M & D’s Blog

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.