Category Archives: Student life

How to survive the Swedish winter?

Student life,

Sweden. Country of quiet lakes, majestic forests and solidarity. I like it here, quite a lot. Time flies and it’s already my second winter up North. Last year I loved every little piece of winter. Lots of snow, ice to skate on, my super cool winter bike tires, and if you were lucky you might spot a sight of the Northern lights. Maybe it’s because it’s not new or maybe I haven’t taken my vitamine D pills regularly enough, but truth is that winter feels more like a struggle to me this time. And I’m not alone in this. Last winter I had several friends telling me they felt winter was kind of ‘heavy’ on them. I just did not understand – yet. To prevent you from being affected by the Winter-blues I’d like to share some piece of advice.

  • Go outside – no matter the temperature
    Sun is your best friend. However, Sun does not pay very long nor intense visits during winter in Uppsala. Therefore you should try to grab every opportunity there is to say hello to her. Don’t get intimidated by thermostats saying it’s minus ten degrees Celsius or something worse. How cold it truly feels depends on many things as humidity, wind speed and sun intensity. Try to go outside each day. There ain’t no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing! A good way to get your daily minimum of sunlight is to grab the bike to SLU. 
    Comic by Owlturd
  • Take vitamin D supplements seriously
    Because honestly, no matter how much time you spend on trying to reconnect with your old friend Sun, your relation will be a long-distance one and your body will long for more. Drinking is not going to fix your depression, but vitamin D may! You can find them in your nearest Apoteket, no prescription needed.
  • Share your suffering
    I am not saying you should complain about the weather or lack of daylight on a daily basis, but it might be relieving to hear you’re not the only one struggling. Good chances many of your friends and classmates feel a little ‘under the weather’ and could use some extra happiness as well. So don’t lock yourself up in your room waiting for Sun to come back, but go to the Nations for a drink or host a dinner and don’t avoid serious conversations if they pop up. Sharing is caring.

“In Uppsala the question is not if there’s something fun to do, but rather which cool activity to choose?”

  • Focus on things that make you happy
    It sounds a little cheesy, I know. Though you should think about it! As you will find yourself spending more time at home you may as well do something you always wanted to do, but never had the time for. Like playing guitar or improving your drawing skills. No inspiration? Go find a new hobby! There are numerous things to do or experience in Uppsala. Try out all the classes offered at your  local gym, learn a new game at a Nation‘s boardgame night or find out if you like latin dancing. In Uppsala the question is not if there’s something fun to do, but rather which cool activity to choose?
  • Invite your friends from outside Sweden
    Do you remember this feeling you get during your first days in a new place? Everything looks amazing and you’re out exploring new sights every day. Ideally you stay in love with your city forever, but at some point the honeymoon effect might disappear. No worries! Just invite some friends over and show them around and do all the touristy things you had forgotten about. I bet you that spending time wandering around Uppsala’s Domkyrka, Slott and Fyrisån will bring back the magic. Especially since your friends will see all of it for the first time, their enthusiasm is going to be contagious, promised. Plus nothing warms the heart like seeing an old friend, so it will be a win-win.

I hope this list is helpful to you. If you have any additional advice, questions or would like to share your own experiences you can always reply below. And please, don’t let the idea of a real winter keep you from studying here. It’s a great experience to walk through a winter wonderland or spend time on a frozen lake. And if you at some point find out you get affected by the Winter-blues, then keep in mind it’s all temporary. Spring is on the doorstep  🙂

Rosan

The struggle of learning Swedish

Student life, ,

Once upon a time I moved to Sweden to study. As I would spend the coming two years in this new country, of course I would learn the language. There are quite some similarities between Swedish and my mother-tongue Dutch, so how hard could it be…? Dream on. One and a half years has past, and my speaking skills reach about as far as saying ‘hej, hur mår du?’ (= hello, how are you?) and ‘tack’ (thanks). Which is pretty much the same as I spoke the first week. Yes, I do feel bad about this. Am I just a terrible person who didn’t put any effort into this? No. Actually, many of my international friends are in the same position. I think there are three main reasons for this.

