AstroBlonde

This day didn't start well at all! At 10 AM I had an inspection of my appartment and they complained about the cleaning. I hired a company to clean the appartment for me, because I'm too busy, but apparently they didn't do their job. Lucky for me they have this guarantee that it would pass the inspection, so they have to re-do it... Not me...

After the inspection I was supposed to leave my keys to the landlord, but I realized that one key is missing. Now I'm hoping that my sis has it! Tried to call her but she doesn't answer. Damn it!

After running around in this cold weather all morning I'm now freezing so much I'm shaking. People from Sydney say they have really nice weather and here I am in Sweden freezing. So unfair!

If it wasn't for the people here at the astrophysics department I would get so depressed by this weather! Yesterday Nils, a professor in galaxies, wanted to cheer me up with a song. Today he's cheering me up with talking about a Swede, Anders Svedlund, who rowed all alone from Australia to Africa (amongst many journeys) in 64 days. We read about the guy on the internet and it said that Anders liked yoga and to stand on his head, but that was impossible onboard. Both Nils and I laughed so hard, I think we both could picture him on a small rowing boat trying to stand on his head. I found a book about him called: The crazy Swede. I guess the title makes sence!

Back to study again...

I need a break from my electromagnetic field theory studies, that why I'm writing here. I'm totally exhausted! All the ∇× E = 0 and ∇· B=0 is killing me!

In the newspaper today I've read that the people born in the 1980's are normally smarter than their parents, thanx to computers and games. The result comes from a Swedish study and indicate better ability to solve a certain type of problems if you're born in the 1980's. The parents, on the other hand, think they are smarter than their kids.

Already you can see discussions like "I rather hang with socially competent people than smart people". That argument is the most stupid argument I've heard and the person who wrote it must have an old fashion way of looking at smart people in general. In her mind, she probably see someone who is totally socially incompetent, just sitting infront of a computer and have no other life than that. In most cases the truth is far from that!

First of all I don't like the word "smart" because it is often connected with math and physics. In general people say that if you're good in math/physics you're smart. I work with astrophysics and I consider myself smart in that area just like other people are smart in other areas. Most people think that a high IQ makes you smart, but that test it's all about finding patterns and solving problems. For me a high EQ and IQ is to be smart which means you are socially competent and good in solving problems. But solving problems doesn't need to be in math or physics.

I never use the word "smart". Mainly because I'm so fed up with people saying I'm smart because I work with astrophysics, but also because I don't like to put labels on people. I tell my friends that they would be able to get a master's degree in astrophysics if they are stubborn enough, and I truely belive that. It doesn't have to do with how "smart" you are, just if you're stubborn enough to sit for 5 hours trying to solve one problem. Yep, sometimes it takes that amount of time to understand one problem for me.

Anyway... I spend most of my days with "smart" people. Many of the professors here at Uppsala University are world famous in astrophysics and considered really "smart". In general people seem to think professors in physics are stiff and boring: Not at all true! The people here at the department are really talkative and social. We have astro pub every friday, where most astrophysicist gather for a couple of beers and chat about mostly non-astronomy subjects. Most of the times we're the loudest people in the bar, laughing and have a really good time. Every tuesday we have an astro cinema when we watch old horror/zombie/sci-fi movies. It's not at all stiff and boring!

So, to connect back to the statement "I rather hang with socially competent people than smart people": If you're truely smart you are socially competent and good in solving problems. If you're socially incompetent you'll have a hard time to get a job or a PhD. So, please, just skip the smart = boring part.

So now I've moved to my mom's place and I'm enjoying good food. I've realized that it's all about food when living with your parents and I'm gonna blow up like a balloon. Not good considering beach 2010 is gonna happen sooner for me that other people on the northern hemisphere. Combine that with studying for an exam when you need to eat cookies all the time to keep your spirit up. This is not gonna end in a good beach 2010, that's for sure! More like an avoid the beach 2010.

