Sunday 28 September 2008

Another Great One Falls

Paul Newman is dead.
He had reached the age of 83 and had cancer, so it was kind of expected - but nontheless it's sad.

Saturday 27 September 2008

Caravan Club

My parents are members in a local caravan club and have put our caravan in a permanent camping-site (not a trailer park, there are no such dreadful things in Sweden!) and from the things I hear them talk about the place is a regular soap opera. It reminds a lot of those gated communities in California where people fight over mailbox standards and the horrible behaviour of their neightbours'. I find it a bit tragic that they have finally decended to this level - before this they would at least take the caravan to some coastal city down in the south. Personally I kind of detest the whole practice of camping. It is uncomfortable and either too warm or too cold - especially when it rains. And if you by some lucky chance manage to get a lot where there is shadow over the caravan and the weather is nice you still have all those annoying neighbours with screaming and spoiled kids running around all day and, sometimes, all night. And there is no shower. In the morning you have to walk somewhere around 200m to get to the bathroom - where there is usually a long nice line.

Back when I was still doing orientering we used to take part in a five-day competition where some, I don't know, 7000 caravans where put up on huge fields with temporary bathrooms and cleaning stations (the showers were located at some sports-facility that was arranged to be in the centre of the camp). Obviously the conditions are even worse than at ordinary camping-spots but I actually tolerated those temporary mega camps to the holiday facilities. Manily because there where no real alternatives and you weren't there for the nice beach and the shopping... Then there's also the fact that some dozen of your friends were living in the same "block" - as opposed to on ordinary holidays when you are left to the mercy of your family (yay). Anyway, my point is - a summer/lakeside house and hotels are always to be prefered to a caravan (or a tent *shivering*). I think there was something else I was going to write but I forgot it... Right, that would be all for now - enjoy yourselves until next time! Ps. I move on saturday, yay!!! Ds.

Sunday 14 September 2008

My fair Lady and Beautiful towers

General announcement: I have bought two tickets to My Fair Lady saturday 10th of January. This is an open invitation to you guys to buy one of these tickets and go with me. I don't really care who so whoever pays me 430kr first gets it. Naturally, if there are more of you who want's to go one can buy the ticket from me and the others can buy their own tickets from ticnet.se. But there aren't too many left so you better hurry up! End of anouncement.

Yeasterday I went on sightseeing in Grängesberg. It sounds a bit odd, I know. This is what I looked at:


Not the old men, the windpower park behind them. Seriously, they're huge!


The one on the left is 105 m to the house and the wings are 45 m long, the same goes for that wing on the ground. The one on the right is 95 m + 40 m tall... And the view from those mountains is amazing!

Ignore those berry-picking smurfs.

All in all there will be 17 towers up there once they're done. There have been many complaints, mostly about how they look but also about the noise pollution they cause. Many people think they're ugly, and that they spoil the sceneries above. I actually find them quite beautiful, and I am almost as facinated of them as Da-Ryun is. What do you think? Take a look at this and tell me that I'm crazy when I say that it is just as beautiful as the two pictures above.

Tuesday 9 September 2008

Report from the black forest

So, I'm starting to get strange questions like: Hey, what are you doing these days? Where are you? etc. Thus I started to realise that I haven't actually told anyone except Da-Ryun, Sara and Rikard where I am and presumed that the information had migrated. Obviously it hasn't, since Anton - who lives five yards from Rikard - aked me about this today.

This is the situation: I was to slow with my KE1201 - Gymnasiekemi A - (may the cursed thing forever burn in hell and sink into oblivion) and was therefore removed from the application-queue-thingy for Byggteknikprogrammet at Uppsala University. After a brief panic I then sent in an application to Lunds Tekniska Högskola i Helsingborg - the same programme. Because of my belatedness I was placed on 7th place on the reserve list and thus my chances of getting in were slim. Why, you might wonder? Because swedish universities has a fine institution called "överintag" which means that the university looks at the statistics to find out how many applicants usually fail to show up for registration and/or drop out in the first semester and decide on a number of students that will be accepted in addition to the number of places that they actually have on the programme. In Helsongborg that number is 10, which means that in order for me to get a late admission 17 persons would have to change their minds...

Therefore I somewhat reluctantly sent in an application for Byggingenjörsprogrammet att Högskolan dalrana, Borlänge. Truth to be told, I don't want to spend three years in Borlänge. I don't even want to spend one year in Borlänge. Why?! Have you been in Borlänge? It is probably the ugliest town in Dalarna - second to Grängesberg, that is. And it's boring. It has a high criminality rate. And student-wise it's dead. Seriously, for the entire campus in Borlänge about 100 hundred chose to show up at the introduction (inspark) - in Uppsala that was the number that participated in the introduction for my programme alone. And the lunch is expensive - 60kr if you eat there and 50kr if you take it with you!

The programme is OK, some of the teatchers are outright great, others are acceptable. The class is a little odd... In total we are 42, but half of them are going to become foremen (Byggarbetsledare) so next year we'll be about 20. A handful are over 40 years old. Because the school offers a sort of "tekniskt basår" concurrently with the programme 10 or so have not taken mathematics D... As I have alreday told Sara and Da-Ryun many (read most) of the girls are the irritating kind - you know what I mean?

So, for the more positive sides of the situation. I am studying something that I like! I mean, really, really like. That way I think it will be easier for me to motivate myself to actually study... I'm moving to a nice apartment/room. And because I won't move in until October 1st I will be able to buy a couch. And I baught a nice shelf from my cousin who is also moving. The place will be awesome and if you don't come to visit me I will forever hold a grudge! And finally, which is one of the main reasons I am even considering this - Borlänge is 1,5 hours away from Uppsala with train. And I will be able to buy tradera tickets for next to nothing.

That was all for now. If you want to discuss the suckiness of the swedish school system - please give me a call. Actually, give me a call anyway! Oh, and if you want to go downhill skiing at Romme (uttalas Romme med O som i Olov och Orolig - inte Råmme! tro mig, jag har pratat med lokalbefolkningen) this winter you don't have to worry about lodgings.