Dear Lab Life...

Oops, so clearly I'm starting to slack off with this blogging thing. Just one of the many things I seem to not be getting done now that I'm working in the lab. 3 weeks in and I can already feel my life slowly slipping away. I guess that's when you know you're properly researching. I don't want to be so ignorant as to compare it to being a doctor starting out as a medical intern (I'm going through a major Grey's Anatomy stage at the moment, sorry) as I know that's definitely a lot tougher, but when 9 hours is the average amount of time you spend in the lab every day and you start thinking 7pm is the normal time to head home, then I feel I have some right to say that medical research is fairly intense- and I haven't even started working with the parasite yet!

I won't bore you with the details of my day to day life, but I will say that there are two kinds of days in the lab...

Office days, when I spend the day sitting in the shared office space, reading journal articles, making flow charts, drinking ridiculous amounts of coffee, and continually checking facebook.

... And lab days, when I hang out in the lab the whole time, growing cells, running assays, watching mice being murdered, doing copious amounts of pipetting, watching FACS analyses run for hours, and being aware of every second that exists in a 5 minute timeframe whilst cells are being centrifuged. You will never be more aware of how long 5 minutes can last than when you're waiting for a centrifuge to run.

Reason #218 why I shouldn't be left alone in the lab

Now I wouldn't say medical research is particularly difficult. It's not rocket science and it's not saving lives (well what you're doing could potentially save lives down the track... but you get what I mean). Pipetting and balancing a centrifuge is not that hard, but what's a bit more tricky is understanding why you're running this particular assay, how this relates to a bigger picture of the immune system, and what greater things can come from this (the answer is always 'a potential cancer vaccine', I swear). And studying immunology papers is no case of light reading- it takes a lot of concentration to actually take in and process all those words and ideas your eyes are presenting to you. Yet every day I look forward to going into the lab (crazy, I know).

Hours spent pipetting definitely isn't everyone's cup of tea, and to be honest, it doesn't even sound that fun to me, but for some reason I enjoy it. Yes it sucks working Good Friday, Good Monday, and being told that "oh yeah, by the way, you'll need to come in this Saturday and Sunday to sort and infect cells for a couple of hours", but I still like it. I'm not sure why this is, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that I simply just really enjoy pretending to be a scientist. On Monday I was left alone in the lab for most of the day for the first time, and even though I wouldn't necessarily classify it as 'fun', I really enjoyed hooking my laptop up to the speakers in the lab and blaring Josh Pyke and Lykke Li while I washed bone marrow out of mice femurs.

But maybe what I really like best is wearing my MTC (mikrobiologi, tumör- och cellbiologi) department ID card all day and swiping and coding my way into the entry-restricted labs. Entry cards make me feel super special, and seriously, there's nothing I love more than feeling special.

Too excited about getting my entry ID card after a week of jumping through admin loops

Dear Pippi and Parasites...

This week I started my lab research project. The first thing my supervisor, Benedict, said to me was "You better not be Australian. And from the University of Sydney? They're the worst sort." It's been all fun and jokes since then. We spend the day pipetting and singing along to classic hits in the lab, and on Friday he let me leave early so I could go buy socks to dress as Pippi Longstocking for the Paxparty that night. Before I left he warned me that I better not get pregnant at this party, because then I'd have to leave the research group as the parasite that we're working with can be fatal to foetuses. Toxoplasma gondii is serious stuff, guys. Nah, not really. If you've ever had a cat or been to France, you're probably positive for it. I can say yes to both these things, so hello parasites!

