Well I have now been here in Sweden for 2 months. I have to say in comparison to the last month it’s not been as hectic and active. The weather is changing quickly now. We are in what the Swedes have called ‘British Winter’ It feels like a December morning. The frost is coming and with that Ice is also appearing. (Being surrounded by hills makes walking around the risky part to my day!) It has snowed a little now, not as much here in Huskvarna, I keep getting texts from friends in Råslätt (The other side of jönköping) saying they have snow. It just rains over this side.
The A1 quarter is over and I´ve just had the exams. What a contrast in exam procedures. In the UK once you enter the room you aren’t allowed to talk, you have to sit quietly and wait to be told the exam has started. In Sweden you can chat away and once you receive the exam paper away you go. Also they offer you way too much time for the exam. Apparently they don’t want students to be pressured for time in their exam. You will be given 5 hours for an exam that realistically 2-3 hours suffices. Also in the UK if you need to use the toilet during an exam, an invigilator has to follow you to ensure you don’t cheat, here in Sweden all you do is sign when you go to the loo and that’s it the amount of people that go in looking worried and stressed and come out looking happy is amazing. Such a contrast.
For a post exam break myself and a few friends are heading to Prague then Berlin, having never been to either of these cities it’s quite an exciting prospect. We leave in a few days spend 1 night in Stockholm 2 nights in Prague then 3 nights in Berlin. Not much else to report sadly, due to the exams. Much more to write about once I get back my travels.
Tuesday 26 October 2010
Monday 11 October 2010
Autumn Leaves
As a stereotypical Brit I shall start by talking about the weather. It is getting colder, the Aussies are complaining and so are some of the Europeans, the Swedes are starting to wear coats and gloves, however I am still walking round with just my hoodie for warmth. I must have really good circulation. The temperature ranges from about 10C during the day to 3C at night, the other night it was supposed to have reached 0C. To me it just feels like the end of November for me, the cars start to mist up at night and in the early morning. The trees are either losing their leaves or they’re changing colour, living out here in Huskvarna surrounded by forests is actually quite beautiful and with the lake in the distance it makes for a wonderful view. I don’t think I could ever get sick of that view on my way to the bus/train stop especially on a day like today where it was clear blue sky, ice blue lake and the golden tree covered hills with the houses dotted about. If it weren’t so autumnal it would look like a Greek Island or something to that effect.
Any who as I haven’t written in a while I have a lot to fill you in on. I say a lot probably isn’t actually that much. Let’s think back:
Tallin Cruise
Well I woke up at probably half past 5 to get the train in to go and queue for tickets on this Scandinavian University’s cruise to Estonia. It was the first time I had used my Skiing coat and winter boots. Standing for over three hours in what can only be described as a free for all huddle rather than a queue (Moaning again!) by the time our part of the queue had actually managed to get into the warmth of Student House we were informed the tickets had all gone, I have to say that due to the lack of order in the queue some people who were behind us ended up getting tickets by pushing their way through, we weren’t happy. So that little trip is out of the window, lucky for me they repeat it again next semester!
Diploma in Trading
I took a two day crash course in Financial Trading, from GCMS in association with Copenhagen Business School. It was a 9-4 course for the two days covering the important parts of financial trading such as foreign exchanges and EFDs on shares etc. This was quite good as I do get a qualification out of it. During the second day we were set to work on the simulation, with a budget of 1,000,000 I made 70,000 in one day! Pretty good, When it came to the group trading this is where it went wrong. My team mates seemed to forget that the value can go up as well as down, due to some bad moves made by team mates were were down on luck, however I stepped in and made a few risky trades which managed to reduce our losses by a significant amount. We then came 2nd out of 5 groups and only lost by $30, had the group listened to me and kept our other trades for longer we would have won by $160. So there is a future in trading for me!
JSA Election Committee
Well this email looks interesting ‘Click’ “Apply now to become a member of the JSA Election Committee. You will be responsible for interviewing potential candidates to face the vote.” Now before I go further I shall explain what JSA is. Jönköping University has the main Student Union then each individual school has its own union. JSA stands for JIBS Student Association and is for the Business school. Anyway I submitted my application and have been successful in gaining a seat on the committee so looks like I will be involved in Swedish Student Politics.
