Dear readers,
I hope that all of you are well and you are enjoying some summer weather. Today the weather in Uppsala is rather grey and rainy. Actually this sort of weather is actually a pleasant change from the long spell of warm and sunny weather. I occasionally enjoy a cool and moist day. Good for the plants and animals and good for keeping the air fresh. :-)
So, this time I want to tell you readers about a small and very pleasant day trip that you can do while studying in Uppsala.
I personally can't stay in one place for too long. Generally after two months of being in once place, town or city I need to flee from that place and visit and relax at some other location. The city of Uppsala is rather small in my opinion and it's nice to see something new.
What do I do to get my time away? Go to Stockholm for a day! :-) (Yeah, it rhymes!)
Stockholm is a really nice city. The city has a beautiful old part called "Gamla Stan" and you can enjoy your time at various bars, restaurants, clubs and just hang out at the piers off of the road named "Strandvägen". Strandvägen is really great especially on a sunny day. You're basically walking along the water all the time and you can sit down for a beer and relax in the sun. Besides this, Stockholm has some nice museums that you can visit. Entrance is a little expensive sometimes (around €7-12) but I think it's worth it.
The train ticket is also affordable and is around €7 for one way. So all in all if you feel like spending around €30-40 you can have a really great day in Stockholm and walk around and see most of the city's attractions. Moreover, there are often sports events and concerts in Stockholm. You just need to find them. After a long day in the city it's great to return to the serenity of Uppsala and ultimately Ultuna campus where you can rest after a long day.
I've "escaped" a few times and I always feel more relaxed once I'm away from my regular work and living place for a while. Just an affordable idea and a great daytime low-budget student trip.
Take care my readers and look for my next blog!
Peace and love!
Julian
Friday, June 17, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Update & THE WEATHER IN SWEDEN IS AWESOME!!!!!!
Dear readers,
As usual I hope that everyone's having a great day and week and enjoying the warm and long summer days, depending on where you are on the planet. For the rest of you, I hope that you're enjoying some beautiful winter days if you come from the southern hemisphere.
All is well here. I'm so thrilled to be done with my master's. Here's some advice. Don't take forever and procrastinate while working on your master's. Get it done already! I don't think it makes sense to sit with an unfinished master's for a long time. Of course the work is challenging and it requires alot of time, energy and thinking, especially in the "discussion" section of your master's thesis. Despite this, you really only need to sit down and do it. Basically a master's is like a normal class research paper on steroids! :-D If you know what I mean. It's (just) a supersized research paper. It takes a while, but overall I think it's a manageable task if you work on it a little bit every day. I really recommend NOT to drag it out longer than you need to.
Now to the real point as to why I'm writing this blog. The weather here in Sweden is AMAZING!!! This whole past week it's been really nice and warm and dry. The temperatures are around +15°C during the night and around +23 - +25°C during the day. Of course if you're coming from a tropical country such as India or Bangladesh or Panama that temperature is not very warm. Remember though, you're in Sweden and located 60°N! So you take what you can get here! :-)
Bottom line the weather's great here. Really great to go camping and hanging out. Over the past days I've just been chilling and relaxing. Today I think I may do a BBQ later and possibly go camping at Lake Mälaren either this or next weekend.
So good stuff going on here during the summer in Uppsala!
Julian
As usual I hope that everyone's having a great day and week and enjoying the warm and long summer days, depending on where you are on the planet. For the rest of you, I hope that you're enjoying some beautiful winter days if you come from the southern hemisphere.
All is well here. I'm so thrilled to be done with my master's. Here's some advice. Don't take forever and procrastinate while working on your master's. Get it done already! I don't think it makes sense to sit with an unfinished master's for a long time. Of course the work is challenging and it requires alot of time, energy and thinking, especially in the "discussion" section of your master's thesis. Despite this, you really only need to sit down and do it. Basically a master's is like a normal class research paper on steroids! :-D If you know what I mean. It's (just) a supersized research paper. It takes a while, but overall I think it's a manageable task if you work on it a little bit every day. I really recommend NOT to drag it out longer than you need to.
