Countdown to a new life: -8d to go

 Thursday – last day of class, which means – all classes are over! Forever and ever!

Today, we had our last class / tutorial for this semester and only three students incl. me showed up, which was kind of surprising to the professor and the lecturer (but not to us students because a 5000w paper can’t be easily written and time is the most important thing at the end of the semester.

This night I had a nice chat with a few friends over Facebook – isn’t it ridiculous that we all meet on campus during the day but we really talk to each other over Facebook during the night ;-) That’s what I love on the 21^st century and the possibilities of the Internet and Facebook! My roommates even message each other over Facebook when they are at home in their rooms – they could just open the door and shout but it’s much more fun to join the conversation ‘on a global arena’ (tyou see I am totally in these governmental term ;-)

Regarding my assignment deadlines – I have to hand in one of my two papers tomorrow. But right now I am really relaxed because I finished editing it today and I managed to reach the proposed word count, after cutti´ng out a few words J

In class I got the chance to discuss my planned master thesis research with the professor and the lecturer and they both liked the idea of doing something about the WHO and Good Global Governance. They even offered me to be my supervisors and they will ask some  UK scholar to join them – sounds awesome but still not really exciting because I will have to write about governmental stuff.

So this is my plan – ( I know, I am a horrible organized person) Tonight I will finish my paper for tomorrow, which just means spell check and proof read. As well I will start the conclusion at my second paper which is due to Monday tonight. because we have to prepare everything for the party on Tuesday. I suppose, as long as I keep myself away from Facebook, YouTube and my MP3player I can manage the deadline easily – otherwise I will need to do a nightshift due to unproductivety.

Countdown to a new life: -9d to go

 Wednesday – last day of my unit and a lot of things to talk about! In Sweden you would call it ‘fika’, which means something like ‘coffee time’ or having a chat and a cup of coffee.

After we met in class to present our plans for the next semester and everybody was pretty surprised by the fact that I am not going ‘home’ (whatever this means to other people and I don’t get it) but instead go to Sweden, where I don’t know anyone, nor can I speak the language fluently. But, before any serious doubts could arise about my plans I managed to put all that negative thoughts away and just listened to the plans of the other people. Some will start a new job, others will start an internship semester at the local government, or others will upgrade their degree to Diploma level. It is really exciting to hear about the proposed goals of the others, even if I know I cannot follow them because I will leave.

I had a really good chat with one of my course fellows and we stayed in the cafe for several hours – until they kicked us out – and discussed our lives, which we found out, were quite different but similar at the same time. We both had experienced loss and emotional dependency, but from my point of view I cannot say that I am over it. I have to admit, the conversation with my course fellow today was one of the best in my whole live – *thank you for that*

After 3 hours talking and laughing and a little bit of crying too, we came up with an incredible idea – starting our own health-education project in Africa, because we have another course fellow which works for a government there and could help us getting the needed local support. It first started as kind of joking around but then it took on shape. As we separated we both were pretty excited about the idea and promised to stick to our plan. This could maybe be something really huge for our future – or just kidding around at the end of the semester when you already dream of exploring the world in the semester break ;-))

Countdown to a new life: -12d to go

Sunday – the day after the Villa sit-in and the house-party. This means cleaning the Villa, sounds easier as it is, because I got home at 5am, fell asleep at 6:30am and had to get up at 8:30am again to do the cleaning.

My post-party-mood is always really bad and it was the first time I spent it with my new roommates, which was great because we talked the whole afternoon while sitting together at the couch. I really regret that I wasn’t placed in this Villa at the beginning of the semester, but maybe I would not have met a few people I really like now. Feeling uncomfortable in your own home and therefore staying out of the Villa most of the time has positive aspects too – you make more friends!

It is great to ‘waste’ a whole afternoon just talking instead of sitting in your room and working on your assignments – oh goodness, I swear if I hear the word ‘assignment’ one more time after June4th I will really freak out! Assignment is my word of the year, really!

There is not much to say about this lazy day, but it was a good break for the busy week which will follow – Assignment deadlines are coming up and Research Outline Critique will take place, too!

Damn, and I haven't finnished one of these three projects yet; better get started - tomorrow. 

Countdown to a new life: -13d to go

Saturday – the day of our big BBQ and Bushwalk, which is planned for weeks, and it is raining and toe-freezing cold. What a nice coincidence!