The research group that I'm working in is studying the interaction between NK (natural killer) cells and Toxoplasma gondii, so it's my two favourite areas- immunology and medical microbiology. I've only been in the lab since Thursday, but I already think it's going to be a really useful experience. The project is fare less structured than I imagined it to be, and it seems I'm expected to help out with the overall research like a Masters or PhD student would, which is pretty crazy. The most independent experiment I've ever done was in micro when we had to isolate a certain bacteria over a number of weeks. The idea was that we did it all ourselves, but when you're provided with the materials required for tests you "might" need to do, and instructions for experiments which you "might" want to conduct, it's far from actually being a self designed and performed experiment. This research project, on the other hand, seems like it will be an amazing opportunity to do proper research, but at the same time I feel completely overwhelmed by what I think is expected of me. Hopefully I rise to the challenge and don't make (more of) a complete idiot of myself. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, this is the closest I've come to actually writing a proper blog post, so I feel like I should deviate into some random nonsense and menial chatter... Like that apart from buying colourful socks on Friday, I also bought a super lovely dress from a store called Beyond Retro, in Södermalm. It's hard to see the pattern in the picture, but it's of roses and hydrangeas and other nice flowers. It's a particularly grandma-looking pattern, but in the words of my Swedish friend, Carol: "I am old people". (She was saying that she was like an old person because she liked things like gerberas, old people chocolate, and old clothes. I agreed. Being old people when you're young is the best.)

Oh and my Pippi costume last night was amazing, if I do say so myself. Check out that hair!

Dream Story Sharing Time

I just woke up from a 2 hour nap (it's 5.30pm) after spending a hard day in bed catching up on Grey's Anatomy episodes and battling a serious hangover. I rarely get hangovers and when I do, I feel well and truly sorry for people that wake up most Saturdays and/or Sundays like this. It would be the worst.

Anyway. I'm breaking from my usual writing patterns and just to make this blog even more ridiculously pointless, I'm going to share what fragments of my dream I can remember. (This is your last chance to close this page if you don't enjoy random pointless Tessa Stories. Consider yourself warned.)

... In my dream I was at a supermarket. I can't remember who I was with but it had an 'exchange-y' vibe, so it was probably some exchange friends. Half way through the dream I had a parallel dream that Jane tagged a bunch of travel photos on Facebook. (Heads up Jane, it looks like you have a really good time in Fez!) Does anyone else have parallel dreams? It's like a parallel story in a book or tv show- a separate plot to the main story, but with a common link. Well I do.

Back to the dream. I remember walking back and forth along the same aisles because I kept forgetting something and then going back to get it, but then leaving something at the other end, etc etc. The aisles weren't like normal supermarket aisles. They were kind of IKEA maze-like and involved lots of manoeuvring to get around. There was even a drawbridge / trapdoor that you had to climb through and pull out stairs to go down.

I remember I had three shopping bags. One definitely had kale in it, and another had alcohol, including a bottle of wine that had been bent out of shape. Even in the dream I was curious about how a glass bottle can be bent.

At some point the supermarket started closing (this is the good bit), and so the whole store started sinking into a lake. It was kind of like the roof just came off and everything slowly sank away into the water. And even though you were in water, you didn't really feel like you were wet or swimming even. It was like being in air, but you were in water, if that makes any sense. Probably not.

I remember I'd left my grocery bags further away in another aisle, but most of that part of the store had disappeared into the lake so I headed to leave. By now this top part of the store was almost completely gone and I had to grab onto the trapdoor as it starting sinking to hoist myself out.

I'm not sure what happened after that, but I remember I spoke to a supermarket assistant at some point and told her that I'd left my groceries in the store, but she assured me that tomorrow when the supermarket rose from the lake, I'd be able to get them back. This seemed like a reasonable answer to a reasonable problem- such is the world of dreams.


Anywho, you've just lost a good couple of minutes of your life reading this pointless story. On the upside, now that it's written down, I'm probably less likely to try and tell people this story in person, so you can feel good in yourself for having saved someone from going through that.

And now I'm off to clean up the mess of broken pottery and spilt dirt in my room. Apparently I knocked over my pot of gerberas when I got home last night. Nice one, drunk Tess.

Dear Books and Sunshine...

