22 September 2014
This was the first week where I actually had a good amount of class and homework. Did you even know I went to school? It seems like I just travel and have fun… Yeah I was just as surprised as you. :) At the beginning of the week I was at T-Centralen with Roxy and we came across this protest in the middle of the main square. For those of you who don’t know, the election ended in a lot of controversy here in Sweden. I recommend checking out this link.
TLDR; Power switched from Blue to Red (conservative to liberal). Swedish Democrats, also called SD, (a sort of neo nazi party) increased power to 12.9%. Below you will see a picture of people protesting the rise in power of the SD.
On Wednesday I took my second Body Pump class at the gym. It was taught in Swedish, which is kind of difficult sometimes. However, it is really helping me practice my Swedish. I am now an expert in 1, 2, 3 and “up” and “down.” What might surprise most of you, and what surprises me most about the gym classes in Sweden is that they are at least 50% men. I talked to the instructor about it after class. She was so surprised to hear that hardly an men take Body Pump back in CA. I told her that men don’t go to most classes at the gym, and if they do there are maybe 2 or 3 in each class. In Sweden women and men are much more equal, and people are not as afraid of their gender identity as they are in the U.S. We can learn something from this.
This study period I do not have class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Spoiled, I know… So this past Friday I decided to go on a quest to get as many Library Cards as possible around town. This combined exploring, academics, and competition with myself all into one big game. I already had a KTH Library Card, so the first stop on my list was the National Library of Sweden (also called the Royal Library). As I got that card I was informed that I can only check out books if I reserve them online first and any books in Swedish have to stay in the building. I think this is much more of an academic library than a library for fun. Here’s a picture of the National Library from the outside. It is so beautiful!
After the National Library I traveled to the Stockholm City Library. All the fiction books were in a huge rotunda room. It was so beautiful! This is much more of a typical “reading for fun” sort of library. In addition to getting a library card, I also got 5 Swedish/English children’s books to help me practice my Swedish. Each page has both Swedish and English words so I can translate super easily.
Finally, the post you’ve all been waiting for… Saturday was the Nøllegasque where the computer science chapter celebrates the Nøllan becoming first semesters (also called ettan). The first half of the day (12-4PM) were ritual events where the Nøllan had to prove they were worthy of joining the chapter, and after they were initiated in and go their overalls, we all had a gasque dinner party. The gasque was similar to the other gasque I attended with other international students. The big difference was that everyone spoke Swedish and they actually knew all of the party songs. It was so cool to spend all this time with the students and learn about their rituals. Toast masters led everyone in songs, games, and lots of drinking and eating. Here’s a few pictures of me and my international friends in our “ovva.”
As I mentioned, everything was in Swedish… and understandably so. Luckily I had my friend Erik and a new found friend Helena who explained everything at the gasque to me. Erik played interpreter the whole day for me, and I am so thankful for that! I feel very fortunate that my friends and I were able to participate in this event. I wish we could do something similar back at Cal Poly, but I think people in the U.S. are too against both hazing and underage drinking to allow anything like this. It is honestly all fun and games, and no one is ever ostracized. Maybe I’ll talk to Dr. V and see if we can get some sort of computer science freshman bonding event to happen in the future. That might be enough to make the students support each other a little more than they do now.
