Student Nations

Student Nations

One of my favourite things about student life in Uppsala is the nations. Its something very unique to Uppsala (they have them in Lund too but Uppsala is way better of course) and something I didn't really know anything about before I came here. So in this post I hope to explain a bit about what they are, how they work and why you should join one.

What are the Nations?

History lesson: In the 16th century, students at Uppsala were a bit wild and were spoiling the city for everyone. The university decided that students should be policed by inspectors to make sure they didn't misbehave. Nations were created and each represented students from a particular county or region of Sweden, and if you did something bad, then your nation would tell your parents and even your church back home so you could be suitably punished.

What student nations looked like in 1608 (probably).

Nowadays, the nations are no longer there to police students, and are social groups which arrange all kinds of activities and give students a nice family kind of feeling. The student unions and the university itself arrange some things, but most of the fun stuff that happens in Uppsala is organised by the nations. They also run pubs, cafes, club nights, which are significantly cheaper than anywhere else in Uppsala.

How does it work?

Originally, students had to join the nation of their home region, but today everyone is free to join whichever one they want. Swedish students do often join the nation of their home region, but international students with no such loyalties can see which one they like best. You can also be a member of more than one nation if you want.

To join a nation you have to pay a membership fee every semester, which varies a bit between nations but is usually around 250 SEK. You will then recieve a nation card which lets you into not just things at your own nation but at all 13 of the nations.

Why should I join?

Joining a student nation is not compulsory, but to me it is such an essential part of student life here you'd be missing out if you didn't. You will meet loads of new people there from all kinds of different courses and backgrounds. While physicists are obviously the greatest people ever, sometimes it is nice to get out of the Angstrom bubble and talk to people studying completely different things.

You will also have the chance to take part in loads of different activities, many of which are free. My nation for example has a running club every wednesday, but other nations have yoga, photography groups, video gaming sessions, and loads more. One of my favourite things at the nations are gasques. These are super fancy dinners which they organise, where everyone dresses up fancy, eats posh food and sings weird Swedish songs. Its a really traditional Swedish thing which I think everyone in Uppsala should do at least once.

A gasque at Gotlands nation.

The nations also offer opportunities to work. You can bake cakes, bartend or sell coffee for a bit of extra income (check your visa rules if you're from outside the EU though) and have a lot of fun doing it. You can also get involved with the running of the nation if you have some good ideas.

Working in the kitchen making posh gasque food.

Which one should I join?

When I decided which nation to join, I visited them all to see what each one had to offer and the one I liked best was Gotlands, where I am now a member. Each one is slightly different and perhaps appeals to different people. There are stereotypes associated with each one and you will hear all kinds of negative things from people talking about rival nations. The best way to decide though is to go and talk to people there, see what they're offering and what the nation is like. I would highly recommend Gotlands nation for international students though, its such a friendly place and it really made me feel welcome in this new country.

This page lists all 13 of the nations (some are very difficult for non-Swedish speakers, but don't worry they mostly have easy abbreviations):

http://www.uu.se/en/admissions/student-life/the_student_nations/

This is a great website which lists many of the activities each week at the nations:

https://uppsalastudent.com/nationsguiden/calendar

Preparing for Arrival

Preparing for Arrival

The time is almost here for next year's master students to arrive in Uppsala. If you're one of them, here's a few tips on what you need to do before you get here.

1. Get a house

If you haven't already sorted out accommodation in Uppsala, you really need to do that ASAP. There are several different housing agencies that offer student housing, as well as all kinds of facebook groups that can help you. It is very difficult though, so if you don't have anywhere sorted when you move here, don't panic. I was in the same position this time last year, but after a week of intense searching I found a really nice room.

NOTE: most rooms in Sweden come unfurnished, so bring as much as you can from home to save carrying 15 tonnes of goods from IKEA on the edge of town

2. Be prepared for the weather

People who have never been to Sweden before often think that the entire country is covered in snow all year round. This is not true. I made the mistake of thinking Sweden would be cold in August, and wearing about 8 layers of clothes on my flight there. When I got outside I immediately realised this was a bad idea. Do not make the same mistake.

On the other hand, it can get really cold in the winter, and warm clothes (and all other clothes) are quite expensive here in Sweden, so pack accordingly.

3. Sign up for ALL the activities

By now, there should be a lot of activities planned for the new students. You should hopefully receive a programme of all the events organised by the nations when you arrive. I would urge anyone to go to as many of these events as they can. Not only is there often free food (see below), but you can meet great new people and learn a lot about life in Sweden. The physics department and the student unions also arrange lots of events in the first weeks, so keep an eye out for information from them too.

