Been a while since my last post! Hard to believe it’s already nine days into November. The past week and a half or so has been mostly getting settled into my new classes and their new locations. I started my Functional Programming class on Monday, the 3rd, and it certainly felt like computer science classes at home – about 75 people and hardly a female in sight. (NPR recently did an interesting story on that!) I think it will be a good class. It’s on a topic that’s pretty different from what I’ve done before so if nothing else I’ll broaden my horizons a bit and get to add something new to the ‘ole resume.
Tuesday brought the more stressful and unusual class… Economic History: Growth, Stagnation, and Inequality in Africa. The professor said ten people were signed up, but six showed up for class. I think that will be the smallest college course I’ve ever taken! And it just has to be all seminars and presentations on a topic I know very little about. Swell. It’s only ~six more weeks, so I think can trudge through it and make it sound like I know what I’m talking about. We had another class scheduled for Friday, but after I arrived in the building someone came to put a note on the door saying it was cancelled. Gives me a little more time to prepare I guess?
I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship from the College of Engineering just before coming to Sweden and on Thursday night there was a dinner with the donor in Raleigh. As I couldn’t attend in person we tried to plan a Skype call in to at least say hello…unfortunately, it ended up being after midnight before they called and I had called it a night just a few minutes before they did! Not so much of a night owl here. If I had known my class was cancelled the next morning perhaps I would have stayed up!
Yesterday while washing my dishes I had a bit of a scare when I dropped a plate into one of the two sinks causing it to break in half (quite evenly, too) and cut three fingers on my left hand. I don’t think I’d ever broken a plate before and definitely not like that, so I know to be more careful now. Can’t play piano as well without all my fingers intact! After that harrowing injury, I went to a concert in that building pictured above of what I believe was the University orchestra playing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6. For only 50SEK (~$7), it was a pretty great performance! I had a good seat too.
In other news, I got my iPhone 5 battery replaced for free last Sunday which has taken a lot of stress off my mind! My phone would jump around from 50% to 1% and I just never knew when it was going to call it quits. Luckily Apple is replacing some of them for free, and mine qualified. The Apple Store nearest to me is in Malmö in one of the largest malls in Scandinavia! It has a rooftop garden which I’m sure would be really nice on a clear day! I was there at night so it was just dark and windy – very Swedish.
Only a few more weeks of normal school days until my two weekends in a row of trips. “Thanksgiving” weekend to Berlin and the next weekend to Norway!
Ha en bra vecka! (Have a good week!)