Before I left Australia everyone warned me about buying too many clothes in Europe, lest my baggage be overweight when flying home. So following the warning, I haven't bought too many things so far, but my real problem is going to be all the books I've collected. I rationalised that the textbooks being half the price here (why so expensive, Australia?) validated buying two large heavy ones. And my dream to one day own a huge library means I don't want to leave them behind.

On top of that, today I bought another novel (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer - looks like a really good read by the way!) to add to the haul of novels I bought away with me. I was drawn in by the 'Bokrea!' (Book Sale!) signs, but I'm pretty sure my book wasn't actually discounted. Some people have impulse shoe shopping problems, but I have impulse book buying issues.

On a completely separate note, it's really starting to warm up in Stockholm now! On Friday night we went outside Pax to let off some birthday celebration lanterns into the night sky, and I really noticed how much warmer it is. The last time we lit lanterns it was freezing cold, and wearing a coat and scarf barely kept out the cold. This time I was (although a little bit shivery) wearing just a long sleeve top. Almost exactly a month ago we survived the crazy night of walking through the snow for half an hour to the tunnelbana station when it was -18ºC, but today it was a pleasant +11ºC! Talk about a quick turn around.

Most people (both Australian and Swedish) have at some point questioned my sanity in choosing to leave summer for winter, a number of them emphasising how depressing the never-ending cold of Swedish winters are. Well to that I say, winter wasn't long enough. Although I'm looking forward to it getting warmer and seeing everything become green and sunshiny, I really didn't think winter was that bad, and I definitely wouldn't have complained about a bit more snow and cold for a little while longer. So there.

Sunday was so sunny I felt it was time to get out the sunnies AND have the window open for the day

(Also note: I finally got material from IKEA to cover the super white wall I'd been planning to decorate for ages! Yay!)

Dear Lost Things...

I'm starting to become notorious for losing things, and based off how many possessions I've lost in only the last 10 days, I can kind of understand why...

1. My key necklace
You know that key necklace I always wear? The one that my brother found for me in Holland and I absolutely loved? Yeah, well, I lost it. Massive sadface. If you're going to lose something though, it's best to do it somewhere memorable, like way up north in Kiruna, a couple of hours before you witness the Northern Lights. Someone said to think of it as the North taking my necklace, but I see it more as a black hole opening up to a parallel universe which sucked my key in, because I searched that room head to toe, upside down and inside out, and it had definitely vanished into thin air.

2. A jar of nutella
How you lose a jar of nutella is a mystery to me. On Saturday morning I had a delicious brunch feast with some friends, which included me running out to buy a jar of nutella (French people love their chocolate and cheese). I swear when I headed back to my room I was carrying that nutella jar but when I went to bring it to afternoon tea later that day it was nowhere to be found. Determined that it was somewhere in my room, I was thus prompted to finally give my room the tidy it had needed since we got back from Kiruna. But despite having a spotless room now, I'm still nutella-less.

3. My golden bracelet
This lost thing I take full responsibility for. My golden bracelet from the Sydney Uni Wednesday markets has a bad habit of coming unclasped, so why I thought it was a good idea to wear it to the paxparty on Saturday night is beyond me. Not surprisingly after a night of dancing on tables, moving through crowded kitchens and corridors, and generally being drunk, I found myself in the early hours of the morning in my room ready for bed but without my bracelet. And sadly it still hasn't turned up.

4. My SL card
In Stockholm, your SL card is the key to life. It lets you get any metro, train, bus, tram, or ferry you want, as much as you want, as often as you want, for as long as your card lasts. And on Sunday when I was at Kungsträdgården watching a busking group of drummers (after attempting ice skating), my SL card dropped out of my wallet. Fortunately the person behind me, as well as my friend, both spotted the card, which makes me think that I should hire someone to follow me around, picking up all the things I lose.