4. Join the Buddy programme

It can be hard moving to a new city where you don't know where anything is and how things work. Luckily the buddy programme exists to match you with somebody who knows the city a little better, and will arrange some fun activities for groups of new students.

http://www.uppsalastudentkar.se/international-students/studying-sweden/buddy-program/newbies

5. Free Things

Companies and student organisations will be dying to get you interested in whatever products or services they're offering, and one way they do this is giving you free things. Pens and notebooks which you can find in abundance are obviously useful but the best thing I got was a mobile sim card in the welcome pack, which gave me mobile internet for an entire year absolutely free, along with the novelty of a Swedish phone number.

6. Investigate the Nations

Joining a student nation in Uppsala is something everyone should do, but there are 13 to choose from so it can be difficult to decide which one. If you have no idea what the student nations are, don't worry, this will be the subject of my next post.

7. Learn some Swedish

This one is not strictly necessary, as everyone in Sweden speaks perfect English. If you feel like giving the local language a go, though, it can be really fun. A few basic words will always be appreciated.

8. Enjoy the summer

Appreciate it while you can, because it won't last long.

Swedish Summer

Swedish Summer

The frozen peninsula of Scandinavia has finally melted and is basking in the full glory of summer. Now that classes and exams are all over, things are very different in Uppsala. Most of the students have left now and the normal student activities have largely shut down until August, but a few nations are still open. Some of my classmates have decided to do project work over the summer (at Uppsala University you can choose to take independent project courses for 5, 10 or 15 credits on a subject of your choice (within reason) so long as you can find a supervisor willing to take you), however many people just take the opportunity to relax and visit family and friends. There are a few things still happening in Sweden to occupy those who are still there:

Summer is the perfect time to have a picnic at the river (before it freezes solid in winter)

Things Happening in Sweden Now

1. Football: Sweden was the only Scandinavian team to reach the finals of Euro 2016, a brief source of national pride, until they were eliminated in the group stages. After that, the whole country switched their allegiance to Iceland, who embarrassingly managed to knock out my native England before being beaten by France. The student nations that are still open have been showing all the games live for football fans, along with special food and drinks offers for the tournament.

2. Politics: For one week in summer, Swedish politicians all go to the island of Gotland to make speeches, debate things, and whatever else politicians do. This is where the parties set out their vision of what they want to do for Sweden, however with the next general election still over two years away they still have plenty of time to figure it out. Meanwhile in British politics...

3. Brexit: As a British person living in another EU country, the vote for the UK to leave the EU has me very worried. My right to live here and get free education is based on EU membership so is now up for negotiation. My advice for any British people considering studying in Sweden or any other EU country would be to apply as soon as you can to get in while the previous rules still apply.

4. Preparations for the new semester: I have already seen a few welcome-type events popping up on facebook (see link below). If you're coming to Uppsala in August keep an eye out for anything you might be interested in, and join all the facebook groups to make sure you don't miss anything. In my experience the ones who organise the most stuff are the Erasmus ones, which you can join even if you're not an Erasmus student. Another thing to get involved with before you arrive is the Buddy programme. I know several of the buddy leaders for next semester and I'm sure they'll have loads of great activities planned.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1877623419131484/

5. Ongoing rivalry with Denmark: 

http://www.thelocal.se/20160707/that-time-sweden-and-denmark-got-into-a-twitter-war

6. Midsummer: Another month brings another weird Swedish holiday. Midsummer is a day where everyone wears flowers on their head and dances round poles. You will have the opportunity to learn dances like the "frog" and the "rocket", which sounds really weird but its actually a lot of fun. It is also a day where everyone goes to the countryside (I went to a lake half an hour from the city) and has barbecues and goes swimming in freezing water of questionable cleanliness.

You too can look like a forest nymph at a Swedish Midsummer lunch (not for hayfever sufferers).

As August approaches and the new students arrival gets closer I will talk about what you should expect when you get here, and what you should do before you leave. In the meantime, enjoy the summer wherever you may be.

Holidays and Travelling

Last time I promised a post about how to apply to university in Sweden, but since the deadline for starting in September has passed and the deadline for starting next year is ages away, I thought I'd write about something more seasonal. So this post will be about holidays and travelling.

Timetabling in Uppsala university is a mysterious process which seems to follow no logical structure. Firstly, it's not the same from week to week. You might have three classes for one course one week then none at all the next week, and they can be on any day at any time. There's even a horrific possibility that classes can start at 8am, however luckily I have largely avoided this. They usually give you the timetable each half-semester at a time, a week or two before classes start, so long term planning is quite difficult.

