Month: September 2010

Hello blogreaders :)

Its been a while since my last update and a lot of fun stuff have happen, hope I will not write too long so you guys get bored!

To leave Hawaii was not fun! It was such a great time so I wanted to stay longer! But I was also very curious about starting school. I came back to Davis Wednesday morning, and went directly to school for an international student meeting, nothing really interesting but is was a mandatory meeting. On Thursday I had my first class in “Innovation Management”. It seems to be a nice class and the teacher have written books in the subject so I think he will have a lot of knowledge to share. However I been taking a similar course in Sweden so I might change to something else. On Thursday evening some classmates had organized a big BBQ with beerpong, cornholing, flipcup, dodgebeer. Im really impressed about how organized BBQs are here! Afterward we went to a Froggys, a small bar/club, it was great fun, i still cant understand the American grinding culture, sex/foreplay on the dance floor? ffs, get a room!! :P

On Friday morning we went to Lake Tahoe, which is the most famous ski resort in America and a nice place to go hiking during summer. We were around 75 people of first and second year students at the MBA-program. It was perfect to get to know more people, we played games, hiked, drank beer, made a bonfire ect. It feels more relaxed to be a student here now. It was only the first day everyone had a suit, now everything is back to normal! People are super friendly, super cool and I love being here. This is actually the first night for over a week that I have some time over to just relax in front of the computer and do some readings. Two days ago Potter had a great BBQ before the game between Green Bay and Chicago(American football). Yesterday we played soccer and then trivia at a bar, I think I will join the GSM soccer, ultimate frisbee and landhockey teams. Tomorrow we will go out to a bar for graduate students, we will start with a BBQ at school before going to the bar/club where we will play a beerpong tournament before dancing all night long!

A few more photos, HERE

&%€”!#”€”#(&”# Today my bike got stolen!! I loved my bike! I just had it outside my house and this morning it was gone, i guess someone just carried it away :( It is such a small city and my bike is not expensive so I dont understand why. But anyway I was lucky because on the way to school I found a crashed bike, the bicycle chain was off, the handlebar was out of order, but after 3min fixing it was possible to ride it to school so i was only a couple of minutes late for class :) How lucky isn’t that?

It is crazy how hot in Davis at the moment, over 35+ Celsius everyday. To be honest I cant remember seeing a single cloud in Davis :) I went to the pool for one hour today to just cool down. Ooh, and american bureaucracy… I been spending hours on trying to waiving the schools health insurance, been to the office 3 or 4 times emailing my insurance company in Sweden, and finally it seems like i dont have to pay the schools $680 health insurance, sweet! The girl in the reception said “your rabbit foot is working for you”, apparently that means that I am lucky and I think that is true :)

Last but absolutely not least, I been in paradise today! or dining common as they say heere! I went with my friend Richard to go eating on campus where many of the undergraduate students eat on so called mealplans (you buy for example 100dinners/semester). Thanks Richard, it just amazing! Eat as much as you can from a more or less unlimited number of dishes, free soft drinks, free desserts and ice cream, my heaven should look like that :P

Ok, time to sleep, next time I will write a bit more about the classes im taking, it feels like the relaxing time is soon over and time for focusing :) Anyway, bye for now!

Hawaii hawaii hawaii… the aloha state! the hang loose state! the paradise island! beautiful weather! the best place on earth?

