GOTT NYTT ÅR!

We wish you all happiness and joy. Happy New Year!

Boxing Day in Småland

On Boxing Day Maria's siblings with families came to her parents' house and we celebrated Christmas together. Traditional Christmas dinner again, but now with a Finnish touch, as well as a few more presents. Three days of Christmas is a good Swedish tradition, which means you don't have to travel so often, but instead have time to be whole days with the families.
The picture features one of the meadows outside Maria's parents seen through a frozen window.

On Monday we picked up Maria's sister-kids from "fritids" (after school child care). Several different games were played during the evening, even if the nephew liked the car racing game on the computer most.

Tuesday evening we enjoyed together with Maria's brother with family. Sledge downhill and some rink skating before the kids went to bed.

The next day it was time to end the time in Småland and fill the car to go to Olle's parents again.

GOD JUL!

Merry Christmas to all brave ones that follows this blog!

Early Christmas and an active rest

On Saturday we drove south to Olle's parents. During a few hours we had the sun shining into our eyes, not a bad idea to bring the sunglasses. It felt as joining a light therapy when so active noticing the day light, compared to other days sitting in an office most of the daylight hours. We noticed most of Sweden seems to have winter with snow, but the roads weren't so bad anyway. About two hours south of Umeå we passed the Ångermanälven river on the High Coast Bridge, which has a total length of about 1.9 km.

Already Sunday we celebrated Christmas, since this was the day Olle's both siblings could join. All the families (except one nephew) and grandfather were there. After a traditional dinner, we shared our Christmas presents. As usual it's the smaller kids who are most excited.

In the beginning of this week we shoveled the ice on the nearby lake, on Wednesday that meant several cm of snow. We arranged so we had a round trip of 400-500 m on the lake where we could enjoy skating. We hoped for some sun to melt the surface and get a nice glassy surface, but this wasn't the case. Finally you could question if it was worth the efforts, since we used almost more time to remove snow than to skate. Anyway it felt good to do some exercise.

On Wednesday evening we enjoyed sauna with refreshing dip in the hole in the ice. You have to be clean for Christmas :-)

Christmas Eve was a relaxed day, except some more skating.
On Christmas Day we went to an old friend of Olle, before driving to Maria's parents.

Short winter days

Olle took a walk to Nydalasjön today. The sun does not rise that much above the horizon this time of the year.
The pictures are taken about 11:30.

Group meeting of the year

Today all of Maria's research group went to Baggböle Herrgård. There everyone had a 15-min presentation about the research plans for the coming year. Interesting to hear about all the persons' work, even if in a short version, including the directions for our bosses (our group meetings are combined for two research groups).
For lunch we had a Christmas plate, that showed up to be a three-meal-course with inspirations from traditional Christmas food.


We could notice it was a nice sunny day outside, much more daylight than normal. Good thing that the daylight time is longer than the time the sun rises above the tree line. At 10.30 am we enjoyed the "sunrise" and at lunch time 1 pm it was gone again.


In the afternoon back at work again, we learned more about ribosomes and antibiotics listening to the Nobelprize winner Ada Yonath.

Education also need recovery

During two days UPSC (Maria's workplace) has been to Kronlund outside Vindeln. A lot of seminars from younger scientists at the departments were interesting, as well as to hear more about the new big plant project here in Umeå; sequencing of Norway spruce, the plant of biggest economical importance in Sweden.
Thursday evening we relaxed in the sauna for a while and had nice relaxing chats. When some people had had enough there finally were space in the hot tubs. Maria ended up drinking a few beers and not leaving the hot tub until 1.30 am. Why leave earlier? You can sleep some other time, and breakfast wasn't until 8 am next morning.

For Friday lunch we had traditional Swedish Christmas smorgasbord (=smörgåsbord, "julbord"). There were a lot of different fishes for the first plate/meal. As usual you eat until your stomach is overfull. No need for more food this day.

Before taking the bus back, we had time for a short walk. We were surprised to find Vindelälven frozen, but it wasn't that much more snow over all than in Umeå.

Christmas concert and potluck

1:30 pm the last rehearsal with Olle's choir before the real Christmas concert began downtown at "Kafé Station". At 3 pm the guests arrived, including Maria and Olle's uncle with wife.
The performance took about 75 minutes, 21 songs including talks in between.
The audience seemed to enjoy it, and the choir too. It is always much more fun to perform in front of an audience than just practicing. Olle had only had about three weeks to practice the different songs (the main part of the choir have performed most of the songs earlier years), but taking that into the account, it went quite good. A couple of songs were harder to sing, during these he leaned back a bit on the more experienced tenors.

Half past six it was time for the annual Christmas potluck for the choir. Most of the members showed up, some of them with their partners. We brought home baked bread. Even though it was a Christmas potluck, there were not that many typical Christmas dishes. Olle had some interesting discussions about choir life with one of the conductors.

