Oct 6, 2017

Just an update. Assignments, uni-confusion and a bit of Japan!

I am still having a lot of fun at university, the only times that are hard are when we have assignments. Because I go through them, feel like I will fail and then freak out and start working like crazy to get it done.
So our last programming assignment I actually finished on my own in just a few hours, since I was so scared of not making it in time, haha.
This time, for our third assignment, me and my partner finished it today basically, which it several days before the deadline.

This time I didn't work with the same person as I worked with before, and it was a completely different experience. For this assignment, with this partner, I was the one how knew the least and had to be taught how to do a couple of things. So I feel like I learned a lot by working with this partner, even though they drove me up the walls some times, haha.

Now the only assignment we have left is a math assignment about statistics. And while I think statistics seems like an interesting topic, I did not understand anything that the teacher covered during todays lecture about it. So I've got my work cut out for me to try to figure it out...

We've got tests coming up soon, which is pretty nervewracking, and for the math test we have had discussions with the teachers about if we can bring calculators to the test.
When they finally got back to us about it they told us that the only calculators we are allowed to use during the test are "Chalmers approved" calculators: Casio FX82 Texas TI30 and Sharp ELW531.
But those three types of calculators don't exist anymore, they were being manufactured in like the 1970's!
So now the teachers are trying to find a way to allow us to bring other types of calculators similar to the ones above. But the teachers don't make the rules, so it is still not certain wether other versions of these calculators will be allowed.

Thing is, I bought a really expensive and good calculator just for this course, and now I'm not even allowed to use it! Which is a real bummer.
And another thing: the program is technically not a program at Chalmers university, but Gothenburg university, but the program is kind of mixed. It's like a hybrid thing connected to both Chalmers and university of Gothenburg, so we have to abide by Chalmers rules even though we aren't Chalmers students on paper.

This mixed thing with this program is a bit strange though. I feel like I am attending 2 universities at the same time. Right now it feels more like I am attending Chalmers, since all our teachers are from Chalmers, and we have access to all the Chalmers buildings (since we got the Chalmers keycard). We eat lunch in the lunch room for Chalmers students. We follow Chalmers rules for examinations, and so on.
I think for other courses in the future we are going to have teachers that are from the university of Gothenburg, but so far we haven't.
I think many students are as confused as me about the situation. Many people in my class have bags and umbrellas and such with the Chalmers logo on it, which I find pretty funny.

Anyway, like I said, I am having a lot of fun at this program. And just as I thought, the international setting suits me really well. It's so much fun to meet people from all over the world and hear their stories! Many of the people I've met and become friends with have actually lived in Sweden for years and do speak Swedish to varying degrees.
They all have different stories of how they ended up in Sweden, and it's all very interesting to hear.

One pet peeve of mine though is hearing people speaking English with a Swedish accent. There are of course many Swedes in our class too, and some of them have really heaving, cringe-worthy accents, haha. Maybe I am just being picky and annoying, but I really wish people would work more on their accents, so that they don't sound like complete shit. (sorry) ^^'

Oh, and one last thing, in this post without a general theme: I have met many people now that are interested in Japan (surprise, surprise!) and they all get super surprised and jealous when they find out I've lived in Japan and can speak Japanese.
When you've lived in a country for a few years, and it becomes your normal life, you kinda forget that there are people out there who have big dreams of living exactly that life. And that become so amazed to hear about it.
So now I've been asked a lot of questions about Japan, and the language, and I find I can't answer all of them. Since I haven't spoken Japanese for so long, my vocabulary is smaller than it used to be. Today I realized I had forgotten the word "kyoka" and had to look it up. The word was on the tip of my tongue but I just couldn't get it right.
My Japanese is not completely gone though (yet), around a week ago I called up my friend who still lives in Japan and we talked for an hour, all in Japanese. I was so happy to get confirmation that I could still do it.
There are not a lot of chances here to get to speak Japanese! The people I have met who like Japan and wanna go there don't speak the language, although some of them are learning it they are not near speaking level at all.
It's kinda sad, because I don't want to forget this language. I love Japanese.

:)

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