So, right now I'm living in Knivsta, 20 km south of Uppsala and 20 km north of Arlanda (the airport of Stockholm). Every morning and evening (only time I'm home) I'm enjoying the airplanes go up and down and the caravan of cars going to work and back to work. Not much more to do where I live at the moment, well except eating of course. I go by bus in the morning and go back by train in the evening. It's quite a ride back on memory lane, I grew up in Knivsta, and I've travelled that distance so many times in my life. Both of my sisters live there (well, my oldest sister lives in Berlin at the moment but they still have their house in Knivsta and will move back within a couple of years). They've told me "When you grow up you realize that Knivsta is a good place to live" but I think I'm kinda grown now and I still don't enjoy that place. Well, I think it's a good place to raise kids (lots of other kids to play with) but there are thousands of good places to raise kids on! But anyway, I'm not gonna complain. I'm just gonna stay there for 2 months, then I'm off to Sydney. And the whole kids thing: not so sure it's gonna happen...

What about my exciting life? Turned out not so exciting... I'm studying for an exam and it's not going so well. It's really hard and I'm studying alone. But as always I'm trying to keep my spirit up (with cookies of course). Not much more to do...

Today at lunch at the astrophysics department here in Uppsala.
Åsa: You can't put metals in the micro oven.
Kjell Eriksson: Isn't that the definition of metals?
Åsa: Hm, I think the definition of metals is a bit older than the technique of micro ovens...
Kjell Eriksson: *mumbles*
Johan Warell: In 1987, I think it was, I put a boiled egg with its shell still on into the micro oven. Not an good idea...
Bengt Edvardsson: Oh, so you're responsible for the supernova SN 1987A?

Muhaha, astrophysicists and their humour. But there's always laughter coming from the lunch room here at around lunch time. The astrophysics department here is great!

Today I'm gonna move to my mom's place. God, I'm exhausted after all the running around and packing stuff. I couldn't sleep this night coz I was so stressed. I think I'm gonna start my new life at my mom's place with a nap. Also, she has no internet connection so I guess there aren't much more to do over there...

Yesterday I had a mini exam and it went well. I'm surprised! I had 0,5 points under max which is kinda crazy. I think I need to stop worry so much.

Ok, back to packing.

Mini exam tomorrow. Doesn't feel good right now, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm hoping for the right type of problems to come. It's been too much at the same time with moving and exams and I think I'm good for keeping the mood up.

Tomorrow is the last day in my flat. On Saturday everything is going to be moved to my mom's place. I have so much work to do tomorrow after my mini exam. Seems like it never ends. This November is really a killer month for me with three exams, one mini exam, selling off stuff and moving. If I get through this month it feels like I can get through anything. Whaaaah!

Some of you may have read in the newspapers about a scientific study of the Lithium abundance in stars and if they have planets or not. It basically says that if the star has a low abundance of Lithium it can indicate that there are planets around it. Our Sun is famous for having a low abundance of Lithium and we know that we have planets here, but we don't know why we have that low abundance. In media you can therefor read about this study as a big breakthrough in finding planets around stars. They even claim that we now know where to look to find planets.

BBC news - Lithium clue for planet-hunters

Ok, I'm gonna be the bad guy here. The study seem kinda well made but what they actually say is that they've found out that solar type stars with massive planets close to them seem to have a low abundance of Lithium. First of all: solar type stars. In the universe we have alot of different type of stars. Some of them we call solar type because they have about the same temperature at the surface as our own Sun. There can be other criterions as well, but all in all they are kinda similar to our Sun. What I can see they've just looked at solar type stars, so all the other types we can't say much about from this study.

The other thing is that when astronomers find planets around other stars they are mostly very massive with an orbit very close to the star. We need better instruments and methods to find less massive objects further away from the star. Well, we have managed to find those objects but it's very rare cases. So, in this study they have compared with solar type stars that have massive planets close to it.

So, does this explain our Sun's low Lithium abundance? Well, according to me: No. Our solar system does not have a massive planet very close to it.

Do we know where to look to increase the chance of finding planets around other stars? Well, for solar type stars having massive planets close to them: yes, probably. To find planets like our own Earth? The study can't say anything about that.

Can we look at the abundance of every star and say which one is more likely to have planets: No, the study seem to only look at solar type stars.

Is media overexaggerating this news: Yes, as usual!

Although I'm sounding hard here I must say I like this study. It's an interesting study which may help us to understand the role a massive planet close to a star has in affecting the abundance of the star. I just think that media should be better in explaining the research. The BBC article I've linked to is okey: They actually write that it's solar type stars. But some of the articles don't say anything about the limitations of this study.

