Taking a moment to reflect on the week that has passed. It’s been the first full week of classes and it’s been pretty intense. I’m the first one to willingly admit that I, perhaps a little presumptuous, thought that school here would be a breeze and that I would have an easy time adjusting to the American system.

I’m taking classes down at Scripps Institution of Oceanography which is down by the water. They have their own pier with a meteorological station on it and in my opinion it’s the best part of campus. Great views, calm and quiet and a really nice vibe. Main campus is beautiful too, but it is kind of loud and crowded and you have to queue everywhere.

I’m taking three courses this quarter. The first is ”Introduction to Marien Biology” and the title pretty much sums up the course. It’s very interesting so far and despite having attendance being part of your grade and it is taken through the use of ”clickers” (expensive little remote controls you use to answer multiple choice questions in class) and, even going for the cheapest option and renting your course book through Amazon, it makes your wallet scream in pain a little, I am enjoying it. This weeks ”wow” in class is the fact that there is a fish species in the Antarctic Ocean that has white blood. It doesn’t have any hemoglobin (what makes our blood red) to transport oxygen, as it lives in such cold and oxygen rich waters that it can just get it anyway.


The second course I’m taking is one called ”Introduction to Physical Geography”. I like the professor a lot. Showing up to the first day of class teaching about the ocean in a shirt with a fish pattern, saying things like ”what we’ll talk about today in class will be brutal torture, and I apologise for putting you through it, but unfortunately its mandatory”, and with a never ending supply of cock and bull stories, that’s how you impress me… This weeks more or less useful knowledge from class is the fact that the ocean on average is 4000 meters deep. You can thank me next time that earns you one of those little pieces in Trivial Pursuit.

Last but not least I’m taking a course called ”Fluid Dynamics”. It is mathy. Very mathy.
The professor is a fascinating woman who has lived in Hawaii for almost 25 years. She loves to say ”Today will be mellow” and then she takes off in a neck braking speed, talking and writing at the same time, barely pausing for air and if you’re not keeping up she’ll start erasing the parts of the board that you’re still frantically trying to jot down in your notebook. I have done most of the math before though (albeit a couple of years back, and in Swedish), I just need to figure out where in my head I put it away for safekeeping and bring it back again…

Apart from school taking up a lot of time this week, we went to a big hotel downtown and watched Pretty Woman on a rooftop cinema with the San Diego skyline in the background. Pretty epic.

We also celebrated one of my housemates birthday with homemade sushi and this weekend we had a brunch and poolparty at our place for a bunch of other swedes, mostly from Lund as well, and some new friends of ours. The big inflatable parrot was brilliant. We have now adopted him and he lives in our garage.

From the left: Lova, me, Frida and Josefin.

Now, time to catch up on some studying…
Wishing you a lovely week!