Despite this, the number of hours of class a week is a lot less than I've had before. However, my friends doing theoretical physics courses seem to have it a lot more intense (moral of the story, astronomy and space physics is best). It also depends a lot on how many credits you're taking. You need 120 for the masters in total which works out at 15 per half-semester (usually one 10 credit and one 5 credit course), but sometimes you might have more in one period and less in another. You can take more courses than required then you can choose which ones to put on your final transcript, but obviously doing this will give you a lot less free time and a lot more stress. NOTE: If you are from outside the EU/EEA and therefore a fee-paying student you will have to pay more if you take more courses than required. More information about this is available on the university website.

A typical week of my timetable (Physics of Galaxies = 10c, AToPT = 5c)

The strange timetable means that sometimes you might find yourself without any classes for a whole week. This is, in my opinion, the perfect opportunity to go travelling, and see more of Sweden or other nearby countries. Uppsala is pretty convenient for this too.

Also, despite the university website saying there are no specific holidays for Christmas and Easter, you will get at least 2 weeks without class over Christmas and a week or two at Easter.

Trains

You can get a train from Uppsala to Stockholm in about 40 minutes, and from there you can reach anywhere in Sweden, and even take a train to Norway or Denmark too. It can be a bit pricey but if you book far enough in advance you can get a good deal. A popular trip is the 17 hour journey from Stockholm to Narvik at the very top of Norway, where you can see the Northern lights or the midnight sun in summer.

Planes

Uppsala is really close to Arlanda airport, which has flights to almost anywhere you can think of. However, the cheapest airlines use different airports instead. Västerås airport has cheap flights to London and you can get a bus there from Uppsala. Skavsta airport is south of Stockholm and a bit more difficult to get to, but you can get really cheap flights across Europe.

Istanbul is only 4 hours away from Stockholm.

Ferries

Probably the cheapest and most fun way to see other countries from Uppsala. You can take an overnight ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn (Estonia), Helsinki (Finland) or Riga (Latvia). The cheapest option is the day trip cruise where you spend the night on the boat on the way out and on the way back, and have around 8 hours or so in the city to have a look round. If you go with a group of 4 sharing a cabin you can get this return trip for less than 10 euros each, which is amazingly cheap. You can also use the opportunity to stock up on things which are expensive in Sweden (eg alcohol) but really cheap in Latvia etc. The ferry trips are something I'd recommend to anyone in Uppsala.

You can get to Tallinn for less than 10 euros return.

I would encourage anyone coming to study in Uppsala, especially those from outside Europe to take advantage of all these travel options and visit some of the Sweden's nicest places and its beautiful neighbours too. If you're from outside the EU your student visa for Sweden allows you to visit most countries in Europe (not the UK though).

Things that happen in Sweden - Part 2

At the end of May, the student nations (which I will discuss in detail in a future post) host their May Ball, the fanciest occasion of the year. This is your chance to dress up in your finest clothes and pretend to be Cinderella or Prince Charming. One unusual tradition of the May Ball is that choir groups will go round student housing areas serenading residents in the hope that somebody will agree to be their date to the ball. I experienced this at 2am one night and was very confused. I am told in future that the thing to do is bring them sandwiches and drinks and they will leave. Sometimes Sweden can be a very strange place.

Is there a satanic ritual happening outside my house? No, it's just a May ball choir.

Hello people of the internet

Hello people of the internet.

My name is Tom and I've been asked to take over this blog and tell you all about what it's like to study physics in Uppsala. I’ve been here for about 9 months now, so hopefully I have some experiences worth sharing with you, and the information they don’t tell you on the university website. This is the first time I'm writing a blog so please bear with me if I've formatted it really badly or something. Also, the previous people who wrote this blog have some really good posts too so be sure to have a loot there too.

Who are you?

Who are you Tom? you may ask, and indeed I may ask myself if I'm feeling philosophical. So here's a brief summary of my life. I come from the distant land of the United Kingdom. I grew up in the beautiful county of Northumberland then studied Astrophysics at University College London (which, as the name implies, is in London) before moving to Uppsala to do my masters.

A visual representation of my national identity (left).

Here in Uppsala I'm studying the physics master programme, specialising in astronomy and space physics. I've always been interested in space since I was a child and there's loads of really interesting courses here in that area. I've also taken a few courses outside this area, including ones about climate and meteorology which are really interesting too.

When I'm not studying my favourite thing to do is travelling to different cities and countries, which is something you can easily do from Uppsala. Another thing I really enjoy is getting involved in weird Swedish traditions, and sharing weird British traditions with Sweden in return.

Why are you here?