There have been many things happening in astronomy the last couple of weeks. One of the news is a beautiful image of the center of our galaxy, the Milkyway. As everyone (hopefully) knows it is the year of astronomy 2009 and NASA has created this image using three telescopes: the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Please, read the short description to understand what you see! It's really beautiful!

See the image here

What else, well the particle accelereator LHC is soon up running, hopefully next week. In 2008 they had a leakage of Helium in the chamber where the particles were supposed to accelerate to high velocities. It took them around one year to fix the problem, but now it seems like they've solved the problem. I wonder if people's reaction will be the same this time as last time... I'm geeky enough to get excited for this: will they find out anything about the Higgs particle? Super symmetry? Dark matter? So important reseach, and it involves astrophysics.

Also, the space shuttle Atlantis is on its way to ISS.

The LCROSS mission, NASA, has discovered water on the Moon's pole. I wrote about it earlier: two probes where one should crash with the Moon creating a dust cloud at the same time as the other probe flew through it. I watched it live but couldn't see much of an impact, but apparently the mission was a success. So, now we know there's water on the Moon!

For me upcomings events this week are:
1) Miniexam
2) Moving to my mom's place which means packing, packing and packing.

I'm gonna start this post with a big and loud sigh. Another movie is made to scare people, and confuse them even more. I'm talking about the movie "2012" and all the talk about Planet X. Yet another doomsday prediction that is not built on science and people seem to belive in it, sigh.

Just like the LCH thing, when people were scared that the Earth would get "eaten" by a black hole, people now seem to think that the world will end in 2012 in a collision or a near miss with a large planet. What's up with all this? Well, I think what this is all about and it has nothing to do with the end of the world. But first, let me expain a little about this theory...

The doomsday prediction is called Nibiru collision. It is either a collision or a near miss between the Earth and a large planetary object. According to believers this will happen more or less in 2012 and they call the planetary object Planet X or Nibiru. The size of this object is different from where you hear it, but on Wikipedia it says that Planet X as roughly four times the size of the Earth.

Actually, it seems like they first said the doomsday would occur on May 27, 2003 but nothing happened and so they said it was a white lie to get the attention by the people but the actual date would occur later.

Ah well, so they say that the magnetic field of the Planet X will make a physical change in the Earth poles when passing close to the Earth. In other words, the Earth would be turned "upside down" so nothing to do with the Earth's magnetic fields changing. Then, they say, that this would disrupt the Earth's magnetic core and lead to subsequent displacement of the Earth's crust.

I also need to add that this doomesday theory started with a woman who sayd that she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials called Zetas when she was a girl, and they told her this. The last I've heard about this is that the doomsday prediction is set to some time in December 2012, also the end of the current cycle (baktun) in the long count in the Mayan calendar.

Read more on Wikipedia

Anyway, as you can guess I'm gonna say "Nonsence!". I mean, the "threat" we have from asteroids and comets out there need to be taken serious as long as they are based on science. But this is not even close to science. First of all, an object like that is possible to see by many reasons:
1) It's fairly large and should be easier to see than an asteroid or comet, which are very small objects. If we can see those small objects we would be able to see an object as large as this.
2) An object of this size would interupt the other planets orbits and we would notice it very clearly when observing the standard planets (I mean, if you point your telescope at a position where all the programs tell you it should be and the planet is not there, you would notice it).

Here you can find a sketch of the orbit the doomsday prediction people have made.
Sketch of the orbit for the supposed Planet X

I looked at this sketch for a couple of seconds and realized that the orbit of Planet X, according to this sketch, does not even cross the orbit of the Earth. According to this sketch it would cross the asteroid belt, and that's not even harmful for the Earth. Ok, there are no scientific data that this planet exists, but if it would exist the magnetic field of the planet X would not interact with the magnitic field of the Earth at that distance. Especially not turn the Earth "upside down" (which is not even possible to do with just an magnetic field). Jupiter is probably affecting the Earth more every day than this would do. Anyway, IF we had a planet X crossing the asteroid belt like that, the worries would lie on asteroids to be sent into the inner Solar system. THAT would be a problem, but not the planet X itself.

