AstroBlonde

Ok, -16 C and I'm walking around in my spring jacket and no winter hat. Yäy! I'm so great! But I have to look good on the X-mas party with the astrophysics department. Very important matter... :) And I don't want to look like the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters, which I think people look like with those big winter jackets.

Skål!

Today it is -9 C outside here in Uppsala and I'm freezing my butt off! When I was sitting on the bus I started to think about the time when I was around 15 years old. At that time I was biking around, mostly to meet friends, in the middle of the winter. I can't remember that I felt that cold. But now I'm freezing after just a couple of minutes outside. What has happened? I don't think I had more clothes on me at that time, because I thought winter hats were ugly and I was wearing jeans just like today. Maybe it's because I didn't know better at that time? Now I know I can escape this cold weather by leaving the country, and I guess that's why I'm freezing even more this year... I know that within less than two months I'm gonna walk on the beach in the Sun. Bhaaaw, why can't I leave today?!

There's a song written by Swedes that goes "We came down from the North, blue hands and a torch" (the Knife - We share our mothers health). I guess the song writer was a genius!

Yesterday evening was interesting and very boring at the same time... At around 6 pm I was hungry so I decided to end my studies for the day and go home. There were alot of snow yesterday so I took the bus instead of the train, the bus is more probable to keep the time schedule.

After almost one hour on the bus (I'm living on the country side now) it was time for me to get off. We drove past the small supermarket where I live and it looked so dark. I thought to myself "That supermarket really needs to put some lights up, because you can hardly see it's a supermarket there. Ah, well, I'm in the country side. What do they know about stuff like that...". The bus continued to drive and according to me this was my bus stop, but I couldn't see anything.

I got off the bus, the bus drove away and then I realized it's REALLY dark. Where the hell am I? I couldn't see anything! "Ah, the power must be gone...". I tried to look down to see my feet, couldn't see them. Tried to walk and felt the snow around my feet and my legs. "Uhm? I must be in a pile of snow". Tried to feel my way around with my feet "Hm, am I on a side walk or not?". I had to stand there for a while to be able to see in the dark, so there I was standing in the middle of nowhere in a pile of snow.

After some time I saw this dark gray building "ah that must be my mom's building", so I started to walk towards it. I fell once coz I stumbled on someting but finally came to the building door. "Ah, shit where is the key?!". Started to dig in my bag but apparently someone inside heard me, so he opened the door for me. Came indoors and realized it was even darker there. The guy, who let me in, mumbled someting about "loosing his cell phone under the stairs". I tried to get my cell phone "where the hell is my cell phone... ah there it is..". The poor guy was crawling around on the floor trying to get his cell phone. "Uhm, do you need any help? Can you see it from the light of my cell phone?".

Came to my mom's appartment and saw her sitting in the couch with a torch in her hands. "Mom, how long have you been sitting there with the torch?". She said "a while" and it must have been because the torch was about to drop dead. Started to run around to look for candles before that torch had done its job. For over 3 hours we didn't have any electricity. Talk about fun hours... not. I was sitting in the sofa half asleep. The worst part was that I was so, so, so, so hungry but couldn't eat my dinner because I had to use the micro wave oven.. which I couldn't. The power came back quite late and at that time I was sleeping in my bed, so no dinner for me yesterday. Maybe the new way of being on a diet... :)

Tihi. It's always so fun to meet people who are using my homepage, AstronomiGuiden, daily! Just now I met a guy who apparently went to the Uni at the same time as Bengt Gustafsson. Bengt Gustafsson is a professor here at Uppsala Uni who is working with theoretical astrophysics (especially stellar atmospheres). He is so dedicated to astronomy that you kinda get dragged along with his enthusiasm. He is also well known in astronomy around the world and a really good scientist!

Anyway... so this guy, who educated himself at the same time as Bengt Gustafsson, saw that I was visiting AstronomiGuiden and he said "Oh, AstronomiGuiden is a good site. I visit that site every day... Did you know that they just got some money to rebuild it?". I wasn't really sure he knew that I created that homepage so I said "Uhm, yes.. I am the creator you know that don't you? I am admin on that site". Apparently he didn't but he mentioned that he had seen me in papers but didn't recognized me in person. He started to show me pictures of members on my homepage, which was really fun to see, and on a telescope they are building. It's amazing how dedicated people can be and I'm so happy that my homepage can help people to become even more dedecated into astronomy.