Now to the real point as to why I'm writing this blog. The weather here in Sweden is AMAZING!!! This whole past week it's been really nice and warm and dry. The temperatures are around +15°C during the night and around +23 - +25°C during the day. Of course if you're coming from a tropical country such as India or Bangladesh or Panama that temperature is not very warm. Remember though, you're in Sweden and located 60°N! So you take what you can get here! :-)
Bottom line the weather's great here. Really great to go camping and hanging out. Over the past days I've just been chilling and relaxing. Today I think I may do a BBQ later and possibly go camping at Lake Mälaren either this or next weekend.
So good stuff going on here during the summer in Uppsala!
Julian
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Gälbo (On Campus Housing) and Uppsala is Emptying Out and A Word About On-Campus Living!
Dear readers,
Wow these past couple of weeks have been really crazy. I finally presented and defended my Master's thesis, so I've officially graduated with a Master's of Science. This feels really good, but I must take the whole thing with a grain of salt because I still need to revise some things on my final thesis manuscript before it's published in the SLU library system. Nevertheless, I'm still very happy to have the bulk of the thesis finished.
Here in Sweden (at SLU more specifically) you will write your Master's thesis and eventually present it in front of your external examinor(s). Once you have done that, you will be given the possibility to revise it and hand it in again. This final manuscript will then be graded. This is different from most countries, including Denmark (Copenhagen University) where I began my studies. At other universities, you're expected to fully complete your manuscript on the date that you graduate and present and defend your thesis. At SLU you first complete, present and defend your thesis and then you will revise it to later publish it in the SLU library system. This is actually good, because your thesis will become available online and will be accessible online via a Google search! This is a pretty cool system and in my opinion blows the other universities' Master's publishing methods and policies out of the water! Most other universitites merely make your manuscript available in the form of a booklet in the institution's library and not publicly available online.
My second thing that I want to discuss in this blog is the city of Uppsala during summer break. It's dead but still charming. At this time you can really enjoy the "Swedish" side of Uppsala. There are very few international students left in Uppsala. Most have left for the summer and the many new ones haven't arrived yet. So Uppsala is back to good 'ol Sweden and not anymore a mixing pot of various cultures and minds (a.k.a. exchange students). Bottom line, there are much fewer people around.
My final topic I would like to discuss is the SLU on-campus housing at Gälbo. The place is even more dead than the city! :-) There are extremely few people around. Almost no Swedes left (that I've seen) and some international students that haven't returned home. I like this though. Finally I don't have to see all these damn dogs that they have on campus.
A final word. If I would have the chance to redo this year in Uppsala I would've not lived on campus. Yes, it's very close to classes which is extremely convenient during a frigid Swedish winter (ca. -25°). The real negatives of living on campus is 1. the people you live with, 2. the fact that you're living in the middle of nowhere and 3. the dogs (no not police, the actual dogs, Canis lupus familiaris).
The people I lived with were extremely boring and very senstitive about even the smallest sound that I made which is really annoying. I'm not always a loud person, but being sensitive about the smallest things is sort of unnecessary in my opinion. Another thing is if I wouldn't have said "hello" to my housemates and actually attempted to talk to them, I would have never conversed with them. I think this is really strange and really just boring. I think if you live with people, you could at least have the courtesy to say "hi" to other people living there. I guess it's a thing here in Sweden that everyone must be really quiet and introverted!
Secondly, Gälbo is literally situated between a forest and a field. It's really pretty but really boring. It takes ca. 20 minutes to get to the city by bike and the way home from a party is often long, cold and really sucks!
Finally, DOGS!!!! There are sooooooo many dogs on campus. SO MANY, SO MANY, SO MANY DAMN DOGS!!!! I cannot stress this enough. ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOG!!! I don't mind that, but many residents that are dog owners seem to let their dogs have the same rights as humans, e.g. jumping up on the counters and tables, eating food from tables and just generally being allowed to misbehave. Really annoying! People, if you own a dog, discipline it! Also, the place is for humans, not dogs. People don't seem to understand that dogs do not pay the rent, people do. So following that idea, dogs should take the second place, not people. Some on-campus friends of mine and I had a pretty big problem with this and I really think it needs to be addressed by the housing committee.