Sport
Nope that isn’t a typo. I have finally joined the Student Sport Association (Its quite big here in Sweden to belong to an association) anyway I have played some badminton though there weren’t many people there. However I do intend to go back. Anyway the big news is I have finally managed to track down the Rowing squad and shall be returning to the water almost one year after my knee injury which ruled me out of last season. I can’t wait to get back into it, all be it my knee will be strapped up, I’m not risking anything this time. Lake Vättern will be really nice to row in. It goes right passed the uni.
Health and Immigration
Two areas I have recently had experience with so I thought I’d blog it. Firstly Health: Although Swedes are taxed up to their eyeballs here Healthcare still isn’t free. You have to pay the first £100 to see a Dr so that is 10 trips at £10, after that your Dr Visits are free. Prescriptions are also not cheap. You have to pay the first £9 then if you have a Swedish Identity number you pay half the remaining cost of the drugs, up to a certain level. As I am waiting on my Swedish number I had to pay full wack, not fun at all. With regards to immigration I am now registered as an EU student living in Sweden. I had to go to the immigration office across town and into the office. The set up was really weird. You got out of the lift into the office where the forms were on the wall to fill in and then a waiting area. You take a ticket and wait for your number. When your number is called this what looked like a bomb proof door opens electronically then gets shut behind you and locks itself. Interesting if that weren’t enough the office workers are behind glass screens also. Now to register as a student living here (Which you must do if you are in the country for more than 3 months) then you need your Passport, University acceptance letter and proof that you have medical insurance (in my case the EU medical card) then you need your address and to sign forms saying you can support yourself financially. I am currently waiting on my Swedish personal number to be sent through to me.
Dodgeball
Right firstly I should explain how this came about. One of the many modules here is based on Enterprise, and the students taking this course are split into groups and given 200Kr (£20) they then have to come up with an idea that will make them profit. Ideas such as jewellery, patches for overalls, Iphone covers, plenty of thermos flasks for coffees, Swedish to English shopping guide etc etc. One of the groups came up with the idea of a dogdeball tournament. 16 teams of 6 at 120Kr (£12) per team to partake. Fancy dress obviously. This was great fun to watch with all sorts of costumes, the biggest looser (which is apparently quite big here) Old Grannies, Tiger Woods and his mistresses etc. Great laugh to watch, sadly the team I threw my support behind (Team Aussie) didn’t make it through the first round. My god there was a lot of cheating going on luckily the audience wasn’t having any of it.
Exams
Yes exam season is upon us I’ve already had my first one which was Swedish and it was on a Saturday morning at 9am!!! Honestly, outrageous. Anyway I’m not sure how it went I think I did well in the reading section and the word order etc, but as per usual the grammar section threw me. I find it hard to learn grammar in this sort of scientific way, I don’t even know what some of the words are grouped into in English let alone Swedish. We shall see when the results come in. I have however had my Creative Writing test for Swedish, which is where we were given a picture and had to write about it. I was given a picture of people in a bar, so I created a dialogue between two of the characters. This got me 90% which I was chuffed to bits with.
Well I think you’re all up to date now.
Cheerio for now
Any who as I haven’t written in a while I have a lot to fill you in on. I say a lot probably isn’t actually that much. Let’s think back:
Tallin Cruise
Well I woke up at probably half past 5 to get the train in to go and queue for tickets on this Scandinavian University’s cruise to Estonia. It was the first time I had used my Skiing coat and winter boots. Standing for over three hours in what can only be described as a free for all huddle rather than a queue (Moaning again!) by the time our part of the queue had actually managed to get into the warmth of Student House we were informed the tickets had all gone, I have to say that due to the lack of order in the queue some people who were behind us ended up getting tickets by pushing their way through, we weren’t happy. So that little trip is out of the window, lucky for me they repeat it again next semester!