Ok, so is it possible for a planet to have this elliptical orbit and its mass?
Well, everything is possible but it is not really likely. I would say that this type of massive objects, with an aphelion so far out in the Solar System, would get interupted by nearby stars and its orbit would not be very stable. Therefore, the orbit the doomsday prediction people say about 3600 years is not very likely. You have to keep in mind here that the Solar System has been built up for 5 billion years, and alot of unstable orbit objects have been thrown out of the Solar System. A planet like this would very likely been thrown out of crashed with Jupiter. This is also what scientists calculated. Scientist have also calculated that an orbit time of that is not possible either when compared to the sketched orbit.

So, the doomesday people say that the planet X may be behind the Sun all the time, and that's why we've never seen it. But that argument doesn't hold! I mean, everyone knows that an object close to a star does one orbit in a shorter time than an object far away from the Sun. That is just simple Newtonian physics. So, if planet X is behind the Sun when we have summer in the Northern hemisphere it should be visible when we have done 1/4 orbit, or 1/2 orbit and so on. Otherwise the elliptic orbit planet X has doesn't make sence. Does it have a circular orbit with one hell of an engine on it, and just an elliptical orbit when, uhm, it has decided to come close to the Earth? It doesn't make sence at all!

So, is it possible that a planet would come into our Solar System from another star?
Well, I would say it's possible. The stars close to us were probably created in the same nebula as the Sun, making them about the same age as the Sun. They have probably formed stable planetary orbits just like our Solar System. But it is likely that smaller objects are thrown into our Solar System, and that our Solar System is giving objects to our closest stars. But that trading is probably just in the outskirts of our Solar System, like in the Oort's cloud. If they come closer we have to remember that we have four bodyguards in our Solar System, namely Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. If an asteroid comes close to Neptune it is either thrown out or colliding with that planet. If not, it comes to Uranus and so on. Jupiter has a problem of throwing them to a massive planet on the inside which, in most cases, leads to that the asteroid is thrown out. But here I'm just talking about small objects, like asteroids or comets. A planet sized object with an unstable orbit would probably been thrown out billions of years ago, leading to no bigger worries today. But this doesn't explain why the doomsday prediction people say the planet X has an orbit period of 3600 years because if it was thrown out from another Solar System this would be the first time we'd seen it.

My conclusions: This doomsday prediction is just fiction. It's is not based on any science and alot of the things they say break the laws of physics. It's not observed although it would be fairly easy to do. It does not interupt the outer planets which it suppose to do. In other words it's like it's not there...

Anyway, NASA did an announcement a couple of days ago just to calm people down. If you still doubt my judgement here read it.
Q and A at NASA


So, why do all these doomesday and consiricy things turn up?
I think it doesn't have to do with the actual event or statements they say. People just want to fit in somewhere and build their own world on something. Religion had this effect on people before, and still do, but there are alot more people not beliving in a god today. Instead they want to connect to something else, feel like they're a part of something. Perhaps feel that they have a purpose in life. Perhaps this is the new type of religion, using the internet to spread their word.

I would like to end this post by telling you that it is great to be objective and doubt, but you have to base your oppinions on facts and READ about both sides. All the time ask yourself it if makes sence. If it's way beyond your understanding, try to understand it by putting some energy into it. Don't belive in all stuff you read without looking at the facts!

What a crazy day! Lots of stuff happening at the same time. I found out that I passed the exam I wrote on monday, and I was the only one who passed it out of around 10 people. That's hillarous because I just studied for a couple of days coz it kinda collided with the oral exam in Observational astrophysics. But anyway, I passed it!

Today I've reduced some observational data of a galaxy in different filters using a program called IRAF. So far no computer problems, well ok some computer problems but those were solved by just changing computers. You should see my beautiful galaxy images!!! Wow! Unfortunately I can't show them to ya, but it's a nice looking spiral galaxy... Reducing observational data by hand takes time!!!