Again, if I would redo my Uppsala year, I would live in the city with more people, more open and creative minds and attitudes and more things to do. Just a piece of advice for all you incoming students!
That's all folks and stay tuned to my next couple of blogs. This should be my last few weeks of blogging, as I will be leaving Sweden shortly.
Enjoy your summer days!
Julian
Wow these past couple of weeks have been really crazy. I finally presented and defended my Master's thesis, so I've officially graduated with a Master's of Science. This feels really good, but I must take the whole thing with a grain of salt because I still need to revise some things on my final thesis manuscript before it's published in the SLU library system. Nevertheless, I'm still very happy to have the bulk of the thesis finished.
Here in Sweden (at SLU more specifically) you will write your Master's thesis and eventually present it in front of your external examinor(s). Once you have done that, you will be given the possibility to revise it and hand it in again. This final manuscript will then be graded. This is different from most countries, including Denmark (Copenhagen University) where I began my studies. At other universities, you're expected to fully complete your manuscript on the date that you graduate and present and defend your thesis. At SLU you first complete, present and defend your thesis and then you will revise it to later publish it in the SLU library system. This is actually good, because your thesis will become available online and will be accessible online via a Google search! This is a pretty cool system and in my opinion blows the other universities' Master's publishing methods and policies out of the water! Most other universitites merely make your manuscript available in the form of a booklet in the institution's library and not publicly available online.
My second thing that I want to discuss in this blog is the city of Uppsala during summer break. It's dead but still charming. At this time you can really enjoy the "Swedish" side of Uppsala. There are very few international students left in Uppsala. Most have left for the summer and the many new ones haven't arrived yet. So Uppsala is back to good 'ol Sweden and not anymore a mixing pot of various cultures and minds (a.k.a. exchange students). Bottom line, there are much fewer people around.
My final topic I would like to discuss is the SLU on-campus housing at Gälbo. The place is even more dead than the city! :-) There are extremely few people around. Almost no Swedes left (that I've seen) and some international students that haven't returned home. I like this though. Finally I don't have to see all these damn dogs that they have on campus.
A final word. If I would have the chance to redo this year in Uppsala I would've not lived on campus. Yes, it's very close to classes which is extremely convenient during a frigid Swedish winter (ca. -25°). The real negatives of living on campus is 1. the people you live with, 2. the fact that you're living in the middle of nowhere and 3. the dogs (no not police, the actual dogs, Canis lupus familiaris).
The people I lived with were extremely boring and very senstitive about even the smallest sound that I made which is really annoying. I'm not always a loud person, but being sensitive about the smallest things is sort of unnecessary in my opinion. Another thing is if I wouldn't have said "hello" to my housemates and actually attempted to talk to them, I would have never conversed with them. I think this is really strange and really just boring. I think if you live with people, you could at least have the courtesy to say "hi" to other people living there. I guess it's a thing here in Sweden that everyone must be really quiet and introverted!
Secondly, Gälbo is literally situated between a forest and a field. It's really pretty but really boring. It takes ca. 20 minutes to get to the city by bike and the way home from a party is often long, cold and really sucks!
Finally, DOGS!!!! There are sooooooo many dogs on campus. SO MANY, SO MANY, SO MANY DAMN DOGS!!!! I cannot stress this enough. ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOG!!! I don't mind that, but many residents that are dog owners seem to let their dogs have the same rights as humans, e.g. jumping up on the counters and tables, eating food from tables and just generally being allowed to misbehave. Really annoying! People, if you own a dog, discipline it! Also, the place is for humans, not dogs. People don't seem to understand that dogs do not pay the rent, people do. So following that idea, dogs should take the second place, not people. Some on-campus friends of mine and I had a pretty big problem with this and I really think it needs to be addressed by the housing committee.
Again, if I would redo my Uppsala year, I would live in the city with more people, more open and creative minds and attitudes and more things to do. Just a piece of advice for all you incoming students!
That's all folks and stay tuned to my next couple of blogs. This should be my last few weeks of blogging, as I will be leaving Sweden shortly.
Enjoy your summer days!
Julian
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