start working this time around.

Other than that, life is alright. I'm desperate for the spring to get here. So desperate that I even bought myself some tulips from the store. They make me so happy! Bright, colorful, red, and yellow! Haha. Call it wishful thinking. ;)

Anyway, now it's time to sleep. :)

Hello 2011!

Note from the author of this blog

Dear readers,

    If you ever happen to read this blog, you will notice that I’m a terrible blog writer in the sense that I’m terribly inconsistent in my updates. When you’re living life to the fullest (like me), you don’t want to spend all your excitement/energy sitting in front of a computer, typing… am I right? 
   But, sadly, if only that were true. The real story is something more like this:  when I think about something fun I did, I think “Oh I should blog about that!”, so I reach for my computer, laziness kicks in and I end up watching Hulu instead.

    Yes, I’m ever so sorry, dear blog followers, for depriving you of any entertainment value you may derive from my stories in Sweden. However, with a new year, perhaps things will be different. Perhaps.

Hearts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The real blog entry begins here

The holidays were a fun time, filled with snow storms, delayed planes, rerouted flights, and amazing food. Yes, I went home to visit my family and it was wonderful. Minnesota has an amazing 8 hours of daylight. I cannot express the energy/happiness I felt seeing sunlight, not just daylight, for a straight 10 days. But, all that feels so long ago and I think if I try to remember how lovely it was, I’ll just make myself sad.

Back in Sweden now…

It’s still dark (surprise). We had some sleet storms that left us 6 inches of ice (leaving me to skate to work because walking was near impossible). Then we got rain and overcast skies for a week. In short, a mess. Still, the atmosphere in Stockholm is more positive. You can feel it. Advertisements on billboards and newspapers display “spring” things. Stores already have spring clothes out in these bright happy colors. Mind you, it’s still winter outside, but somewhere after the New Year, I think Swedes decide that “We can make it seem like spring is here if we just imagine it” Hooray for the power of imagination!

Work has started up again and I’m feeling motivated (maybe that imagination thing works after all). But, that’s all I’m going to say about work right now.

Last weekend, I went to a concert where local bands were playing. One of the bands was that of my Swedish colleague. The music was fantastic! I’m always so impressed by people who compose and perform their own music. Many people from the lab attended the concert, and it was a lot of fun listening to music and hanging out. My labmates are great fun, and I think we will have more “outings” in the future thanks to the spring mentality and everyone feeling positive. I’m going to arrange a “dinner club” hoping that people will want to discover the culinary delights of Stockholm.

Last week, I also started taking Swedish courses (in a class with other people). =)  The course has been slow so far, but that’s because we’re going over things I already know how to say. I can feel the pace picking up and with meeting two hours a week, 3 hours each, I can feel myself already thinking more in Swedish. I love that the Swedish government offers free Swedish classes to its immigrants; it’s a great way of including people in a society and help them learn about the customs.

Choir practices also began this week and we’re going to have two concerts this spring. Apparently, we will also try to record an album, and I’m really excited about that! I’m arranging a song that I hope the choir will sing in one of the concerts. But that all depends if the director and the repertoire selection committee feel that the song fits with their ideas for the concert.  

I guess if you got this far, you’ve probably picked up on the crazy schedule I seem to have now. To accommodate all these fun things, I’ve been waking up at 6, getting to work early, leaving around 4 to beat traffic, getting to classes around 5:30, and learning until 9 pm. In short, exhausting. Apparently, this is going to be the plan for all of spring… so I hope I last! Plus, we have zero holidays until April 24^th. In weeks, that is 15 people.

15...long... weeks.

Så, till nästa gång! Hej då!

(So till next time, bye)

Piano cat painting!

I've been pretty stressed out lately, so I've taken to painting again as a means of stress relief. I had this original picture: 

Original photo (about 3'' x 5'')

Here's the painting (I'm actually quite pleased with it)! I took this picture during the daytime, but because the lighting around here is really bad, you can't see all the nice details in the fur =(

Piano cat! (24" x 36")

This work took about 40 hours of work. I painted about 1-2 hours every weekday and 2-3 hours on the weekends this past month. The fur took an incredibly long time because I had to paint many of the fur hairs with an individual pointed paintbrush... Anyway, I took pictures along the way to see the progress. I've selected only a few stages to show here.

The first photo is the reference, and the pictures left to right in each row. In the third row, the second to last photo on the right is the painting. The original is also shown as the very last photo.

Half-time exam today!

Wish me luck!

Autumn ends, Winter Begins...

Hej! (hello)

Wow, it's been a while since I updated. I guess it means I've been busy or I'm not a very good blog writer. Of course, now after almost two months, I have plenty of things to write about. My updates are in sections, so feel free to read about whatever topic interests you (if any at all).

Research: 
Research has been going in some weird phases (sometimes really busy and sometimes not). I hit a roadblock a few weeks ago, and basically came to the conclusion that the project I planned might not work out too well.. I really wonder what I'm going to do in terms of research here, but hopefully, on Monday I'll have some more answers. Why? Monday is my half-time examination! That's three days from now! Just to give you an idea, the half-time is somewhat like a mini-thesis defense, where I have to present my research to three scientists in the field, and they get to evaluate my work. Of course, this will also include a wonderful 3 hour "discussion", which is just a euphemism for a session where they get to ask me  difficult science questions, but also hopefully give feedback on the future of my research.

