Hi there,
Did anyone press the time turbo button or what?
The last couple of weeks seems to have passed by in an instant, but so many things have happened. My last finals week here at UCSD is over and this weekend was the big graduation ceremony. In less than two weeks I’m back in Sweden. Crazy.

The last weeks of this quarter, well technically most of this quarter actually, has been focused on time spent at sea. The sailing team had a regatta a couple of weeks back that I took pictures of.

I’ve had two different courses where we spent a day aboard R/V Robert Gordon Sproul, a research vessel belonging to Scripps Institution of Oceanography. With the first course we spent a full Saturday just outside of San Diego harbor testing our sensors that we’ve built. My group made an open source CTD called the “CTDizzle” (on Github it is described as “the CTD Snoop Dogg would use if he was an oceanographer”…). We got a bunch of parts and some code to run on it, but had to figure out how to put it together, solder and test allt he sensors ourselves. This Saturday we strapped our sensor to the CTD rosette on the boat and saw it disappear down into the ocean, crossing all fingers and toes that nothing would leak. It went all the way down to 86 meters, and back up again, without a leak and despite the fact that our conductivity sensor didn’t really give us great values, we were very happy and proud of our work.

Less than a week later I was back on the Sproul, this time with the same gang that was on the Sikuliaq. It was a gray and long Thursday (Sweden’s National day and all) where we worked hard and did some deep CTD casts (300 and 700 meters) and the deployed one of the buoys we recovered while aboard the Sikuliaq. We got to see a lot of wildlife, both whales and dolphins and to my surprise also an Ocean Sunfish, or Mola Mola. They are big, clumsy looking fish known to hang out at the surface enjoying the sun and eating jellyfish, and are also accused of being rather lazy and bad swimmers. But, as I learned in my Intro to Marine Biology course here, they are actually pretty active fish moving up and down a lot and are good swimmers. Fun to see and a nice addition to an otherwise long day, we arrived back in San Diego around two in the morning after having been out for almost 17 hours. 

The next day it was time for a traditional “thank you sitting” à la Lund (for those of you that don’t know, a “sittning” is a very typical thing students in Lund do, kind of like a dinner party with songs and lots of alcohol…) that we in the ÅÄÖ-house organized for the rest of the group from Lund University. This was immediately followed by a party where many friends we’ve made in San Diego showed up. It was a party alright, the next day I had to fix both the microwave door, a mosquito net fro one of the windows, scrub bear from the kitchen floor and clean up puke from the carpet. Well well, people had a good time at least. And I must say, the Lund University gang looks pretty sharp, at least before the party…

Then suddenly we were in the middle of finals week, and I wrote one exam, handed in a report and had one oral exam while also spending several hours in the lab where I volunteer. I am helping out with building sensors and refurbishing and preparing a bunch of transducers that will be mounted on one of the Scripps ships. These will be used to send and receive sound signals underwater that will map the seafloor and measure currents in the water. In the picture I’m detangling and organizing and putting velcro around 10 wires, each 50 meter long, that have to be sorted in a specific order. Trickier than it might seem… Here is a link to a time-lapse video of some of the process.

The Friday of finals week came and suddenly it was graduation day at Scripps. I’m only an exchange student, so nothing special for me, but it was fun to see some of my friends graduate. At Scripps any sort of ceremony is pretty laid back and the dresscode is generally “Hawaiian” and the graduating students got leis (the flower necklace you image everyone in Hawaii walks around with). Saturday was the big graduation ceremony for the whole of UCSD and I had signed up to volunteer without really knowing what to expect. 15 000 students, friends and family filled the big field next to the gym and there was a huge stage, sound system, big screens etcetera. Everyone who is graduating wears black gowns and funny, square hats and sashes in different colors round their necks. On stage was Madeleine Albright giving a great speech with just the right amount of sneer towards the sitting president. I’ll admit to being quite surprised, because when I saw her backstage my first thought was that she looked very small and fragile old lady, standing at barley a meter and a half (5 feet), but she was one cool grandma and her speech was great. How I got to hang out backstage? Well, I’ve been volunteering at enough events at school that the guy in charge of the volunteers recognized me and asked if I wanted  to carry a gonfalon and walk in the procession instead of seating graduates during the ceremony. I said “yes please” and suddenly found myself carrying the Scripps flag down the big field leading the faculty members to be seated on stage and I even got to borrow a black gown and got my 3.5 second of fame on the big screen. I’ve said it before and will say it again, the dear Americans are pretty good at organizing events. There was photographers (yes, plural), video, live interpretation for the hard of hearing and the whole shebang. All the traditions behind it, with academic attire, aka medieval robes and funny hats in different colors, I’m not 100% sure I fully understand, but I was fun to get to be a part of it.

There is something special about graduations. There is a certain something in the air. Joy and excitement mixed with a little bit of sadness, and perhaps also fear, because it’s the end of a chapter in life and you’re no longer a student. I, however, was mostly thinking about missing my dear family seeing all proud parents and siblings hugging the graduates. Yup, I’m missing my mom…

I now have less than two weeks in San Diego where I’m going to have a proper vacation and take it real slow. Do some lab work, perhaps surf and sail a bit and then collect myself and my things before heading home to Sweden.

Some form of summary of this year is on the horizon, but until then, as always, thank you for reading and take care!