This is a question many people have asked me. Before I moved to Sweden, my family would say "why are you moving to Sweden? you've never been there, you don't speak Swedish, its too cold etc.". But, in my own mind I had good enough reasons, and here I am.
When I was studying in London, a lot of my friends went on a year abroad as part of their course. I couldn't do one on my course and I was really jealous that they all got to have loads of fun living in exotic foreign countries. This was the pull factor that made me consider doing the masters abroad. There were also significant push factors making me want to leave the UK. The conservative government had already tripled tuition fees to £9000 (over 100,000 kronor) per year and now they're taking away a lot of grants that were available to students from less well off families, meaning studying another course there would have been very expensive. Also, living costs in London are INSANELY high.
So, I decided I'd go abroad for the masters. Now, I must admit, Uppsala University was not my top choice initially. I didn't have a top choice at all, I just blindly applied to universities in any country that taught in English and had low (or better no) tuition fees. Then, when I received replies from them I did more research into each one and Uppsala really stood out as somewhere that sounded nice to study. In addition to being completely free (for EU students) and taught in English, it had courses that sounded really interesting and the student life seemed to be really unique and fun. I chose Uppsala as my first choice then all I had to do was pass my final exams in London and I had a place here.

First day in Uppsala.

So that was my reasoning of why I applied in the first place, but I still didn't really know anything about Uppsala until I arrived here. Now that I've been here a little while I know I made the right decision in coming here and I've had so much fun over the last months. Being a student is not just about academics, and I hope to share with you all the fun things you can take part in here (starting today) as well as important stuff about the course itself, so please keep reading.

Things that happen in Sweden - Part 1

As everyone in Europe will know, last weekend was the Eurovision Song Contest, this year held here in Sweden. In the UK, Eurovision is seen as a bit of a joke, where you watch people from countries you've never heard of sing awful songs then politically vote for their neighbours. In Sweden, however, its taken much more seriously. The process starts months before the contest with a televised nationwide competition to see who will represent the country. Before the contest are hours of analysis of past winners and speculation on this years winners. Then when it's time for the big event itself, its an excuse for a party. The nation gathers round their TV screens and consumes 3 times more crisps than any ordinary night (see link) and an excess of alcohol. This was definitely true at my Eurovision party.

http://www.metro.se/nyheter/sa-har-mycket-chips-smaller-vi-i-oss-under-eurovision/EVHoew!O3zTiCk3oxa6/

Eurovision party (I don't have a blue face all the time)

Unfortunately Sweden came in 5th place this year, behind winners Ukraine, so no doubt there will be a TV post-mortem to find out how Sweden can improve for next year. However, the contest will be watched with just as much enthusiasm next year, so if you're here it's definitely something to look forward to (or dread if you're one of those people who hates Eurovision).

NEXT TIME: How to apply - Tom's guide through the confusing world of University Admissions Sweden.

P.S. If anybody has any questions or things you'd like me to talk about in future posts, leave a comment and I will try and get back to you as soon as possible.

Accessing articles

So this isn't really a post, I just wanted to put this here in case anyone is ever looking to access a journal article using Uppsala University's credentials. For some reason it's hard to find information about how this works on the UU website (for me at least). Say you have an article that you've found on a journal's website, like this one:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370157315002604

You'll notice if you click this (from home, I'm not sure about from a UU connection) that you don't have access to the full article. To gain access you can use UU's proxy, by inserting ".ezproxy.its.uu.se" (without the quotes, obviously) after the .com but before the /, like so:

http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.its.uu.se/science/article/pii/S0370157315002604

Now you'll see that if you click the link it takes you to your UU login page. If you log in, it will return you to the article page, now with full access. There is a full list of databases supported by this feature on ezproxy.its.uu.se, but it's pretty long and I've not yet encountered an article that I haven't been able to access in this way. Happy reading!

Summertime, and the living's easy (or at least easier)

Well, I have survived exams. Sorry about the long break since the last post, but I was a bit (or rather a lot) distracted by trying to finish up everything to end the year. I actually didn't quite manage; I have a few assignments I still need to do, as well as a 3 credit project, so I've got some work to do over the summer. Luckily, as I've said before, the Swedish are very relaxed about deadlines, so I just need to finish this stuff up "before September" because my teacher/supervisor is leaving Uppsala that month.

The project I'm doing is actually part of the initial Introduction to the Physics Master Programme course that every master student does in the first semester. I'm using it to build up a bit of a foundational knowledge base that should help me for my thesis. I'm not totally sure where I'm going to do my thesis yet (it's very easy to go abroad for a thesis from UU, you just need to sort out the details yourself), but I'm hoping to get a project relating to the AdS/CFT correspondence. So far I only have experience on one side of the duality which is also what my little project will be about (large-N gauge theories), but I'll get some exposure to the string theory side next semester from the string theory courses, which I'm planning on taking.