Time have went by so fast here! im staying on hawaii at one of my best friends, jennell lewis! she is awesome!! we been spending a lot of time at the beaches here, waikiki, waimea, sunset, northshore, sandys, ala moana, lanakai etc… a good friend of mine from when i studied on Malta have been here for 5days so i have also been spending a lot of time with him and his girlfriend! Dominik is his name and is a very friendly and great guy from Switzerland! such a nice coincidence that we both went here at the same time! he went home today and starts working on monday so im a bit worried about how he will manage the jetlag :)

it is a bit strange to be back, but i appreciate it more this time… i almost forgot how beautiful it is here and how perfect the weather is… always 28degree celsius (82farenheit) during the day and 24degree (75farenheit) during the night, it can not be better! jennell is the president for the hiking club on hawaii pacific university so was helping her one day at campus to recruit people for the club! jennell is really good public speaker so when she left for class i had to stand there alone and i was afraid! :) maybe 100people signed up when i stood there, first i didnt really enjoy it but in the end it went very good and then i did not want to stop :P

i also been seing a few old hawaiin friends and also being out to nightclubs/bars when jennell have been working. Today we rented a car for two days so tomorrow we will probably go hiking early in the morning and then later to beach! ooo, and i also been participating in the tv-show hawaii five-o! i was sitting on a bench reading a book at ala moana beach when they came with cameras and stuff so i asked if i should move but they said that it would be perfect if i could sit there and read to make the show more realistic… so maybe you will see me in episode 6 :)

On tuesday evening im going back to Davis and then school will start next week! i want to stay on hawaii longer but at the same time im also very curious about starting school! but first this weekend my class will do a trip to Lake Tahoe, hiking, fishing, drinking and having fun.

hang loose! enjoy life! aloha mahalo! click link below to see more photos!

Hawaii September 2010 Gallery

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Do I need to say more?

Last night was an incredible night, almost half of my class joined for a Scavenger Hunt(skattjakt). We biked around campus/town and took pictures of different building, cows, trees, bridges ect. On most of the pictures someone in each team has to be in picture so we made a couple of really nice pictures! Unfortunately we did not won but it doesnt matter. Afterward we headed to a bar and it was really nice evening to get to know my classmates in a more informal way! We definitely have a lot of fun guys in the class :P

This morning I woke up with a huge hangover, ready to leave for Hawaii :) My flatmate drove me to the Sacramento Airport which is only about 25min cardrive from Davis. Thanks Jack! The first plane was a propeller aircraft, it felt like a toy aircraft :) And now i am back at San Francisco Airport and will leave to Hawaii in about 45min… So next update at the blog will be from the paradise! ALOHA!!!

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Lots of things have happens since my last blog post.
1. Found a place to stay. I live together with two graduate student on Drake drive 1441(link), it is located 8min bike ride to campus, 15min to my building on campus, 1min to a small “shopping center” with panda express, safeway, big5 and a drug store(apotek). I have my own room which is around 12m^2 with a bed, a desk, two chairs, a shelf and a closet. It cost $450/month, the landlord is really nice and just 1min walk to a bustop that takes me Sacramento(30min). In the area around there is also pools and tennis courts. Also a lot of students lives in this area so im totally satisfied.

2. School started! Ok school is even more professional than i thought, many of my classmates have 5 years of working experience. It is ranked nr 9 public school in USA. Most teachers are from Stanford, Harvard, London Economic school ect. The first day in school everyone had suit, except from me, culture shock? :) when they ask for one unique thing about each person i answered that im the only one wearing jeans today :P i really like to be here, i think i will learn so much this semester on so many different levels. Students pay around $50000/year for this school and most of them had to go to interview to get accepted. I really did not expect it to be so professional. In the lobby I met a guy that looked a bit lost and i asked him if he is also a student here, he answered “no, i will never get in, this school only taking the best ones”. It was in this moment i realized how lucky i am to be here to be able to learn from great teachers and experienced classmates. It is going to be an amazing semester! We are about 60people in our class, 25% females, just 2 exchange but maybe 20 internationals.

3. I went to Sacramento for some sightseeing and shopping. The shopping was not successful, i did not buy anything at all actually. The city center is kind of boring, at least during the day. It feels like all the stores has closed down in town and moved to big shopping malls just outside town. But i went to the state government building. Since Sacramento is the capital of California, Sacramento has a congress, senate and a office for governor Arnold Schwarzenegger :) It might be difficult to see but this is his office, click on the picture to make it bigger! For more picture from Sacramento go to the Gallery!

