Hej!
After a wonderful day of sunshine, I'm finally back to writing. As implied by the title of this post, my biggest adventure since the last time I wrote was attending the international student gasque! But I'll start at the beginning of the week, and write from there.
Just after my last post, it started snowing in Uppsala. It was wondrous to see everything all white and beautiful, but it also made biking to class more interesting. I was really impressed with how well the city kept the streets and bike paths clear though; as long as I stuck to the more well-used paths and roads instead of the many short cuts I've picked up, they were cleared and covered with gravel and sand. The really interesting biking happened later in the week, when the weather warmed to about 4 degrees (40 in Fahrenheit) every afternoon three days in a row, and melted all of that lovely snow into mush that got churned into interesting shapes and frozen every night. Most people gave up on biking altogether, but I thought it was more of a good challenge to get to class without slipping. Fortunately the continuing warm weather has melted most of the slush away, so the biking is actually the best it's been yet.
And of course, I have to write something about what I was biking to! Neuroscience has been fascinating as usual; this week we had lectures about the auditory system, emotions, pain (which is actually controlled by an entirely different set of neurons than the rest of the touch sensory system), and the neurology of biological rhythms, namely sleep. We had our second oral exam, which was a decided mix of good and bad news. The good news: the discussions we had were really interesting, and we kept getting side-tracked on interesting tangents away from the actual questions. I wish people just sat around at talked about science like that more often! The bad news: I have A LOT of studying to do before the written exam.
I've also been working on my literature overview project, which is about the neuroscience of music. It's also been really interesting, but the rough draft is due tomorrow and I'm not nearly ready to turn anything in. Sometimes deadlines are good because they force you to actually get going on something, but other times they're really just frustrating.
The end of the week was marked by more than just the oral exam for neuro, however. This Friday was the international student gasque. A gasque is a formal dinner and dance, and every Nation has several. This particular one wasn't hosted by any specific Nation, but was for all of the international students. I had a blast! It was fun to get all dressed up with some of my friends from neuro (I haven't been that giggly and girly since high school!) Everyone mingled for a bit when we got there, and then we went upstairs for dinner. Every gasque has a random seating arrangement, so there's no pressure to go with anyone in particular, or to get a date. I sat next to a girl from Austria, Johanna, the secretary of Smålands Nation, and my friend Jeremy from Canada. (He's the one who organized the Super Bowl party). We had a blast, especially once I discovered that Johanna followed ski racing. Most Austrians do, even if they're not skiers themselves. For an Austrian, not hearing about Hermann Maier is like an American not hearing about Tim Tebow; even if you don't follow football you can't escape completely.
Dinner was also fun because of the Swedish traditions involved. Between every course, (this dinner had three) and often during the courses as well, the toast master of the event will interrupt everyone, lead a drinking song, and then everyone will toast and drink. I was quite happy toasting with my soda, and no one seemed to care so long as I tried to sing all of the songs (in Swedish, mind you) as exuberantly as everyone else.
After the dinner (this was at about 11:30) they cleared all of the tables away and had the "after party" part of the gasque. In one section of the room there was a live band, and in another there was a karaoke going on. Between them was a bar and places to sit an hang out. Most of my neuroscience friends were pretty thoroughly inebriated by this point in the evening, and watching them sing karaoke (I'm a Barbie Girl and Summer of '69) was absolutely hilarious. I stayed until about one, when I decided I'd had about enough and walked home. It was a fun experience, and hopefully I'll get the chance to attend another gasque.
I'll unfortunately have to make this post shorter than the last several, as I really should be writing my neuroscience paper at the moment. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to report next time!
Until then,
Hej då!
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