A nice summer shot of Ångström.

Exam time

So it is once again time for exams. Actually this semester I only have one exam (for Gravitation and Cosmology), but I do have a ton of assignments that I'm buried under at the same time. This means posts are a little less frequent, sorry about that! My exam is on the 29th of May, which means after that I'm more or less free for the summer (barring leftover assignments that will still need done). The almost 3 month summer is definitely a benefit of studying in Uppsala!

With June almost around the corner, the evenings are starting to get lighter again. It's definitely still light outside at 10pm by now, so soon it'll be hard to get to sleep on time! When you're looking for housing in Uppsala, good quality blinds or curtains are a big bonus if you can find them. As for me, I'm thinking about making some sort of curtain out of duct tape. Well, if I ever find the time!

This is also around the time when people are thinking about what to do next year: projects, summer work, etc. I got two pretty interesting emails in this vein this week. One was a reminder that the physics department are starting an exchange program with São Paulo, which would be a very cool opportunity for a semester abroad! The other was about Nordita's Master Class 2015. Nordita, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, are putting on a series of lectures on theoretical physics this August that are specifically aimed at master students. The dates clash with my family holiday this summer, but it would be an interesting chance for incoming theory students to get some "hands-on" experience experience before the program begins! 

Valborg and bike theft

So yesterday was Valborg (aka Walpurgis Eve, aka Sista April) here in Sweden. As it turns out, this is a pretty big deal here in Uppsala. So much so that people come from Stockholm to join in the celebrations! Apparently the actual holiday has to do with saying goodbye to the winter and welcoming in the spring, but realistically it's just an excuse to have a huge party all across the city.

One of the big events of the day is the river rafting. Teams of about 3-5 people make rafts out of Styrofoam and ride on them in front of as many spectators as can fit along the river. There is a big rush in the morning to get a spot near one of the little waterfalls, where many rafts capsize. All of the rafts were built outside Ångström the week before which was an event in itself: there were big party tents set up with a temporary pub and other activities surrounding the building of the rafts. For the big event there were also stalls all along the river selling food, balloons, sunglasses, and all sorts of other things.

A Game of Thrones themed raft sailing on the river

Free food + more at Ångströmlaboratoriet

Well, the sun is finally coming back to Uppsala! I couldn't believe it yesterday when it was still beautiful and sunny outside, and I checked my watch and it was 19:00! It's getting me excited for the actual summer time. Last weekend I also caught a rare glimpse of the sun in the Netherlands, where I had gone to visit for a belated Easter with my family and for my girlfriend's birthday.

This past week was another research lunch, this time hosted by the Nuclear Physics division. Research lunches are great events that the physics department puts on once per month. Each lunch is hosted by a different research division (they are all listed on the left side of the department's homepage). Basically researchers from the hosting division come and share a free lunch with bachelor and master students in physics. This is a great chance to meet potential project or thesis supervisors. Typically there is also a 5 minute introduction about what the division does, and each researcher talks for about 1 minute about their own research.

I really like the lunches because I like to hear about what all is going on at the university, and I often use them to ask about academic careers in general. There are always international people present who may have done PhDs and post-docs in various countries, so it's nice for me to get a bit of a handle on what my next steps will be. Also, it's a free meal, so everyone is always happy to go, whether they're interested in that division or not!

Easter time!

As most people probably know, there was a solar eclipse about two weeks ago visible from Northern Europe. It was quite cloudy in Uppsala, which meant anyone who had bought special viewing glasses was disappointed. However, the clouds did provide enough protection to look at the sun for a short time without hurting yourself, and I did get a few good looks at the eclipse. I was actually in class while it was happening, but the nice thing about being in physics is that your teachers are likely to also be interested in this sort of thing, so we had a break during the lecture to go check it out.

My brother Callum got this shot through the clouds in Maastricht.
This is pretty much what it looked like in Uppsala too.

In other moon-related news, it's Easter this weekend (the date of Easter is based on the lunar cycle)! Good Friday and Easter Monday are both holidays in Sweden, so that makes for a nice long weekend. A lot of students seem to also have the entire next week free, but I still have class, albeit only for four hours. I was planning on going back to Amsterdam for the break, but I waited too long and flights got super expensive, so I decided I'm going to go next weekend instead.

Aurora in Uppsala!

It's been a sunny and beautiful weekend here in Uppsala, made even better by the fact that my girlfriend Lisette came to visit! I also had to renew my passport at the Canadian embassy in Stockholm (which was conveniently only a 5 minute walk from Central Station) so we did a bit of shopping and had a drink in Stockholm as well, which was nice. This coming week is basically a studying week for me as I have my Mathematical Methods of Physics exam on Monday, just before the new term starts.