Dissertation Dinner

An Australian guy had been pursuing his PhD for six years in the lab.
Today it was time for his dissertation, which he managed with great success during the morning.
In the evening there was a dinner with the title "Wild meats and great southern wines". The title was revealed as kangaroo and moose with roasted potatoes and chanterelle sauce. It was the first time we tried Kangaroo, it reminded us of rabbit/hare.
There was also a wine tasting with three different red wines from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
During the evening a spex (=amateur comedy theatre) about the life of the PhD student was performed. Maria was one of the actors.
We went back home about 1.45 am, but the party was far from over at that time.

First of Advent

We started yesterday with bringing the Christmas decoration box from the storage. Today we spread them in the apartment. All windows (except the bathroom) have now electrical advent wreaths and three of four rooms also got Christmas curtains, as long as four years ago we used them last time.
Unfortunately, we don't have snow for Advent. With some luck though, we at least have frost on the ground (after two weeks above freezing point). So some wintry feeling you could get at least.

In the afternoon we went to a office friend of Maria, to have mulled wine ("glögg") and cookies. Some Czech cookies on the plate as well, since we have a guest student in the lab right now.
Another way of getting Christmas feeling is to add cinnamon and cardamom to the coffee, at least something for Olle.

A hard work week

This week Maria started to analyze the huge amount of samples on the GC-MS. Since the 350 samples also needed to be modified before analysis, this meant Maria has been sitting pipetting for three hours a day this week - a hard time for her thumb.
Except some adjustments of the instrument during day two, the GC-MS instrument was running for 105 hours in a row starting Tuesday lunch. To be sure the instrument didn't stop working or a samples missed to be injected, a late check in the evening is a advantage. So around 10 pm Maria and Olle (thanks for the company!) biked to work, just to notice everything worked as it should. Saturday evening/night we both were glad the GC-MS run was over - it had been long days and not much of spare time this week (but time for exercise at IKSU in between working hours).
As usual the data analysis will take longer time then the data collecting. So Maria knows what she's doing the next month(s) or so. Doesn't help when you should use new programs and are not familiar with statistical analysis.

Campus Culture

During lunchtime today Maria went to listen to Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, one of the best big bands in the country. They were really good music players and and had a nice guest singer as well.

The fire(wo)man

Also this morning was for early birds, with moving out of the barracks and breakfast before 8 am.
Today's session contained more practical moments, out in the light rain. We had time for several accident scenes, where a few persons acted hurt (often unconscious) and three others were the first persons to arrive at the scene of the accident. What do you do with the hurt persons? Who do you prioritize? The person most severe hurt is usually quiet, while the chocked person without life threatening injuries screams most. Good learning moments to watch when you weren't participating yourself.

Another fun moment before lunch was when the fire engine came to the backyard. We all tried the fire hose, quite fun. Just before lunch time we took a ride with the fire engine. We all felt like excited kids.
After lunch there was time to conclude the course and then the sad good bye. When you finally start to know the others in the group, it's time to go back home to normal life. Of course we had the obligatory group photo in front of a fire engine.



Maria then had over an hour to wait for the small airplane to Stockholm. There she had another two hours before the flight back to Umeå.

(Maria thanks her friends for the photos)

What/How to do in emergency

Next morning arrived early with breakfast back at the fire station already 7.20 am.

Before lunch we focused on First Aid, learning how to handle different wounds.. We carefully went through the L-ABCDE steps: Life threatening situation - airways - breathing - circulation - disability - expose. The theory was mixed up with several practical moments, including how to do CPR ("HLR = hjärt-lung-räddning") and applying bandages. Everything is so different when you have tested to do the moment once before.







After lunch we watched some videos of fires/fire accidents, as well as discussing what to do/not to do. Then we all tested how to use a fire extinguisher on burning petrol. The teacher/fireman seemed to have fun starting fires all the time, of course in a controlled manner.





To the left you see what happen to a small fire when the hairspray bottle get warm - imaging it would be your bathroom (an excuse not to use hairspray :-).

Extinguish one of the three necessary components for a fire - fuel, warmth or oxygen.






The fireman also showed us why not to try put out boiling/burning oil with water - here it was only a small amount of water added to the pot. We all could see the use of a soucepan lid, baking tin or fire blanket instead.



Passing a maze in a smoke-filled room was another practical moment. Just to test how easily you get disoriented when you don't can trust your sight.

After an intensive day with a lot to learn, we had dinner together. The food was Swedish contemporary delivered to the fire station. It tasted really good after being active most of the day.
In the evening a few of us went to a local pub to have a beer. Maria were afterward known as the one with most glasses on the table, due to the three small beer tasting glasses next to the ordinary beer.

(Maria thanks her friends for the photos)

A first look at the fire station

Instead of having lunch Maria took the bus to the airport. Entertaining herself with a nice book she flew to Stockholm. There she just had time to change terminal before the next flight to Halmstad.
She was the first person to arrive to the fire station, where she together with 24 others from "the Swedish Blue Star" will join a two-day course in "risk and safety".
Introduction, a tour inside the fire station and dinner where the plans for the evening.
We then went to our "hotel" for the next two nights - within some military barracks. Bunk beds with six beds in each room and a common bathroom in the corridor. Nothing fancy, but we anyway won't spend much time there (went to bed short after arrival).