  1. Swedes speak English too well.
    Young or old, it doesn’t matter, almost everybody is capable of speaking perfectly clear English. Meaning to say that even if you try to speak Swedish, when the friendly Swede notices you are foreign, she/she will switch to English for you. Even though this is extremely kind, it also never challenges your language skills. The Swedish language skills, I mean to say.
    Ranking of 2016. In the past five years, Sweden was placed as either #1 or #3 of best English speaking countries in the World. Source: EF EPI
  2. SFI is not efficient.
    Sweden offers free language courses for everyone staying long term, named ‘Svenska För Ivandrar’ (= Swedish For Immigrants = SFI). As a master student staying for a full time programme you are allowed to join this free education. Yeay! You don’t even have to purchase any course materials. I remember how delighted I was when I had my intake. However, motivation faded awfully quickly. After a full day of university it takes quite some discipline to jump on your bike once more to spend another two hours in a classroom. As the learning method is extremely slow and the classes are not progressive – you ‘level up’ once in a while – this doesn’t really increase motivation. Almost all of my friends started SFI, but one by one we’ve all dropped out…
  3. Swedes are perfectionists in melody.
    Swedish is a beautiful language to listen to, it’s very melodic. I can read Swedish quite well, I can write it to some extend, but no, I wouldn’t say I speak it. I’ve tried, I promise. But when you initiate a conversation with a Swede, they will interrupt you because you didn’t use the right melody for the word. You thought you were getting somewhere when you finally got the hang of the Swedish ‘vokaler’, but guess what, it’s not enough. I’ve repeated a word twenty times in front of my room mate before he thought I had the melody right. The problem is I didn’t hear any difference myself when I finally pronounced it correctly. Swedish melody is very – very subtle. As I have several friends with similar experiences, I find my international friends practising their Swedish with one another, but not daring to speak in front of a Swede any more.

Admitted, that’s a bit of a depressing list. Don’t lose hope yet! In spite of realising everything I’ve written above, it’s one of my new year’s resolutions to increase my Swedish skills. Therefore I’d like to present you another list: My best advices for those who don’t want to give up 🙂

  1. Use a language app and/or website.
    Whether you pick Duolingo or Babbel, I don’t care. But install the app on your phone or insert the website as your homepage. These programs are not perfect, but they are easy, fun and make you familiar with the language in multiple ways. Babbel is a paid service but includes the valuable training of your speech. Convince your friends to join Duolingo as well so you can compete with them in weekly rankings!


    According to Duolingo, I am 25% fluent, hooray!

  2. Listen to Swedish music and watch Swedish television.
    If you enjoy going out you’ll soon find there are a couple of catchy Swedish songs that will be played frequently towards the end of the night. All the drunk Swedes are singing to it, while you are awkwardly trying to continue dancing. However the next morning on your bike the melody keeps repeating in your head but you still don’t know the words… Youtube is your best friend! Go and find those lyric videos and sing along. Not your cup of tea? Turn on that Swedish radio, put up a Swedish playlist on Spotify or find a series you like on SVT. They come with Swedish subtitles!

    Double lyric video of ‘Vart jag mig i världen vänder’ by ‘Den Svenska Björnstammen’

  3. SPEAK.
    This is the hardest part. Even though your room mate might intimate you slightly with his perfectionism, after all he is only trying to help. Start with small things, try to talk Swedish with the cashier or keep it Swedish when ordering a pizza. I haven’t tried it myself, but have heard great experiences of so called language cafes, which are organised weekly in Uppsala. In the ideal situation you might find a Swede who is interesting in learning your native language, so you both benefit from helping each other out. Still nervous? Inform your Swedish friends of your attempt to learn the language and ask them for a little help.


    Image from studyinsweden.se

What do you think, do you agree with me or not? Or do you have more tips and tricks? Please share below.

Ha det så bra,
Rosan

Gott nytt år!

Student life, , ,

Gott nytt år! = Happy new year!

All the best wishes for 2017, may we all be as happy as these two little fellas. I saw this cheerful video passing by on my facebook wall and seeing farm animals playing around like that inspires me to work the best I can – hoping to contribute to improved welfare of animals in intensive farming. I’d like to see that expressing such natural behaviour would be possible for all farm animals one day. Not just the ones in sanctuaries!

Movie credits: The Happy Herd Farm Sanctuary

If you are considering to sign up for a programme at SLU this autumn, remember that the deadline to register is already the 16th of January. Don’t be late and start your application now at the official website of University Admissions. It can be quite time consuming as you will have to gather all different kind of documents to show you’re fulfilling the requirements. To apply for the master programme in Animal Sciences specifically, follow this link. Any questions? Feel free to ask them in the reply section below.

Rosan

God Jul!