I was at the astro pub last Friday and I want to wish Astrid good luck in Mexico. She has got a job over there so she's moving in January.

Last Friday I was also on a presentation about the climate thingy. An Aussie, Brady, held a very good presentation about climate related stuff, which I think is very important for scientists to see. I don't agree with everything he said, but I think all these discussions about climate, LHC, world trade center, 2012 and so on is something we're gonna see much more of. Information is spread like never before now, by the internet, and it's hard for people to see what is right and wrong. Sometimes it may not even be a right or wrong, and therefore I think scientists have to find new ways of working with the public. I think scientists have to spend more time to explain stuff to the public, because if the "average" people don't understand the area most of them get the picture wrong.

It's is kinda funny tho... If you read in a paper about some celebrity doing this or that, people seem to say "Well, we don't know. It might just be rumours". But if it says "Scientists says this and that" people seem to think it is the truth and nothing but the truth. Media seem to get this and use it even more to sell papers, but in the end it can create people to panic. It is so important for people to stay objective no matter what, but it's hard when you get so much info daily. Therefore I think scientists need to spend more time trying to explain stuff to the "average" people so they can, themselfs, determine weather the info seems likely or not.

Of course the area gets even harder when politics and economy is involved. In astronomy there aren't often much money involved, so it's kind of a calm area. But for the climate change there are so much money involved that it's scary. According to me, in that area it's better to try to stay somewhere in the middle. The science is not that obvious as it may sound, but at the same time I'm sure that most of the scientists are doing their best to put a real picture out there. I'm quite sure there have been done many mistakes along the way in the reseach and perhaps money have influenced the area too much. It's hard to tell. What is important here, according to me, is to keep your mind open: Perhaps we have a climate change, but it can also be due to normal variations. When I look at it it's not as obvious as people seem to think it is, and for me there are too many things that are so unsure in this area. But sure, there's only one Earth and we should take care of it, but what is happening around the world today is too over exaggerated... According to me.

Well... I'm going out for a short walk in the snow that has just fell. The weather here in Sweden isn't really the same as for the green-house-effect-Venus: it is cold as hell here now!

This morning I woke up by the sound of children singing Christmas songs. My mom lives near a kindergarden and apparently they had X-mas spirits. It was quite cute, even though alot of them just screamed out the lyrics. Whatta nice way to start your day...

Yesterday I watched Stockholm - Arlanda, a tv show filming the strange people at the airport of Stockholm. They filmed inside of an airplane and I just felt "uhhh, I don't feel like living on an airplane for two days!". One of my friends is complaining that he's gonna have to sit on an airplane through the entire night to go to Asia. I truely feel sorry for him... NOT! What's one night of flying compared to 31 hours in the air and 8 hours on the ground? That is what I'm looking forward to in 2 months when I'll go to Sydney. For some reason I can't feel any pity for him, even though it's not the most fun thing to do. Really, really not the most fun thing to do... Escpecially when you took that trip less than one year ago. Gah, but once you're in that plane it's not that bad. Well, at least you don't have a choice once you're there. But this time it's going to be better tho, because I won't be going home for some time. Yäy!

X-mas spirit at the astrophysics department in Uppsala:


[ About the picture:
Rocket and a probe on the Moon. Two astronauts with the Swedish flag. A Swedish red house (coming from the idea some Swedish company had of building the typical Swedish house on the Moon). Inside the Swedish house there's a light installation.
]

What's been going on the last couple of days? Well, not much really. Astro pub, a very interesting one. We have a new PhD student here in Uppsala and he's from South America. He is trying to learn about silly Swedish x-mas traditions: glögg, gingerbread biscuits and Lucia buns. He first tried glögg and said "hmm?" and then he ordered some more. I guess he liked it. He is also trying to learn some Swedish and apparently the people in South America seem to think Swedish is like Russian. He was positively surprised when he realized Swedish is very much related to English. On Thursday we're gonna celebrate Lucia with the traditional girl with candles in her hair here at the astrophysics department. We'll see if he will be a part of that tradition. God, Swedes have alot of silly traditions... A couple of PhDs here spent 12 hours baking gingerbread biscuit rockets, probes and space walkers. It is currently standing on our lunch table here at the department with a big sign "Don't touch, don't eat! Merry X-mas!". I'll take a pic and publish here before anyone start to eat it.