Last night there was a big geomagnetic storm which resulted in visible Northern Lights pretty far south, and they were definitely visible from Uppsala! I didn't manage to get any photos from my phone, but my friend Davide managed to snap this photo with his iPhone:

Definitely not professional quality, but not bad for a phone picture!
[View on Instagram]

The same, yet different

I had kind of a strange experience yesterday. I was biking to class, which is a pretty routine thing for me, and all of a sudden I got the feeling of being lost. Now if you know me you'll know that I'm terrible with directions, but come on. I've been living at my new place for about 3 weeks now and I bike to Ångström pretty much every day. I should know where I'm going. And yet, somehow, I just didn't recognize the street properly. I wasn't lost, of course, and once I got over my brief confusion I continued on my way to class. It wasn't until I saw a cloud of dust blowing around in the Ångström parking lot that I realized what was different: the streets were dry.

I know this may not sound like much of a revelation, but this was the first time I had seen my path to school without it being damp or snowy. It's been sunny and warm the past few days, so I'm going to go ahead and get my hopes up that this is a sign of winter ending. That, and the fact that even if I have class until 17.00 these days it's still light outside when I get home, which is a novelty after the darkness!

But enough about the weather. The class I was cycling to yesterday (and today) was the last component in my Quantum Field Theory course: a crash course on the Higgs boson! I had actually done something similar to this before, but that was before I had the tools to really appreciate what exactly I was doing.

Missed deadline

I've said before that I would try to post every 2 weeks, and if you check the dates you'll see that I missed last week's post, but luckily I have a good reason: I was in Canada! One of my best friends was getting married and I went back for about a week for the wedding and to catch up with friends (it had been about 2.5 years since I was last home). When I got back to Uppsala I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of snow and relative warmth compared to a week ago.

The clock is ticking!

There is no break right now (in fact there aren't really any official breaks at all during the year, but that's another story), so I had to miss some class. Actually quite a lot of class, since I have Quantum Field Theory every day, and Mathematical Methods doesn't have very many lectures so missing even one (or in my case two) is a big deal. I also have an assignment due today for QFT about the material I missed, so the stress is on.

To infinity and beyond!

Homelessness averted! Since my last post I have successfully managed to secure myself a new place to live. I'll be moving to an area of Uppsala called Eriksberg, which is quite a bit closer to Ångstöm than my current location in Gränby: my commute will go from about 5.5km down to about 3km! Woohoo! I don't honestly know whether I got my place from Blocket or Studentboet (see the helpful links), but it is definitely second hand, which as I mentioned before is the easiest type of housing to get.

There's been a lot more snow this week. It's not overly deep but because it has been coming down more or less constantly it's very hard for them to keep the paths clear, making biking a nightmare. I fell once, but I was going slow and landed on my feet so no big deal. I have been taking the bus to and from Ångström though because it hasn't been worth the trouble to bike the past few days.

So, I don't normally just share cool stuff on the blog but I thought this was worth it. I saw this video today on reddit and I wanted to post it. It's a video (as in, a compilation of actual photographs, not CGI) taken by the Cassini spacecraft approaching Saturn, with bonus fly-bys of a few moons. I'm seriously blown away at how detailed these images are, and just in general by the fact that we as a species are capable of pulling things like this off.

In Saturn's Rings 5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation - Expanded, Improved from Stephen van Vuuren on Vimeo.

On the hunt

I'm back in Uppsala! I've had the first couple of lectures of the new term and it looks like it's going to be a good one. For this period I've got Mathematical Methods of Physics II and Quantum Field Theory. This selection is interesting because it shows how different the various courses can be at UU. While both courses are 10 ECTs, QFT has about 36 lectures, 5 or 6 homework assignments, and no exam, whereas FMMII (the abbreviation for mathematical methods) has only 15 lectures and an exam, with homework assignments optional. This has no bearing on how easy or hard either course will be, it's just an illustration of the variety of course styles that are available here.

Just imagine me on my bike, with the back end swinging
wildly, but definitely looking just as awesome.

There is some serious snow here now (not too deep, but it's not going anywhere any time soon) with the roads covered in hard packed snow and ice. I was thinking about getting a bus pass, but after a few days back I'm getting used to biking in it, so I might just save myself the money. I bought my bike used and the tires have basically no grip, so I can't brake hard, but I can do my own cycling version of Tokyo Drift, which makes me feel like one of the cool kids. Also, since I bike through a park on my way to Ångström, the snow makes the commute pretty beautiful.

