M & D’s Blog

I will only be in Sweden for about 2 more weeks, can’t believe that it’s time for me to do the count down now. If it wasn’t for David, plus how terrible the school is (in my opinion), I would definitely stay here for one more semester.

In preparation for leaving Sweden, my friends insisted that we should party our butt off. Here are some pictures in our last parties. The nicest part about these parties is that I got to see all my friends whom I’ve met a while back, but never really see them around in town. Otherwise, it’s all typical party scene, people trying to get drunk and falling all over the place. It’s entertaining to watch them, until they pour beer on you, or fall on you, then that’s not so cool…

Goodbye Sweden, I’ll miss you!!!

If I were to write about this, it would be approximately 10 pg long. So, check out the pictures, it’s Set16, I think.

Today, the weather is very gloomy, and I think it will continou on to be this way for the rest of the year, if not worst =( I took a picture of the trees outside of my window, and you can definitely see the difference. Yes, I was bored, so I took pictures of the trees.

At this time, it’s my break between the first half and the second half of the semester. Due to the too sufficient amount of time I have, I’m planning trips with friends, booking plane/train/bus tickets, hostels, and etc. The thought of traveling to places is indescribably exciting, doing the actual planning is a pain in the rear end, and thinking about my credit card bill for this month is just a murder to my wallet.

Anyhoo, here is where I will be for the next 2 months:

Nov 10-15: Stockholm, Helsinki with Mint, Maha, and a gang of people
Dec 7-12: Berlin, Hamburg with Mint and Maha
Dec 19-26 Prague, Rome, (London) with Dawn and Roger
Dec 28-Jan 13 London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Nuremburg (wahhh…=( no Cairo) with David !!!! =)

To save money for my trip to Prague and Rome, I’m flying from Rome to London, then London to Sweden on my return flight (instead of flying directly from Rome to Sweden). Because of the transfer, I would have to stay at London Stansted from 11pm to 7am. Yes, that means I will be sleeping at the airport.

For now, I’m pretty down with it, but I’m sure when the time comes, I’ll be thinking that this is the worst idea ever. Most interestingly, I’m flying from London to Sweden on Dec 27, pick up my stuff from Lund, then fly back to London on Dec 28 to meet up with David. Flying out and in of London within 28 hrs might seem like it’s a waste of time, but:

1) I booked my flight from Sweden to London long before I knew about this trip to Prague and Rome
2) doesn’t make sense for me to carry about 100 lbs of luggages while I’m traveling
3) tickets are booked already, not a very good reason, actually, not a reason at all, oh well =)

I have never read so much in my life.

Even I have studied so much, the exam for Corporate Governance was still pretty difficult. There is much reliance on self-study in Sweden, which raises my appreciation to all the hard works my Berkeley professors have done to a historic high. I’m not joking but, would someone please kindly enlighten me, that what is the point of self-studying in an university, when you can self-study at home? Forgive my ignorance, but the only difference I’m detecting between reading books at home and reading books that your professors told you to read is the piece of certificate I get upon graduation. Shouldn’t the professors take on an active role in the student’s learning, or they are just there for their research or other self-interest? The following is pure complaints, readers beware. Actually, what I said before were also complaints as well, reader beware.

Even if I didn’t procrastinate, there was simply an overwhelming amount of information we needed to know/memorize. I don’t know how the Swedes do it, or maybe they just don’t care and fail their classes???!!! I’m loving Sweden, loving the people I meet here, but no offence, the university simply sucks (subjective) or is not my style (objective). It’s probably the only thing I detest the most, and would make me want to come back to the States sooner, besides David =).

Since I didn’t buy my readers (in order to save money since I’m soo cheap), I have to borrow them from my friend, a week before my final. This means I have to cram ~400 pages of reading in one week. I never read when I was in Berkeley and I hate reading ahhahhrgghrargh.

Meaning of procrastination in Berkeley: hang out in the library, eat some chips, and review your notes.
Meaning of procrastination in Lund: GODDAMNIT WHY IS THERE SO MUCH READINGS?

This Saturday, the UC organized a trip to Copenhagen. I was pretty exhausted from the beginning because it was Mint’s birthday the day before, and we cooked for 27 people (~.~). With only 4 hrs of sleep, I got up rather early on that morning, hopped on the bus to Copenhagen. Really wasn’t a good start.

The ride to Denmark took about 1.5 hrs, and we first arrived at the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the art works in the museum, so I took a picture of the bathroom. The sink in the middle of the bathroom weights about 2 tons, and looked like it was made out of marble. We had a guided tour to the exhibition of Chagall’s work (Chagall’s World of Love), then we had about 45 mins to wonder around the museum. Afterwards, we went to the city center and had a fabulous vegetarian lunch.

After overfeeding ourselves at the lunch buffet, we visited the Rosenborg Castle. The castle is located in the heart of the city, surrounded by a garden/park that is still green at this time of the year. Inside the castles were paintings, furniture, and other usual items you can expect from a castle. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take pictures when I was inside the castle because 1) I had to buy a camera permit, and 2) I would have bought the permit, but I was with a large crowd of people. Being pretty much the shortest person the crowd didn’t really give me any chance of taking any good shots, so I gave up. To make up for the losses, I took many pictures (many of them repeat each other) of the castle from the outside instead.

Afterwards, we had about 1.5 hrs to explore the city. We went up to a tower in town, and got some really good views of the city of Copenhagen. I saw a horse carriage while I was eating icecream.

This Saturday, there was a corridor party on my floor. Everyone was suppose to prepare a drink in their room, and people just go “room hopping”, get drunk, dance and sing. For those of your who know me well enough, you can probably spot a problem: getting drunk doesn’t go well with Michelle.

Indeed, I was very much intoxicated that night, and it was not cool. Searching through my barely exiting memories pertaining to that so called party, I think it involved a lot of Vodka, Absinthe, chips, people speaking in Swedish, me sitting down on the floor, me somehow ended up in my bed, then my friend Helle saying something to me.

Those Swedes with their alcohol!!! =)

Friday was Harp’s BDay, and we went to his dorm, made dinner together and just hung out. We made Thai food for dinner, and my main responsibility was chopping loads and loads of garlic (I’m know as the garlic professional due to my speed of dicing garlic). When we were eating dinner, we were listening to some popular Thai music, and people got excited, not drunk, and started to dance after Harp and Mint. I was talking on the phone, and did not participate in the “Look! White People Trying to Dance to Thai Music!” event, but I got a couple good laught at it.

To conclude the evening, Harp, Mint and I watched Crash together. It was pretty good.

On Sunday, we were invited to Maha (from Jordon)’s place to have a traditional arabic meal. We weren’t too involved with the cooking process, but the consuming part instead. For dinner, we had a normal salad, rice with lots of nuts (almont, chickpea, etc…) and spices, and baked chicken with lots of spices as well. Don’t bother asking me what kind of spices they put in, I just know it was very yummy.