A royal visit

As I may have mentioned before, everyone in my department gets a scheduling email from our advisor at the start of every week. Tomorrow we will be having a visitor. I quote from the email:

... Carl Philip will come to EBC on Friday (the Swedish prince). He will be given a medal by the "landshövdingen" and there will be some mingel. I was invited to attend, but I dont know anything more about his visit.

Here are my plans for this week:

....

Friday, October 10
13:00 Mingling with the Prince
15:45 Lake metagenomics (<me>, Z.)

I refuse to be impressed by the fact that the prince is visiting our department. I am no particular fan of royalty, and this prince seems to be a little dim. I would rather see either of his two sisters, oldest sibling crown princess Victoria (who sounds a little sharper) or youngest sibling Madeleine (the fun one who does things like wear inappropriate clothing to the Nobel prize ceremonies). At the same time, I am irked to note that he is mingling (where? with whom? we peons have not been told) right before our project meeting; in other words, during the time when we should be busily preparing a summary of what we've been up to this week. You know, working, not living off the sweat of the people's brow. Hmph.

(...don't worry, I'll let you know if I do manage to see him!)

Sweden From the Not-So-Cheap Exam Seats

The first study period here at Uppsala University is suddenly (and somewhat unexpectedly) almost over, and if the first couple of weeks seemed to be moving along a little slowly it would appear that the breakneck speed of the final two weeks will more than make up for it. Despite, or more likely because of, the frantic push in all of my classes to get finished by next week, I have gleaned this week what I expect to be a deep and enduring insight into the workings of Uppsala, namely: everything I expect to be difficult is easy, and everything I expect to be easy is difficult.

For example, my absence a couple of weeks ago left me a little behind, and while I've caught up in two out of my three classes, the last one is proving more difficult. My expectation as a student is that this puts me in a difficult situation, as it's way past the last drop date and I'd rather not start racking up incompletes in my first semester. When it finally became clear this week that I simply wasn't going to be able to finish the work for this class, I went and talked to one of the graduate counselors for the department. His advice? Don't even worry about it! By not finishing I'll earn an incomplete, true, but if I either make up the work later or retake the class next fall that will completely erase the incomplete. What's more, if I never take care of the incomplete, the class simply won't show up on my transcript. Do I need to let anyone know if I don't plan on finishing the class this semester? No. Seriously, there's nothing I need to do. Huh.

Next hurdle: I need to add a class for study period 2, and not only is it way past the registration period, but I'm already signed up for the expected course load next period. I would expect this to involve getting the permission of the prof, maybe filling out a form, some hassle with the registrar… so naturally, all I have to do is send one e-mail.

OK, that's the actually easy stuff, but what should be easy? Well, my assumption is that if I sign up for a course, the University will expect me to take the final exam for that course. Pretty straightforward, right? Nope. Apparently I needed to decide last week which courses I want to take the final for, so that I could register for the exam. In some crazy scheme, the departments have to pay the university for every exam seat they reserve, and they have to do this two weeks in advance (and two weeks is a big part of a six week study period). Does this mean I can't take the final exams for my classes? Maybe, maybe not. Apparently I should go anyway, and if there is a seat available (most departments overbook slightly) I can take the exam. If not, I'll have to wait for one of the re-exam periods in January or August, and take it then. Either way, I won't be the only one: in one of my classes, only 8 out of 32 students signed up for the exam.

Here's another one: registering for classes in the spring semester. I should be able to simply go online, select some courses that still have seats, and be done with it. Instead, I have to log on to studera.nu, the national student website (the one that gave me weeks of headaches when it declared my application invalid without telling me). Every university student in the country has to use this same website to sign up for classes, as a result of which it crashes every single semester. What's more, the course registration pages are all in Swedish. Even more, by signing up for a class all I'm really doing is expressing a preference for it—if studera later determines (using an undisclosed algorithm) that the class is full, or that I screwed up the registration process somehow, it just drops my classes. If all that works, studera will send me a letter by mail sometime in December, asking me in Swedish if I'm sure that I want to take all these classes that I signed up for. Failure to respond appropriately will be taken as a "no" answer, and all my classes will be dropped. No problem, though, I would just register for new classes, right? Actually, in any of these cases, the department just signs you up for whatever classes aren't full, and that's what you get to take that semester. Period.

It's a two year program, though, so I should have it all figured out by the time I'm ready leave.

Name day

Did you know that today, 6 October, is Jennifer Day?

Neither did I, but today my office mate S. wished me a happy name day. The name days in Sweden are a little different than the saint days, and the calendar includes all officially recognized names, whether they were saints or not. This way, traditional Swedish names like Linnea and Torbjörn and Malin and Magnus get their proper day, and no one need feel left out. S. said that it is traditional to get a small gift, or maybe breakfast in bed, on your name day. I didn't know about it in time to ask for breakfast, so instead we're going to split a beer with dinner. Happy Jennifer/Jenny Day, everyone!

Find your name (or the closest Swedish-government-sanctioned equivalent) here!

Coming Home

As Joe already mentioned, I got back just a few days ago from an unexpected trip to Michigan for my grandmother's funeral. Eight months in Sweden has not been enough to wipe out all memory of home, of course, and Michigan felt like it usually does (although sadder than usual, of course), but here's a few culture-shock sort of things I did notice.