So around the time that I wrote my last post, I got the news that I have to move out of my current room by the end of February. This came as a bit of a shock as I had previously been told that the room would be available to me until the summer, if not this time next year. However, it seems that my roommates/landlords have decided to move, so I need to as well.

Back to the grindstone

... Well, sort of. As I mentioned in my last post I have an unusually long break this year, with classes not resuming until January 19th. So I'm writing this post from Amsterdam! However, just because I'm on holiday doesn't mean I don't have coursework to do, so don't be too jealous.

My (left) and my girlfriend's (right) bikes. Don't be fooled
by this awkward perspective, mine is bigger, I promise.

From what I hear the relatively warm weather we were having before I left Uppsala is now more or less gone, and I notice that the next few days on the forecast call for snow, with the temperature to dip down to -10C on Sunday. The combination of snow and cold will make for some uncomfortable cycling conditions, I'm sure, so this seems like a good time to talk about getting around Uppsala.

The best way to get around is without a doubt by bike. Living in Amsterdam had already changed me into a cyclist, so I was thrilled to see that cycling is also very popular in Uppsala. The city is well equipped with bike paths, and it is small enough that almost everything is within comfortable (less than 30 minutes) biking distance. Uppsala isn't exactly hilly, but it's not totally flat either, so I'd recommend a bike that has at least a few gears. Mine is a 3-speed, and that works just fine. There are used bikes for sale on various Facebook groups/pages (Buy and Sell Items, Buy & Sell in Uppsala, Buy / Sell a bike in Uppsala), and at the Saturday market on Vaksala Torget. For reference, I paid 700kr for mine, and bought it through Facebook.

'Tis the Season!

Lit up trees along Uppsala's river, Fyrisån. 

So it's almost that time again: Christmas break! It's looking Christmas-y here, with beautiful Christmas lights and even the occasional dusting of snow (or at least frost). This coming Friday I'll be heading back to Amsterdam to visit family and friends over the holidays. I had my only exam of the term yesterday, and tomorrow is my last lecture before my break begins.

Scheduling of lectures and exams at Uppsala University is... interesting. As in, totally erratic. I've been led to believe that this is common in Sweden, but I don't know for sure. In any case, the year is basically broken down into 2 semesters (Autumn and Spring), each containing 2 periods. The exact dates are available online at the Academic Calendar page. This page also contains one of the scarier pieces of text that I encountered while I was applying to Uppsala:

New kid on the blog

Hi!

My name is John and I've recently been asked to take over this blog. I'll be writing about life in Sweden, Uppsala University, and tossing some physics in every now and again for good measure. But first of all, an introduction: who is John?

Me at Nikhef, the Dutch National Institute for
 Subatomic Physics, which was right across the street
from where I lived in Amsterdam

I'm a first year masters student in physics, following the theoretical physics track. I was born in Scotland, but I moved around quite a lot as a child before finally settling down (for a while) in Calgary, Canada. Since this was where I lived longest, had practically all of my teenage years, and picked up my accent, if you ask me I'll say I'm Canadian (and I've got the passport to prove it). My bachelors degree is from Amsterdam University College (AUC) in the Netherlands, where I lived and studied for three years.

It came, it went, it didn't really conquer...

Lame Latin puns aside, the snow did actually come for a few weeks and it was amaaaazing! Well, mostly. Most days were a balmy -5 but there were a few scary nights where the temperature plummeted to -15, and that's not fun anymore.. (those days it feels like you're wearing a t-shirt under your third layer and winter jacket.. brr).. However, I did manage to convince my wife to go on a pulka with me (a pulka being a small, fairly cheap and crappy sledge that children and easily amused adults adore). This is exactly the one we used, 100 SEK in Clas Ohlson: http://www.intersport.se/Root/inRiver%20Resources/135426682783768214.png

For those not in the know, Sunnerstabacken is where it's at, where all the cool kids go (literally, our combined ages were larger than the cumulative sum of all kids) and the funny thing is, all of them, from the youngest (like 2) to the oldest (like 2 + x, where x is an integer in the bounded interval [0, x'], and x' is some constant given by the subjective definition of youth ... in reality, like 12 or something...), were utterly fearless. Maybe it's the fact that their lower mass equates to lower maximum acceleration, maybe it's the fact that children think themselves indestructible, I don't know... But one thing is certain, we certainly weren't. Those things go fast! But that's the best part. Or even better is hanging your legs out as brakes and not realising that despite being effective, it also sprays a ridiculous amount of snow in your face, and as most are well aware, snow is known as a "cold substance", and cold things hurt my face... I have some pictures on my phone, I look hilarious and very very cold. So we did that for an hour or two, until of course, we took it too far and went on the big and scary and icy slope and nearly killed ourselves (I saw nothing the whole way down and was mid-air more than once... Ana broke her back for a few days... Overall, it was awesome...Seriously.)