Diploma in Trading
I took a two day crash course in Financial Trading, from GCMS in association with Copenhagen Business School. It was a 9-4 course for the two days covering the important parts of financial trading such as foreign exchanges and EFDs on shares etc. This was quite good as I do get a qualification out of it. During the second day we were set to work on the simulation, with a budget of 1,000,000 I made 70,000 in one day! Pretty good, When it came to the group trading this is where it went wrong. My team mates seemed to forget that the value can go up as well as down, due to some bad moves made by team mates were were down on luck, however I stepped in and made a few risky trades which managed to reduce our losses by a significant amount. We then came 2nd out of 5 groups and only lost by $30, had the group listened to me and kept our other trades for longer we would have won by $160. So there is a future in trading for me!
JSA Election Committee
Well this email looks interesting ‘Click’ “Apply now to become a member of the JSA Election Committee. You will be responsible for interviewing potential candidates to face the vote.” Now before I go further I shall explain what JSA is. Jönköping University has the main Student Union then each individual school has its own union. JSA stands for JIBS Student Association and is for the Business school. Anyway I submitted my application and have been successful in gaining a seat on the committee so looks like I will be involved in Swedish Student Politics.
Sport
Nope that isn’t a typo. I have finally joined the Student Sport Association (Its quite big here in Sweden to belong to an association) anyway I have played some badminton though there weren’t many people there. However I do intend to go back. Anyway the big news is I have finally managed to track down the Rowing squad and shall be returning to the water almost one year after my knee injury which ruled me out of last season. I can’t wait to get back into it, all be it my knee will be strapped up, I’m not risking anything this time. Lake Vättern will be really nice to row in. It goes right passed the uni.
Health and Immigration
Two areas I have recently had experience with so I thought I’d blog it. Firstly Health: Although Swedes are taxed up to their eyeballs here Healthcare still isn’t free. You have to pay the first £100 to see a Dr so that is 10 trips at £10, after that your Dr Visits are free. Prescriptions are also not cheap. You have to pay the first £9 then if you have a Swedish Identity number you pay half the remaining cost of the drugs, up to a certain level. As I am waiting on my Swedish number I had to pay full wack, not fun at all. With regards to immigration I am now registered as an EU student living in Sweden. I had to go to the immigration office across town and into the office. The set up was really weird. You got out of the lift into the office where the forms were on the wall to fill in and then a waiting area. You take a ticket and wait for your number. When your number is called this what looked like a bomb proof door opens electronically then gets shut behind you and locks itself. Interesting if that weren’t enough the office workers are behind glass screens also. Now to register as a student living here (Which you must do if you are in the country for more than 3 months) then you need your Passport, University acceptance letter and proof that you have medical insurance (in my case the EU medical card) then you need your address and to sign forms saying you can support yourself financially. I am currently waiting on my Swedish personal number to be sent through to me.
Dodgeball
Right firstly I should explain how this came about. One of the many modules here is based on Enterprise, and the students taking this course are split into groups and given 200Kr (£20) they then have to come up with an idea that will make them profit. Ideas such as jewellery, patches for overalls, Iphone covers, plenty of thermos flasks for coffees, Swedish to English shopping guide etc etc. One of the groups came up with the idea of a dogdeball tournament. 16 teams of 6 at 120Kr (£12) per team to partake. Fancy dress obviously. This was great fun to watch with all sorts of costumes, the biggest looser (which is apparently quite big here) Old Grannies, Tiger Woods and his mistresses etc. Great laugh to watch, sadly the team I threw my support behind (Team Aussie) didn’t make it through the first round. My god there was a lot of cheating going on luckily the audience wasn’t having any of it.
Exams
Yes exam season is upon us I’ve already had my first one which was Swedish and it was on a Saturday morning at 9am!!! Honestly, outrageous. Anyway I’m not sure how it went I think I did well in the reading section and the word order etc, but as per usual the grammar section threw me. I find it hard to learn grammar in this sort of scientific way, I don’t even know what some of the words are grouped into in English let alone Swedish. We shall see when the results come in. I have however had my Creative Writing test for Swedish, which is where we were given a picture and had to write about it. I was given a picture of people in a bar, so I created a dialogue between two of the characters. This got me 90% which I was chuffed to bits with.
Well I think you’re all up to date now.
Cheerio for now
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