We saw it coming and changed the BBQ and Bushwalk to a Villa sit-in with Hamburgers and Muffins – well, at the end we had to buy 3 loafs of banana bread because I burnt all 24 Muffins, but it was not my fault that our stove is crap and the baking pan from Chickenfeed sucks as well! But, no more excuses, at the end we managed to feed everyone who showed up.

As we were finished with eating we pretty much split into three groups – one group started with card and pre-drinking games, one group was disciplined and remained seated on the table and had a nice chat and the third group started preparing a devils-mixture of cocktails! What we learned – Vanillaessence enhances the effect of Vodka in a drink – we will use this scientific knowledge in the future ;-)

But we could not stay at home because we were invited to a farewell party at another house. As a present we prepared a three layered cake with an absolutely awesome decoration at the top – done by two fine art students, you can imagine how wonderful the cake looked liked! Unfortunately, the cake has been cut before I got the chance to take a pic of it and I really don’t wanted to take a pic of all the people poking into the cake to get out the marshmallows and sweets we put between the layers! But we all learned – thick buttercream frosting helps delay the effect of Tequila shots – we will use this scientific knowledge .....   ;-)

Unfortunately, every party at this place ends the same way – some people really make a fool out of themselfs and are embarrassed for the next few days. Sometimes this happened to me too. Hopefully, this new part of my personality will disappear as soon as I escape the Australian influence by plane. I had so many awkward moments, frustrating conversations, disappointing discoveries, things to regret what I have done; that it should last for several years. I really don’t know if all my problems are caused by the Tasmanian climate, or maybe through the influence of the thin ozone layer? Some Science students should really unravel this mystery.

It is very sad to attend the first farewell party at the end of the semester, because you know that the fun times are over soon – if you had a fun time here! I have to admit that it was not a whole fun time, but I don’t want to miss all the people I call friends now and the experiences I was privileged to share with them. For sure, I met a few people here who scared me to death but this is the experience of shared housing *uuhh* May I have mentioned too much?

Hope my post reminds you of all the moments we had together!

Countdown to a new life: -14d to go

What is this whole thing about? – ‘Vad ville du egentligen?’
This is maybe the first question you ask yourself when entering a new blog of someone and it was the exact same question I was asking myself, too. Why should I write a blog and what should I post? Because I am an organized person, lets’ follow this pattern:

WHY?

I had a few weeks to think about the whole project. I’m not a complete newbie but my last blog was pretty easy to host – my day to day life in Tasmania while studying at the University of Tasmania. But due to the circumstances in the last four months I like to do something different now – something with more depth and meaning. Maybe unravel my personality, but not on my own, instead I seek a whole bunch of people who follow my experiences and comment on them objectively ;-) Sounds really crazy when I write that down here!

This implies that I try to post as honest as possible (for a public blog). My ultimate decision to start this blog was settled on Thursday when I was talking to one of my Austrian friends here about the fact that I took the decision to stay in touch with all my good friends from Tasmania – I mean they are not (all) Tasmanians because I really doubt after one semester at UTAS that there are actually a lot Tassi students on campus. All the people I got to know are either international or exchange students from across Europe, Asia and North America.
I really got the impression that I made good friends here and, that they are worth keeping in touch with and – they can proof me wrong but – maybe they are also interested to follow the lives of each other, and in my case, to follow my new life in Sweden.

 WHAT

As I mentioned before, this blog should be a very private insight in my new life in Sweden / Stockholm, which starts in 14days. For sure, I will post all events and funny things I experience throughout my time there, but I also want to share the experience of 'starting all over again'.

HOW

I decided to start my blog two weeks before I leave because I suppose posts about busy leaving preparations, nearly missed assignment deadlines and hard party rocking are the stuff interesting stories are about.
The question of the blog language was a rather obvious one, because of the heterogeneous friends at UTAS, my friends back home in Austria and my dear Texan friends from Georgetown University, the only possible solution was an English blog (with hopefully more and more Swedish words that I can bring in).

TO SAY

Wholeheartedly, I wish all my friends around the globe the best for their travel – study – and working experience, wherever this may be. It would be great to hear from y’all, for sure you will hear from me due this blog. All our events I will miss most – but who says we cannot host an online-quiz-night at facebook ;-)
Hope we all get creative in order to keep in touch with each other! So, enough of talking and let’s start the countdown: Days to go = 14