Student life, , ,

Flying home for Christmas…

– tututu-tuduuu-

Oh, I can’t wait to see those faces…

This time I am blogging from my parents place in the Netherlands. Such a blessing to be able to spend Christmas with my family at home. Even though I love my life in Sweden, and we always feel sad about not having a white Christmas in Holland, it is great to be back for a little while. Many of the international students chose to go back over the holidays. Actually, many Swedes do the same. For Swedish students whose parents are living up North or down South the journey can be as long and expensive as my own travels! Therefore there are quite some Swedish students who haven’t seen their families since summer holidays either. I’d say there aren’t many students left in Uppsala during Christmas, but I know that the ones staying behind usually have a wonderful time as well. At least the city looks very merry with all the lights out on the streets.


Me enjoying the beautiful Christmas decorations in Uppsala’s city centre
Photo by Ellen van der Pol

Many Swedish families put these traditional advent candles behind their windows, which looks very cosy from outside. I didn’t really know about advent before moving to Sweden. Advent originates from the Latin word Adventus which translates to ‘coming’. Four weeks before Christmas the advent starts and the sundays before are called the first, second and third advent, and the fourth advent takes place on the 24th of December. Advent is originally a Christian tradition, but I have the feeling that it became more of a cultural tradition rather than a religious one in Sweden. To Swedes these advent sundays seem to be the perfect excuse for extra luxurious fikas 😉 The advent fika comes with another delicious pastry named pepparkakor combined with glögg, a mulled wine.

Another tradition I adore is the start of a children show on television on the first advent: The Julkalendern. From this day, until Christmas, every night there will be a short episode of about ten minutes broadcasted on television. Obviously the stories have been made for kids, but a lot of my Swedish friends have never stopped watching it since they were young. My roommates – two guys in their mid twenties – have been faithfully watching every day and were also arguing which of the series they loved most of the past years. I still have some catching up to do, but I watched the start and it looked very nice, a little mysterious. A great way to practice your Swedish! You can find the trailer below.  God Jul allihoppa!

Rosan

 

Into the Arctic! (part 3)

Student life, , , ,

This post is the last one in a mini-series named ‘Into the Arctic’, you might want to read part 1 and part 2 first. The second and final destination for us to stay was the National park of Abisko. An unique nature reserve and one of the most famous places to watch the northern lights. Or as the sky station of Abisko puts it ‘Abisko, in the middle of the auroral zone, is considered to be the best place on earth to see the Aurora Borealis. With its fresh, clear air and its practically permanent cloud-free sky the prerequisites in Abisko a re optimal. More or less active northern lights can be seen almost every night.‘ Creates some expectations, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, both nights we spent in Abisko were so cloudy we couldn’t see any aurora, even though there was a lot of activity. A bit disappointing, but Abisko itself was still very impressive.

With a small group of friends we went on a morning hike along the riverside. The track was marked well, but the thick layer of snow was from time to time quite a challenge. It was stunning. And the quietness of the place was wonderful. It was a lot of fun to let yourself fall down in the snow. We didn’t see many animals on the way, but we did see lots of funny tracks and surprisingly quite some insects. Who would have thought?

 
Lots of snow in the National park of Abisko

On the last day before departure we were offered the possibility to take a trip to the fjords of Norway. Everybody had been hoping for this to happen, but depending on the weather conditions the road might have been closed. Early morning in the hostel everybody was asking everybody for an update, though everyone knew we wouldn’t hear until we met in front of the bus. The good news was: The road is open! The bad news: A truck got stuck in front of our bus on a dead end road. Nobody knew how long it would take before it would move out of our way… however in the end it didn’t take too long and we started our journey. It was incredibly beautiful, up in the mountains, first seeing some lakes and soon… the Atlantic ocean 🙂


Ofotfjorden

In Narvik we went out for a photostop and were finally dropped of in town. Here we all went together on a hike up the hill, which was extremely slippery. Me and some friends were betting on how many people we thought would slip and fall, but none of us expected these amounts of us to go down – it was crazy. I was really lucky though, as I had brought my ‘shoe-spikes’ with me. The view at the end point was marvellous and again a lot of pictures were taken. Back in the bus to Abisko we were getting already excited for our evening programme. We were going to enjoy a Swedish sauna, followed by… a jump in the lake. Yes, you’ve read it correctly. And yes, many of us didn’t think they would. And almost everyone did. Personally I totally loved rolling in the snow between coming out of the lake and running back to the sauna. What an experience!