4. Drinking, BBQ and Swedish flipcup. Been to a BBQ, really nice people and nice food. We played beerpong, flipcup and another game i dont remember the name of. I taught them how to play Swedish flipcup but they americanized it to make it a mix between american flipcup and swedish flipcup, still fun though! i guess im not so good in explaining the swedish flipcup rules in english :)

5. HAWAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII !!!!!!
Haha, so spontaneous and crazy! Some of the events/activities during the orientation week is not for exchange students, so i have a gap of a couple of days and then a few days of writing resumes and cover letters which i dont have to go to if i dont want to. So instead i will go to Hawaii for 10days :) Booked the tickets yesterday and will go on saturday, costs $360dollar for a return ticket, pretty sweet :) PARADISE! Im coming back! :) On a beach in hawaii…

Im in Davis yo! It is almost like i expected, much warmer though and the campus is bigger than i though, im getting lost all the time…=) but lets start from the beginning:

So I took the BART-train from San Francisco Airport to Rockrigde were a 2nd year student, Emily picked me up. When I purchased train tickets I got help from two guys in my age that was just coming back from their Europe-trip. They were very friendly and we exchanged facebook/emails so we hopefully we will go out one weekend in San Francisco. When they left the train I talked to another guy who apparently worked as a job recruiter for IT people, so he said that i should contact him when i have my degree, so that is nice :) He gave me his business card and he also knew some places in San Francisco were they play good house music, so hopefully we will go there one day… I feel so lucky and happy. People are so friendly here! Love it!

At Rockrigde trainstation Emily picked me up and we went to Davis! Emily is an amazing girl from the Bay area, she has helped me really a lot here! Thank you so much Emily!

Now im staying at another 2nd year student, Peter “Potter” Weber! He is a very cool and interesting guy! Im sleeping on a couch in the living room, so that is perfect! Thanks Potter! When I arrived at his house it was 9pm in the evening, so local time for me was like 6am in the morning. But we went out anyway because it was Mojito Thursday :) I don”t think I need to say that i was pretty tired when we went to bed that night! The crazy jet lag made me wake up 4:30am and then i was completly awake! Grrrrr!! :P

Yesterday was a really intense day! I went to look at some apartments, posted ads on craigslist and other places. Bought a bike (so now im on a bike yo:), went to my school to have a look. Got lost on campus/city like 10 times and all this in 40 degree heat! Biking is a really big thing in Davis. In contrast to the rest of US, Davis has bike lanes on almost every street, amazing, America is learning! ;) I bought my bike for $90 and from Davis Bike Exchange and they promised to buy it back for half the prize, so practically it is like renting a bike for $45 for 3.5months, sweeet!

The building I will be studying in is completely new, it doesn”t feels like a school, it feels more like a hotel. I will take pictures of it later and show how beautiful it is! In some strange way it feels like i have to perform better in a building like that, it feels so professional! :) Next to the school is a real hotel, a Hyatt hotel, so if anyone wants to come and visit me and have too much cash it would be an option :) And the size of the campus is 2,100 ha or 210km^2!! exclamation mark!! they have pools, fitness center, stadiums, cows, horses. It even has an own airport :)

In the evening I went with another guy that lives here, Jim and his friends to a place called Tacos and Beer and afterwards we went home to our place to have a few beers! Very nice!

Today I been looking at more apartments and and got lost on campus again :) The reason why it is so hard to find apartment is because there is not many furnished apartments and most places want that i sign a one-year lease. But I am getting closer for everyday and I will soon be successful, i hope :P

So to summerize my first impression of Davis
* It is hot – 35-40 degress in the shadow
* Campus is big – 210km^2
* Biking is easy – biking lane on every street
* People are very friendly – Thumbs up
* Difficult to find apartment – Thumbs down