Dance: 
Lindy Hop classes have been spectacular! The instructors are good, and while I can't understand more than 30% of what they say (classes in Swedish), I've definitely been learning the dance. The other night, I went to a social dance and danced with some really amazing leads. At one point, a lead threw me in the air for a jump-like move and it was the coolest move EVER (before I knew what was happening, I was airborne for 2 seconds). That night, I decided that I knew when I was dancing with a good lead if he/she could: 1) make me do dance moves I have never learned before, 2) make me look good while doing it, and 3) do them unexpectedly. Several people in that night kept saying that the jump/throw move was really cool. :) haha.

Choir:
Our October concert was a great success. I've put a few pictures of our 1930's outfits from the concert below. But since that concert, choir has been really intense, but fun (mostly). We have to learn 29 Swedish/Latin Christmas songs for some performances in December, and I need to know about 20 of them by heart. By next Tuesday the 23rd. Unfortunately, that is not going to  happen (I have about 6)... haha. Singing in Swedish is not easy people. Not easy. Anyway, I look forward to our numerous holiday concerts. On Nov 28, we will sing in an open air market wearing 18th century clothes. I promise to take pictures. On Dec 12, we will have our Lucia concert (if you don't know what Lucia is, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy's_Day). And I have been bestowed the honor of being Lucia--yes, I get to wear a crown with live candles on my head. Woo?

1930's-inspired outfit from our Jazz concert. Yes, I have a feather attached to my head.
It felt like a bird was nesting in my hair.

The theater in which we performed. The girl in the center has a large feather hat.

Musings on the Swedish language:
I have been learning more Swedish and I know I am improving (slowly, but steadily). I had a five, that's right, five minute conversation entirely in Swedish with my roommate the other day. It was painfully slow, but that's how it goes. What makes me laugh is that I often end up inserting French words without knowing it until I see my roommate's confused look. haha. The grammar is fairly easy, but the hardest things about Swedish have to be the pronounciation and word order (switching nouns/verbs around when making simple statements). So many vowel and consonant sounds you've might not have made or heard before: å, ö, ä, skj, stj, sk, lj. What's strange is that the å sounds like "o" in English, while the ö sounds like "oe" in French, and the "ä".. well no equivalent. And the Swedish "o", is sometimes like an "oo", but other times like an "o". The skj, stj, sk all sound similar, but I just can't make that sound. It's aspirated, with an "r" sound. Needless to say, it's hard.

Weather:
The darkness is super weird. It comes around 3:45 pm now, with the sun setting around 3:15 pm. What is really bizarre is how the human body can feel so tired by 6 pm just because of the dark! I could go into all the scientific reasons for why this is cool, but I won't.

First snow fall in Stockholm. A bit pathetic, but still. It's snow!

This weekend, I'm going to see the Harry Potter film!!! And next week, I plan to throw a Thanksgiving dinner... :) More pictures and posts to come in the next blog entry (whenever that is going to be)...

Så till nästa gång, hej då! (So until next time, bye)

I'm learning Swedish!

The following story has to be one of my favorite moments of learning Swedish so far. 

Scene: Grocery store checkout. I have picked up some bread and placed it in a brown bag (that's what they do here).

Clerk: (Picks up brown bag and asks in Swedish): "What's in here?" 

Me: (Without much thought and in English): "Oh it's bread." 

Clerk and I both have puzzled looks on our faces. 

Me (to clear confusion): "Wow, I can't believe I understood you!" 

Clerk: "Oh you don't speak Swedish?" 

Me: (Brilliant Sherlock! Don't you think I would have spoken in Swedish if I knew any?) "No, I just started learning Swedish, and I can't believe I understood you! This is so exciting!"

Clerk: (starts laughing). "Yes, that's great!"

Indeed it is...  :)

Min semester i Grekland (My vacation in Greece)

Greece was lovely, to say the least. How does one describe a week's worth of sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and soaking up sun? :) I even spent some time learning Swedish! (Wow, notice the ridiculous amount of "s" words I used in the last two sentences). Perhaps the coolest thing was snorkeling because I had never done it before. Let me say, it was an experience that everyone should have! I saw little fish dig in the sand dunes of the ocean floor and I even saw a squid that could change the colors of its "skin". SO cool. I wish I had a camera that could survive underwater because the images I saw cannot be adquately described in words. One day, I'm going to go to the Caribbean or Australia and snorkel my eyes out staring at the coral reefs.

However, I managed to get some of Methoni (the town where I was). The photos are pretty self-explanatory... but they include the beach, the castle, and the town center.

So as you can imagine, I'm not super thrilled to be back in Sweden, where it substantially colder, cloudier, and less colorful. Actually, I don't know about the colorful part. Autumn has started and leaves are turning wild yellow, orange, and red!! Anyway, it's back to real life and real work :(