And then, around lunchtime of our fifth day, we were gathering in front of our bus for the last time. It was time to take that tremendously long trip back home. Actually, it was even a longer trip ahead of us compared to our way up North to Kiruna. Nobody looked much forward to it, but our tour guide tried to cheer us op with some new movies. The real entertainment came not from the movies though. We had been only a few hours on the go when one of the girls shouted she was seeing northern lights! Everybody was shouting and laughing and looking through the windows. It was beautiful, really big and moving a lot, plus we were able to see it several times. Now our trip was absolutely complete, and before we knew it we woke up again in rainy Uppsala.


Group-photo!

Rosan

 

Into the Arctic! (part 2)

Student life, , ,

This post is a follow-up on Into the Arctic! (part 1). After a cosy evening in which our group got to know each other better, the next morning it was time to leave Kiruna and continue our journey already. The next destination for the night would be the National park of Abisko. There were two activities planned for today; visiting the world’s first Ice-hotel and getting a glimpse of Sami culture.

“Artists get permission to design and sculpt one room each, resulting in no room being the same in the hotel.”

The history of the ice-hotel is kind of a funny story. It started with art exhibitions out of ice in a kind of igloo like building. One night, back in 1989, all rooms in the surrounding area were booked for the night and a group of visitors asked if they were allowed to sleep in the igloo. And they loved the experience! That’s how the ice-hotel was born. Since then the ice-hotel has been built newly for every winter season. Artists get permission to design and sculpt one room each, resulting in no room being the same in the hotel. The rooms are open to visitors as an art exhibition by day and rented out as bedrooms by night. It ain’t very cheap to sleep here.. but it’s definitely a very, very cool experience.

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Outside the Ice-hotel. On the left you see the entrance to the new ‘365’

However this year a new part of the hotel had just been opened when we arrived. The ice-hotel 365, which will be – surprisingly, haha – open for 365 days of the year. That does also include summer! This new, year round ice-experience will be powered by solar energy. After all, the sun never goes down here during summer. Kind of funny though, keeping ice from melting by the energy of sunlight. It was really exciting to see the ice-hotel. Beforehand I wasn’t to enthusiastic about going here, but when we walked through the beautiful sculptured rooms I was absolutely amazed by the artworks.

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After the ice-hotel we went to visit a Sami family. This was something I had been really looking forward to ever since I learned more about this indigenous people of Scandinavia. Also we knew we were going to meet reindeer here up close, so you can imagine that my animal scientist’s heart skipped a beat when we finally arrived. The two guys who were welcoming us turned out to be not only really friendly, but also quite direct and joking around – not like your average Swede. The group was split into two once again, and while half of us went feeding reindeer the other half followed into the tent to listen about Sami culture.

Inside the tent it was smoky but cosy and it was nice to warm yourself around the fire. After all it was almost -20 degrees outside! The stories we heard were maybe not really what we expected but interesting either way. As one of the guy’s daughters recently got married we ended up talking a lot about marriage and the traditions around marriage in Sami communities. During the conversation we were served reindeer meat and some kind of reindeer broth. As I’ve been vegetarian for many years I kindly refused the offer. When I heard the others commenting they felt the drink tasted like ‘the smell of a wet dog’, I wasn’t too sad I had missed this.

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Listening to the stories about the Sami while warmed by the fire

Outside the tent I had a lot of fun feeding the reindeer. They knew the trick and as soon as their owner came into the paddock with a big plastic bag some of them became very ‘cosy’. We could feed the reindeer from our hands which was a really lovely experience. You had to be careful though not to end up with one of the antlers in  your eyes as they seemed to move around quite carelessly looking for more treats. Unfortunately we didn’t get to know many details about reindeer keeping, but I still enjoyed it heaps.

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That’s all for now. Next week I will write a final post about our amazing journey through Lapland, including a trip to the fjords of Norway!

Rosan

Into the Arctic! (part 1)

Student life, , ,

So I just came back home yesterday from this amazing adventure. The student union had put their heads together with travel agency Scanbalt to organise an amazing trip to Lapland. That’s how I ended up with way too many bags biking towards the central station where a group of excited students stood waiting to board the bus. Indeed, the bus. An approximately 1200 km, 18 hours journey was ahead of us…

“The famous yet controversial mine seems to be responsible for both origin and destruction of the town.”

You can imagine the joy when we finally reached our first destination: Kiruna. This most Northern town of Sweden has quite a fascinating story. Kiruna is located nearby the World’s largest underground iron ore mine. This famous yet controversial mine seems to be responsible for both origin and destruction of the town. Though I think it should be mentioned that before the town was built these grounds were already part of Sápmi. As mining continues the ground at the surface deforms which will make large part of the town unsafe to live in the future. Therefore half of the town – including the city-centre – will be either moved or demolished in the coming years, a massive project.