Mike, the american NASA guy who is working at the astrophysics department in Uppsala from time to time, is quite an impressive guy! He was talking about the Vikings with me and Elisabeth today and he knows WAY more about the Scandinavian history than I do! Even me and Elisabeth combined! He was talking about persons who invaded England and France came up in the midle of the discussions and I was totally lost with all the names. Some of the guys I've never even heard of! Let's just say that I was defeated by far! I said "Jag är imponerad" (en. I'm impressed) and he tried to pronounce it but he said "Jag är importerad" (en. I'm imported). Quite true coming from an american in Sweden. Then I was joking around with him and told him to say "Jag är inkompetent" and "Jag är impotent" (en. I'm incompetent and I'm impotent) but those sentences were too close to english and he understood them. Darn! :D Now I know that I won't be able to fool people in Australia to say those sentences... :)

The guy that I was talking about yesterday, he texted me today. It was a weird text ! He wrote his email and then "I wanna thank you for yesterday and wish you a blessed time in Australia." In Swedish "blessed" is "välsignad" and something people only say in church. I KNEW there was something wrong with him! Then he continued "Good luck with finding a job, PhD, appartment and everything else but just be careful with every decision you'll make over there". Huh? What does he mean with the every-decision-part? I can understand "Be careful of all the poisonous animals" but the decisions I'll make in Australia will probably be the same kind of decisions I make here every day. Hm, I'm totally lost but I guess the thought was good. Guys... I just don't get them!

Yesterday I had an exam and it didn't went that well. I think I'll pass it but I didn't feel like jumping around in circles afterwards. Two hours before the exam I took the Swine flu shot as well. Some call me crazy to take it before an exam, I call it to push the limits.. or perhaps lack of time in such a stressful time.

Wladimir, a guy at the astrophysics department, invited everyone on cake so directly after the exam it was yum-yum-time. Went home and then, at 9 pm, my arm started to hurt like crazy. I couldn't sleep at all this night and I was so tired when waking up. My supervisor texted me that she had fever after the shot, and I didn't feel great either after no sleep at all.

In the evening I sold off a chest of drawers, yay, and a guy came to take a look at the appartment. He was kinda cute and I was talking alot to him. It seemed like he didn't wanna leave and I didn't really want him to leave either. I guess this was the first time I've ever used the phrase "Do you want to see the garbage room?" to make him stay a little bit longer. He was like "Yeah, great!". Funny situation! But he was cute and I'm kinda cute so... :D Later, I called the "date" off though. Hehe...

I'm sorry but I'm too tired to write anything about astronomy right now. It's time to go to bed, hopefully a night with lots of dreams and no staying awake because of a stupid arm. Nighty night!

Studied today as usual but that's of no interest. Instead I'm gonna skip that part and talk about an interesting topic I had with a friend of mine on the phone. We discussed the Swine flu vaccine and she couldn't really make up her mind if she wanted to take it or not. I think it's totally ok if someone doesn't wanna have the shot, hey I never got vaccinated again any other flu before so. But when people start to argue about if it's healthy or not I get a bit irritated. As she said "I don't wanna be a guinea pig".

You know, people take medicines for everything these days without considering the effects it has. Well, people seem to know that it may not be good, but they take it anyway. But when it comes to the Swine flu shot media has made it such a big deal! Sure, it contains mercury as almost all the vaccine shot you've ever taken before and we know that's not healthy. But at the same time people eat fish that probably contain mercury and radioactivity substances. Some people walk around with mercury in their teeth (amalgam) that is slowly making it's way into the body. No one reflects on that.

The vaccine also contains substances to help the immune system to defeat the virus that is put into your body. Apparently, if you should belive the media, this type of vaccine has a little more of that substance than other vaccines. But at the same time, people take medicines every day for different matters. The vaccine you get once and then no more. The vaccine contains a virus that is similar to the real Swine flu but not as aggressive.

Also what people don't think of is that this vaccine has been tested on far more people than for other vaccines (or medicins for that matter).

Of course there are risks taking this vaccine, but no more risk than other medicines. People can point fingers and say that person got this and that because of the shot. Sure, if you vaccinate alot of people someone is going to get some side-effect of it. It's the same thing if you're gonna put every person on this Earth to fly with different airplanes: someone is going to crash. As my friend said "But I don't wanna be that person". Of course not! I don't wanna be the person who gets a meteorite in my head either, or gets hit by a car, or crash with an airplane... That is just chances we have to take in life. But I also don't wanna be the person who gets informed that I've infected a person who died because of it.

I mean, come on! If you don't wanna take the vaccine that is totally fine. But if you're gonna argue that the risk is too high, just don't do it infront of me. You take bigger risks every day than taking the vaccine. You can't walk around scared every day. "Life is a sexual transmitted disease with 100% mortality". You just don't know when.