1. I don't miss English. I felt compelled to read every billboard and piece of advertising that I saw. It's very tiring. I had no idea that it was so relaxing to be able to just ignore everything extraneous. U., a former co-worker of mine who has spent lots of time in cultures other than his own, told me that one thing he liked about living in another place is that it was nice to ignore things. I didn't fully understand him then, but I do now, and he's right. It's much more peaceful, being able to ignore ads and inane mobile phone conversations and the news. If I want to learn something about anything, I have to consciously pay attention.

2. I do miss nature. Michigan seemed so green and lush, really just teeming with plants. (Perhaps the previous week's record-breaking rainfall and flooding in the wake of Hurricane Ike had something to do with it, too.) And on warm days in September, crickets cricket endlessly, and cicadas join in during daylight. I saw some cousins from Utah who usually come to Michigan earlier in the year, and they noticed it as well—the air of Michigan is a wall of sound this time of year. I also saw many blue jays and gulls and LBJs, red and fox squirrels, and of course one usually also sees chipmunks, possums, raccoons... there just aren't so many small creatures around in semi-suburban Sweden. On the other hand, lots of small cute critters means lots of road kill, and I don't miss that. Road kill is not pretty. I have only seen one road-killed animal in Sweden, a badger, and at the time, I was frankly so distracted by the fact that it was a badger (the first wild one I've ever seen) that I wasn't as appalled as I might have been. I'm sure Sweden has plenty of road kill, but I don't drive, so I don't see it.

3. Uppsala is my home now. Michigan is and will always be my base, sure, but coming to Uppsala was coming home. I'm glad to be able to say that I felt this way, because to tell the truth I was afraid that I might not. Probably this won't be home forever, but for now it feels as much like home as anywhere I've ever lived.

Kanelbullar Dag

It's 4 October already, and you know what that means: Cinnamon Roll Day! OK, so you probably didn't know that—I certainly didn't. Nevertheless, for the past ten years or so, 4 October has been National Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden. It was first celebrated in 1999, when Sweden's Hembakningsrådet wanted to celebrate their 40th anniversary, and picked kanelbullar as the symbol of home baking in Sweden. The day was apparently celebrated with such gusto that it became an annual event, with bakeries across the nation produce vast swathes of cinnamon buns to sate the sweet, cinnamony cravings of the masses. After all, what better way to celebrate Sweden's tradition of home-baked goodies than with a trip to your local commercial bakery?

As good semi-Swedes, we could do naught but join in the festivities. So this morning I hopped a bus downtown to go to our favorite bakery, Forsa, to procure a few wonderful little kanelbullar. Now, your everyday cinnamon roll in Sweden is not too dissimilar from what you'd expect in the US: a simple swirl of sweet dough, with a cinnamon-sugar combo along the inside edges. The main differences are that in Sweden you never see them topped with icing (instead there's a sprinkling of nib sugar), and most Swedish buns are heavily flavored with cardamom (so much that it nearly overwhelms the cinnamon, actually, which is sort of unfortunate). Forsa's kanelbullar are a different matter altogether: each one a nest of fine strands of cinnamon-dusted dough, lovingly hand-woven into a unique pattern. Mmmm. Of course, at 12 SEK a pop, they should be good.

Cinnamon Bun Day, Waffle Day, Semla Month—I wonder what other food-holidays lie buried in the Swedish calendar? We'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

There and Back Again

As you've no doubt noticed, Cheap Seats has gone dark for the past few weeks. For those who don't already know, the explanation for our silence is that we made an unexpected trip to Michigan following the death of Jennifer's grandmother. I returned to Sweden last week, and have spent the intervening time catching up on schoolwork; Jennifer got back yesterday morning.

This is, of course, a blog about our life in Sweden, so for the most part we'll probably let our sojourn in St. Joseph, with all its ups and downs, go without comment. Being back in the US even for a few days did provide some interesting contrast to life in Sweden, however, and we'll probably talk about that some. But just to get the ball rolling again, here's my return to Sweden:

Landing at Arlanda my flight dropped into a fog so thick that the first sign of the approaching ground was when disembodied treetops suddenly appeared outside the window. It persisted all through the train ride home (which, incidentally, involved a 10 minute wait and a 17 minute ride—about 5% of the time it took us to get from O'Hare to St. Joe), giving way suddenly to clear skies and sunshine just a couple of kilometers south of Uppsala.

I suppose I should have felt something on seeing the spires of Uppsala Cathedral rising above the city from a distance, some sense of home or something, but honestly all I felt was exhausted. And then a little confused, when I saw that in my absence someone had covered Stora Torget in a layer of sand ( I still don't know what that's all about). No time to worry about that though, as I made for home, dumped my luggage, got my bike out of storage, and set off for class. I was only 15 minutes late—would have made it, too, if the flight hadn't been 30 minutes late.

Höst arrived in the week I was gone. The leaves have changed color, it's cold and wet, the forest path I bike to school every day is covered in pine needles, and the sun is setting at 6 every night.

I managed to stay awake until midnight that first night, and congratulated myself on having beaten my jet lag; waking up at noon the next day quickly put the lie to that, unfortunately, and I spent the rest of the week coding every evening until 2 or 3 in the morning, and never managed to get to sleep before 4 AM. There is a certain freedom to suddenly deciding at 2 AM that you're hungry and just making yourself a ham sandwich, but after four days straight of ham sandwiches I'd had plenty of freedom, thank you very much. Now my missed assignments are done with one way or the other, and Jennifer's back, so I can take the Bill Withers off the stereo, stop eating ham sandwiches, and go to bed by midnight for the first time since my return.

Naturally, Jennifer is now wide awake.