Today Andreas asked my about my popular scientific article I published in September. Apparently he wanted to see it coz he's now writing one as well. Isn't it kinda cool that the really highly educated people in astronomy look at MY article to get inspired. After all, I'm just a student... He's going to write about Solar twins, and I'm looking forward to read it!

For my master thesis I just wanna say "Whaaah!". Optical depth here, source function there, Planck function here and over population there. Will I ever understand this? I guess I will, it's just taking some time... I'm also working with IDL (yes, the same programing language as the "Climate gate"-thing!). Scripts and stuff isn't really a hard thing for me, I leared to do it when I was around 8 years old. To understand why things get ionized and not in the stars are a bit harder! There can be so many things: Collisions, temperatures, densities, radiation, and some lines are sensitive because of... uhm, I don't know right now. But I'm confident I can do this!

Now it's time for lunch. Yäy!

Ok, it's official: Today I had my first fall due to icy roads this year. I'm proud I manage to stay on my feet until December, but it's no big surprise because I was out of Sweden almost all January and February this year.

Anyway, I was walking out of the building where I live and temporary forgot to take small steps. On my third or fourth step it said "Swooosh" and I was down on the ground. Really nice fly which ended up splashing the water around me. Great timing considering it's 2 C so the ice is beneath the water on the ground making it even more slippery and making me soaked afterwards. A couple of seconds after I was up on my feet again, looking around to see if someone saw my graceful scene. No one saw me, phew. Walking away, this time with small steps, mumbling bad things about Sweden.

I passed the exam in electromagnetic field theory! God I'm good! :) But now, after alot of school work I'm so tired but I can't be! I have even more work to do! It doesn't help that it's -4 C outside either. When I come indoors in the warm and cosy environment I get even more sleepy. Coffee, the answer to everything!

By some reason, I can't remember right now, I started to look at the map over Sydney. When it's zoomed out I can find my way but everytime I zoom in I get lost. I think I need to study those suburb names for a while before leaving, so I know when I'm going in the wrong direction. I find my way in the central regions around Millers point and the Opera house, as well as the regions around Bondi, Bronte, Clovelly and Coogee. But the rest is confusing to me. Well, around the Uni of Sydney I can find my way as well but that's mainly it. The rest of the suburbs are just a big fog. I know I've been in the northern parts of Sydney around Newport as well, but how to get there I have no idea. By car without a drivers license in the left side traffic? Isn't this going to be interesting? Will Åsa end up in the desert? Well, I've promised Johanna that I always gonna carry my cell phone and water, just in case I'll end up there. Hehe.

Ok, anyway. I have to share this beautiful song with you guys. A perfect one to learn more about stars:
Oh Be A Fine Girl/Guy, Kiss Me (Right Now Sweetheart)

[ Note: I hate when people walk around with maps. That's for wimps. So, as so many times before, I never use maps and therefore I always end up on strange places and meet the funniest people. On Australia day this year I met a gay guy and a prostitute because of me walking passed them three times during two hours. I ended up drinking wine with them all night watching the fireworks in Darling harbour. No maps to the people means more fun! ]

The month from hell is over! Exam yesterday in electromagnetic field theory, so November has been a tough month with 3 exams, 1 mini exam, selling off my stuff and moving to my mom's place. I can hardly believe that I've survived! December is going to be stressful, but not as stressful: Master thesis, master thesis and master thesis.

Three weeks ago my mom had a surgery. Her entire knee was replaced with titan-metal things and she is now walking around with crutches. So guess who is doing all the job at home at the same time as being at school 10-12 hours a day: Me! I'm gonna kill myself after this... no, wait that's just stupid! If I should do it I should do it before all the work, not after. :) Hehe, no my friends I'm not gonna kill myself. My mom is gonna do it for me... :D Mom wants to gather the family at her place during X-mas, and guess who is going to have to work even harder for that to happen: Me again, tihi! Clean the appartment in those 1-2 hours I have left after studying every day, buy all the X-mas food and bring it home. Gaaah! As so many times before: Keep the sprit up, Åsa. Keep the spirit up!

Oh, btw. I got a text this weekend from an unknown number. It said "I'm reading your blog and I have an unknown key. Yours?" but it didn't say who it was from. A wild guess would be my ex-boyfriend. I didn't have any cash on my cell phone so I couldn't reply so I'm replying here instead: My sis had my key and the keys are now returned to the landlord. But thanx for trying to help me!

That's it for me!

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