5. My glasses
Losing my glasses yesterday was definitely the worst of the lot. Heading to lunch after a morning's lectures, I suddenly found that my glasses were no longer in my pocket. I desperately retraced my steps- the irony being that I really needed my glasses to search the ground properly. Unlike almost everything else I've lost recently, I fortunately found my glasses at last, sitting on a table in the microwave room. Some lovely person must have found them on the ground and put them up there out of harm's way. Thank you, whoever you were!

On top of losing everything, I'm also really bad at directions. The other day I got lost trying to get from Karlberg station to KI Solna (apparently a very simple walk), even when my friend had drawn me a map. And last week on my first day at the KI Huddinge campus I spent an hour walking around the university/hospital trying to find my lecture room. Despite 3 different people messaging me where to go, and asking numerous hospital staff and med students for directions, I eventually only found the place when everyone came out for the break and my friend started to come find me.

I really am hopeless at life.

P.S. Emma, this is my "hectic" life in Sweden. Hectically full of searching for my lost things.
P.P.S. I almost got through a post without mentioning food, but then I lost the jar of nutella. Sorry.

Dear Soy Yoghurt...

Look what I found! Soy yoghurt! I assume we have this back home, and I've just never noticed it, but I'm still pretty excited by my discovery. And it's blåbär (blueberry) flavour!

Did anyone else ever do this as a child? My Dad and I always used to put spoons on our noses and pretend to be koalas... I don't know if that's an Australian thing, or a Tessa thing, but I still think it's cool.

As you can probably tell, this post has very little direction and is mainly just a form of procrastination to postpone studying for my neuro exam on Tuesday. The best way to avoid studying however, is to go on a weekend trip to Kiruna with a bunch of other exchange students to see the northern lights and go husky sledding. So obviously that's where I'll be until Monday!

Dear Sweden...

Yesterday my residence permit card arrived in the mail.

Although all it does is allow me to legally live in Sweden until July, I feel like I can claim I'm officially Swedish. And having been here for over a month now (deary me that went quick), the anthropologist in me has been running wild analysing Swedish people in their natural habitat.

One thing I've noticed so far regards stranger etiquette. Let's start with this image my Swedish friend posted on Facebook the other day. I found it an amusing exaggeration of how Swedes deal with others.

However, only the next day, I found myself standing at the bus stop and essentially acting out the above scene. I drew a picture to give a fairly accurate account of the situation (snow included).

I'm not joking. When I arrived at the bus stop, the other two ladies were literally standing at least 4 metres apart from each other, and we only all came together when the bus finally arrived. Oh Sweden.

Now some people (mostly Australians) would find this highly bizarre. I mean, how can you have friendly chats with strangers if they stand that far away from you, right? Well in Sweden you actually follow the rule your parents taught you- 'don't talk to strangers'. Swedish people aren't interested in having menial conversations about the weather (we ALL know it's cold), and although some people might find this lack of conversational interest rude, I quite like it. Yes you miss out on the odd good conversation you may strike up with a stranger, but you also avoid all the awkward half conversations you are forced to constantly go through on a daily basis. But don't get me wrong- all the Swedish people I've met at uni or through friends so far have been incredibly nice. Truly. In many ways they're even more friendly than Australians (but let's save that explanation for another day). Once you've been here for a while, you start seeing how this whole thing works.

The second difference I wanted to point out is Swedish people in relationships. I think this one is my favourite, and it is well and truly the polar opposite to home. In Australia young people often flaunt their relationship like it won't exist unless it's right in your face, all the time, in every situation, without fail. However in Sweden, you can't even tell if two people are going out or not. The don't sit next to each other, they don't hold hands in public, they don't kiss, hey they don't even talk to each other that much if they're with others. Many people would say this is unnatural. That Swedish people must simply be uncomfortable with showing their personal feelings so openly, but that's not it. The typical behaviour of being inseparable and all over each other like most couples back home are, is considered childish and immature- something you did when you were 12 or 14. I know this is a big generalisation on both sides, but based on personal experience, the differences are astounding. You really can't tell if people are dating or just friends. Now I'm just curious to see how Swedish flirting works.