We started the day with a guided walking tour and visited the beautiful church and massive town hall. This church is one of Sweden’s largest wooden buildings and is open to any religion. Isn’t that a wonderful idea? The town hall seems a bit grey and industrial from the outside, but as soon as you walk inside this feeling changes rapidly. It is rather cosy, exactly what the architects intended, even though they based their design on the inside Alcatraz prison.

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Silhouettes of the church of Kiruna against the warm colours of sunrise

Everybody got really excited as it was almost time for our second activity that day. We were going dog sledding and driving snow mobiles! As we arrived a little early on the farm we had the opportunity to cuddle with husky puppies. No matter the cold, your heart just melted. Even though we were already wearing many, many layers we went to dress up with extra winter overalls before jumping on the snow mobiles. Driving the snowmobiles was so much fun, we kept shouting of joy while speeding through the snow. Halfway we had a break where we switched to the dog sledding after warming ourselves with tea and cake at a fireplace.

This was probably the happiest bunch of dogs I’ve ever seen. They were relaxed when left alone, but as soon as people approached they were extremely enthusiastic for cuddles. Their excitement reached even higher when it became clear we would climb on the sledges soon. Impressive how much weight these dog can pull through the snow! The team of dogs in front of our sledge were partly top-athletes; about half of them took part in World famous races in Alaska. I talked for a while with our dog guide and it was really interesting to learn about breeding, training and housing of the dogs. As an animal scientist you just can’t help yourself from keeping asking questions in situations like these 😉

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Meet the Alaskan huskies | Our snowmobile | View while sledding through the Arctic tundra

To prevent these posts from becoming incredibly long, I decided to split the story into several parts. In the next post I will tell you all about the eccentric ice-hotel and delightful Sami people we visited.

Rosan

 

The student nations

Student life, , , ,

I promised already a while ago that I would tell a little more about Uppsala’s student nations. The nations play an important role when it comes to student life in Uppsala. Or as they describe themselves: “The nations are the social nerve of the student-community with accommodations, scholarships, clubs, culture, pubs, associations, sports and a lot more – by students for students!“. Even though all aspects mentioned are true, I would say that the nations are most famous for their energetic night life. The roots of the nations date back all the way to the sixteenth century. There are currently thirteen student nations in Uppsala.

         
Gästrike-Hälsinge, Göteborgs, Norrlands, Värmlands, Uplands and Västgota
Source: Uppsalastudent.com

The nations are named after the Swedish provinces from which they traditionally used to recruit their members. For example if you were a student from far North of Sweden moving here to study in Uppsala, it would create a possibility to hang out with people from your area of origin. As Sweden is such an outstretched country and regular visits to your parents may not be possible, I can imagine it to be nice to speak to people who share your dialect or maybe local habits.  Especially in earlier times when the internet – or even phoning – were not existent yet. Nowadays almost all the nations allow everyone to join, no matter where you are from. Though in practice I think still many Swedes prefer to sign up for the nation that relates to their area of origin.

             
Kalmar, Stockholms, Södermanlands-Nerikes, Smålands, Västmanlands-Dala, Gotlands
Source: Uppsalastudent.com

Some of these nations are rather small, while others count many members. As a member of one of the nations you get access to all other nations as well. However, almost all nations will charge different entrance prices for club nights depending on whether you are ‘their’ member or member at another nation. Membership isn’t cheap, about €30 per semester, but you’ll get a lot out of it! The nation pubs are cosy and freely accessible once you are a member, and offer alcohol at a cheaper price thanks to some tax discount system. The activities organised are usually pretty fun and offer a wide range of possibilities. For example I have been painting at Kalmars nation, active with sports at GH-nation and spend now quite some time social dancing at both Smålands and Värmlands nations. But if you are really keen to become part of a nation, it is strongly recommended to start working at them. I haven’t done it myself yet, but heard a lot of positive experiences about it.

If you have any more questions – shoot!
Rosan

Cool dudes and red hot lies.

Student life, , ,

A few weeks ago I went to another lecture by CEMUS, the centre for environment and development studies that I wrote earlier about. The theme of this lecture was called ‘How climate change became controversial – examining the denial movement‘. I had been quite busy that week, but as I recently discovered that even some of my facebook friends are doubting climate change, I felt a strong need for deeper understanding. The guest speaker, sociology professor Riley Dunlap from Oklahoma University, was starting the evening with his lecture, which was followed by two shorter related lectures and a discussion.