Now to the media. I get sick and tired of the media! When will media start to take responsibility for what they write? I remember so clearly the whole LHC at Cern thing in media. Remember? Scientists wanna create, if possible, tiny, tiny black holes to study them. God, that was a mess! It's probably a scientists fault in the beginning saying something like "well, there's a small chance that the black hole would grow larger and 'swallow' the Earth, but that chance is so small and we're sure it won't happen". That is kinda a typical scientist statement to analyse from every angle, and there's no course for scientists called "How to talk to the media" (not that I know anyway, maybe there should be...). The media picked up the "'swallow' the Earth" part and made big news out of it without even knowing anything about particle physics. Some people got so scared that some committed suicide, some fainted the day the particle accelerator started, particle scientists got threatened and so on. I sat that day in newspaper chats, and on my own homepage to explain particle physics and calm people down. It was crazy!

The whole Swine flu in media is kinda like the LHC story. They write about one person over here and someone on the other side of the planet who did this and that. It's no fun to write an article about all the people who got well from it without any complications, or got the vaccine without anything strange happening. The whole Swine flu story is probably so overexaggerated that you probably don't need to take the vaccine at all. That is totally ok! But if you feel that you want to take the shot (which I do because of many reasons) just base your actions on statistics and science instead of the media. You use that method when you cross the road every day, fly with an airplane or take the elevator and so on. Why not use it with the Swine flu as well...

Today I've been studying for 11 hour in a row, with shorter breaks of course. But I'm on fire today! Unfortunately that leads to nothing to write here though unless you want me to write about how galaxies were formed, how stars will end their lifes or dark matter blah blah blah. Uhm, and even if you'd want me to write about it I don't have the time. I need to study for another hour today. No sleep until I'm finished. But I can share a good song with you just to keep your spirit up:



Galaxer i mina braxer!

[I don't want to explain myself
don't want to stand for my ideals
don't want to defend myself
don't want to be difficult or slippery
so what do I want?
It's easy to understand
I just want to sit here with my legs crossed
and why do I want that?
It's not difficult to see
because you are sitting next to me, of course

I don't want to persuade you
to do something you don't want
but I don't want to deny myself
and say I'm not good enough
so what do I want?
It's easy to understand
I just want to sit here with my legs crossed
and why do I want that?
It's not difficult to see
because you are sitting next to me, of course

I don't want to rush you
and I don't want to pressure you
but I want to say loud and clear
what I find wonderful
and you are the sweetest I know]

Haha, my mom is so funny! Today she asked me if I have a picture of me and I said "Well, I think I have some pics when I'm out partying". But I wondered why she wanted a pic of me and she said that she wanted to frame it. The she continued "I want to make a wall of pictures in my appartment. I'm gonna put a picture of Marie (my oldest sis) on her wedding day. Under her wedding pic I'm gonna put pics of her three kids. And then I'm gonna put a pic of Lena (my other sis) on her wedding day and under that pic I'm gonna put pics of her kids." I was laughing and said "And then we have Åsa with her beer... No husband, no kids just beer". She laughed, of course, but said "Well, I want to have you on my wall aswell." But I can just see it infront of me. My mom's friends are going to say "Oh whatta beautiful pics of Marie and Lena and their kids... and uhm this must be Åsa with the beer". Hilarious, but that's ok! I'm gonna be in Australia so I won't see the reactions...

Today I started to study for my next exam. Wish I've been studying harder, but there are too many things at the same time here. I started to clear up the appartment instead cos that gives me more head aches right now. Once again went back and forth to the garbage room, I have so much junk! Then I got the brilliant idea that I would start to pack some things I'm gonna bring to Australia. I know, it's early but I thought it would be a good idea to start. If I pack the things I don't use at the moment I don't have to re-pack all my boxes at my mom's place later, and my suitcase is going to take space anyway so why not use that space. Started to fill my suitcase and realized that it's half-full already. Holy smoke! And that's just the things I don't use at the moment because of winter season here. This is going to get interesting to see if I'm able to squeeze my things into this small suitcase...

What else? Uhm, not much... Stressful times.