But then it left :( About a week or two ago, it gradually became milder and slushier and greyer.. (I've always wondered why during winter the weather is, on average, better when there's regular snow then when there isn't... Maybe something to do with the conditions that give snow are also favourable to clear skies and calm weather? Not always, of course, but I did notice a lot of the snowy days were also sunny... Now it's just wet and grey and depressing... I feel like I'm back in Ireland, but with dearer beers :P)

But enough about snow, let me talk a little about a project I just started in the Astrophysics division. It's regarding the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a "major multi-filter imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey" (Wikipedia). Basically, they take a bunch of measurements of many different quantities interesting and useful for astronomers/astrophysicists/etc, and catalogue them in a massive database which can be accessed freely (there's even a bunch of tutorials on the site to get you up and running). Every now and then, they come out with a new data release which usually provides many more objects than the previous one. The current release is 10 but we're currently using 7, meaning all our graphs, results, and so on, could look a lot better and be a lot more informative if we were using 10.

However, the database is queried using SQL and unfortunately they have a tendency to change the names of all the objects in the database from release to release (meaning to get the same thing in two different releases can have completely different code). So my task is to determine the new code for each release and compare the results from release to release. Do I get the same results as everyone else in release 7? Do I get similar (but "better") results in 10? And so far, I've had really great success, which makes me very happy. I hadn't used SQL before but I really enjoy it now. The whole interface is a bit of a mess (some releases use different sites, servers, many things are duplicated in "old version/new version" fashion, which is a little frustrating) and the SkyServer for Data Release 7 (DR7) went down yesterday, forcing me to use a different separate server just for DR7 and below. However, that one needed me to make a new account to access (though it looks almost identical) but became upset when my queries returned too many results (I expected around 20,000 -"too many" in this context means around 20 million....). So my account ran out of storage space but wouldn't let me delete the database (it was very upset). So I had to create another account (bear in mind, these all required different email addresses...) and finally got everything working perfectly :)

Except not. Why? Because while the general trend has been DR7 = one set of code, and DR8-DR10 = equals another set, for these particular sets of queries, DR9 and 10 had the same code but DR8 was different. Completely different. So different we couldn't get it to work and have lost faith that it can be done in DR8.

But having it in the newest release is pretty good, right? Yes, of course, except (there's always an except, isn't there?!) what we want to do in the previous releases can't conveniently be down in DR10  - the entire underlying structure has been changed. We wanted to deal with quasars and low redshift galaxies, and instead everything is mixed together so our results are sort of like this:

DR7: 13 000 objects (galaxies, low redshift quasars)
DR8: ????
DR9: 17 000 objects (niiice, same order of magnitude, a few more, very very good)
DR10: 600 000 objects (wtf? That makes no sense.)

But we're working on it and we're well ahead of schedule, so that's great to hear :) Also, it's my first time being "promoted" to a full-fledged access-card wielder, and I'm so happy. I get to sit in a fancy department which has a ridiculously fancy espresso maker and coffee bean grinder and free fruit and a fika data on Monday's and every second Thursday and "AstroPub" on Fridays (lecturers, researchers, students all meet in a random pub for a beer to relax after the week).

I tell ya, "easily-impressed" doesn't even cut it with me ;)

So that's the story so far.. Will update more how this project turns out, it's becoming very exciting now that this underlying work is mostly finished. Now the "interesting" stuff appears (though I'm too damn curious for my own good that I already found this stuff extremely interesting).

Oh wait! I almost forgot. I saw the TandemLaboratoriet last week, Uppsala's very own particle accelerator. Really cool because it's the one and only I've ever been so close to! (I did go to CERN a few years ago but they don't let us mere mortals near the actual machine itself... thank god, actually!). I met some lovely researchers and prospective Master's students, while being fed and given far too much coffee, an all-in-all, productive day :) I also saw a presentation by a previous PhD. student, now working in Stockholm University, who is working on Sweden's first and only SETI project (SETI being the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life, like Star Trek, sort-of, but we stay here and nothing has happened so far...). It's a tough field to work in by the sounds of it, very difficult to get papers published or be taken seriously, which I think is really unfair :( Definitely one of the fields that if (or when?) they discover something, everyone will say "Well, don't I feel like a jerk now..."

Good luck SETI PEOPLE!

P.S. A bunch of interesting lecturers are happening on Thursday & Friday, people should go:
http://www.uu.se/en/media/news/article/?id=3192&area=2,16&typ=artikel&na=&lang=en