“I am afraid that the American population electing Trump for president – a strong denier of climate change – is another indicator of how many do not believe, or do not wish to believe, that climate change is real.”

Dunlap started to explain the audience the history of the organized climate change denial. Truth is that back in 1988 when global warming was already noticed and became a social problem, a survey was held and 63% percent of the US population worried a great deal about this issue. A similar survey was held in 2015, showing that over the years the number had decreased to 55%. I am afraid that the American population electing Trump for president – a strong denier of climate change – is another indicator of how many do not believe, or do not wish to believe, that climate change is real. Dunlap talked a lot about the organization behind the climate change denial movement and how ‘invisible’ this ‘machine’ tries to operate. The scheme below shows the most significant relations between the different elements of organised climate change denial.


Dunlap and McCright, from the Oxford handbook of
Climate Change and Society, 2011. Click to enlarge.

Special attention should be paid to the column ‘Conservative Think Tanks’, often abbreviated as CTT’s. Dunlap spent quite some time outlining how this group empowers politicians, controversial scientists, activists, media and many others. For example there are quite a lot of books written on climate change denial. I did not make up the term ‘Red Hot Lies’ myself, this is actually supposed to be a serious book on how ‘global warming alarmists keep you misinformed’. Unfortunately, climate change denial books reach a large audience. These books may try to appear trustworthy and independent, but 92% of all books written on this matter in English language can be traced back to CTT’s. As a matter of fact, not a single one of these books is published by a university press.

It was shocking to learn about the many frightening similarities of the climate change denial movement  identical to that of the tobacco industry in the past. Something that had never really crossed my mind is how there are several types of climate change denial. To understand climate change denial, it is important to realize not everybody is denying the same aspects. According to Dunlap’s lecture, climate change denial can be split up into the following four groups.

  • Trend denial:
    ‘The earth is NOT getting warmer‘
  • Attribution denial:
    ‘Even if it is, human activities are NOT the cause‘
  • Impact denial:
    ‘Should warming occur, the impact will be inconsequential or benign‘
  • Policy denial:
    ‘There is no need for carbon emissions reduction policies‘

Dunlap’s lecture was followed by the British Kevin Anderson – visiting professor in climate change leadership – who gave an insight on how politicians are affected and threatened by the climate change denial movement on different levels. Finally Kirsti Jylha from the Department of Psychology at Uppsala University showed common factors in people who denied climate change, such as political orientation and ideological variables. As a matter of fact, the term ‘Cool dudes’ wasn’t my invention either, this refers to the main group of climate change deniers in the US, which are conservative white males. If you are interested, you can read all about them in this paper.

Before closing this topic I would like to mention some positive things as well. Because even though the climate change denial movement is massive in terms of power and financial capital; and yes, Trumps victory is a slap in the face of many, there are also good things happening. I would say that a large step forward to make people aware of climate change was the release of ‘Before the Flood‘, one of the most accessible and all-inclusive documentaries so far. I hope it will reach out to many, have you watched it yet? On a more local level: Last week the COP22 negotiations took place in Marrakesh and an inspiring group of Uppsala students travelled down by minivan – flying is a no-go because of the huge carbon emissions – to be part of this important follow-up of the Paris negotiations last year. They are keeping the rest of us up to date through their #minivandiaries, definitely worth a read.


Uppsala for climate justice. The beginning of the #minivandiaries two weeks ago.
Photo from The Minivan Diaries facebook page.

I hope this post gave you some insight into the topic of climate change denial. As usual all questions and comments are welcome. This is not my field of studies but I will try to answer the best I can.

Rosan

Winter wonderland

Student life, , ,

Admitted, I wasn’t too happy with the sudden arrival of Winter, but who can stay mad at something so wonderful?

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Me enjoying the snow, made a gif of photos by Oskar Westlin (spot him in the upper right)
dsc_0314   dsc_0334dsc_0355‘Skägglav’, photo by Oskar Westlin
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dsc_0391A rabbit was here!

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. We are now hoping for ‘kärle’, meaning that the frost will reach into the ground and the snow will stay. Otherwise we will end up with all this nasty ‘slask’  (translation: snowmelt) that won’t make anybody happy. Let’s wait and see and in the meantime enjoy as much as we can 🙂

Rosan

Ps. Do you remember the post about Flogsta? Well this is Kvarnbo, a three week time difference only. Hard to believe, right?
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