The cold weather continues here in Uppsala and alot of snow has fallen, even though it melted as soon it hit the ground. I've been freezing my ass off! I've also been at the hair dresser today and dyed my hair. I really like my hair dresser! She's just great and I would smuggle her with me to Australia if I could. She said to me "You know... I don't know if I've told you this before but you look like Gwyneth Paltrow". I started to laugh, but people tend to say that so I guess something with our looks are alike. It's probably our lips... Anyway, after a little more than two hours my hair looked more blonde than before. Yay! I have so much hair it takes them forever to dye or cut. But I'm happy with the result and that's what matters.

To say something else I was watching videos on YouTube when I found this lift off. Talk about fireworks!

I just have to start this post by telling you that I passed the oral exam in Observational Astrophysics II! Yay! Gosh, that was a hard one but I made it! I'm kinda surprised 'coz normally I'm really good at talking about stuff, but my calculations are normally just ok. On this exam he had no complaints of the calculations but when I was talking about the Echelle spectrograph I was totally lost. Everything just went blank. The really hard part is that he's asking questions and then he gets a bit impatient and I'm one of those people who has to think for a while before answering. So he's trying to get you to start before you're ready. Really stressful! Ah, well. I passed it so it was worth it!

Two days ago I called Hälsojouren here in Uppsala to check when they have drop in for the Swine flu shot. They said Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I even double checked the dates. But today when I got there, which is located in the outskirts of Uppsala, they didn't have a drop in that day. Great that they can inform people about the right dates! I wasn't very happy. Even though it was their fault they didn't even try to fix the problem. They didn't try to squeeze me in for that whole minute it would take. Talk about service, not! They blamed that they would vaccinate people at the Universities soon, which doesn't make much sence to me. How can that end up in informing people wrong dates? They seem totally confused and I wouldn't trust them giving me a vaccine in that chaos. Maybe they would give me the wrong vaccine in the end.. You never know but I do know that the human error is a large number! So, I think I'm gonna get vaccinated somewhere else instead. I don't want my tax money to support incompetent people who can't even give people the right information...

So, after this totally meaningless journey I came home as an ice cube. My hands and feet where so cold they were all red (it's about 1 degree Celsius outside + it's snowing a little bit). The only thing you wanna do is to take a warm and nice bath, but by experience I've learned that THAT hurts like hell. Pouring warm water on really cold body parts is painful, so I had to warm myself in the bed first. I was so tired that I almost fell asleep. Talk about exhausted, but I shouldn't complain! I passed the exam. It would have been worse if I didn't pass the exam and gotten the Swine flu instead.

I'm so tired I can hardly lift my fingers. Well, maybe that's because it's so freakin cold here and my hands feel like ice. Don't know, but that's all for today.

Thanx Sabine for the e-mail about the Swine flu though! Sorry to hear that you had it, but good to hear that it wasn't that bad! I'll reply later...

Zzz...

Sitting here at the astrophysics department in Uppsala and nothing fun happens at all! I've read about gratings today, in spectroscopy. It's as much fun as it sounds...

This morning I managed to be very creative. I booked a date for the last inspection of my appartment, booked a date for a company to clean it for me before leaving the keys and also called the vaccination company so that I can get the Swine flu shot. I'm gonna live with my mom the last couple of months before leaving for Sydney and because she has a severe form of rheumatism I thought it would be a good idea for me to get vaccinated. She is already vaccinated but the doctors weren't really sure if she would have a good protection, so it's the least I can do for her. Also, my sister is pregnant and last time she had a baby she gave birth to him in week 25. The doctors think that could happen again, so I don't wanna risk the health of her or the baby in any way. I think that's what the vaccination is all about: Maybe you would be fine without the vaccine and even if you got the Swine flu. But people around you, for example old people, sick people or what ever, may suffer. Even though they would choose not to get the vaccination I don't think they'd deserve to get it. But sometimes they wanna get vaccinated but haven't got it yet by some reason. The least I can do to people around me is to get the vaccine. I ignore all the negative talk about the Swine flu shot and see the positive effects as much greater! Most of the times it's just media and people who know nothing about medicine that say these things anyway.

Yesterday I saw the "loose change" movie and I'm just gonna say that I'm not impressed at all. That's it about that.

I have a busy week ahead of me, so I'd better continue to read now.

Ciao!