Statistically yours

I have been on course for two weeks now. It has been another two compulsory PhD-programme courses, that are about to come to an end tomorrow. My last compulsory courses!

Last week it was a rather slow and quite boring course in Research Ethics. It was surprising how boring it was, when the topic is actually quite interesting per se. I felt terrible last week, and was only in class monday and tuesday that week, so I will have to boost my attendance on the course in march when the course is held next time. I just need to sit through two sessions of 3-4 h lectures, in order to pass the course.

This week has been a long week of lectures in Medical Statistics. It was much less boring than what I expected, I would almost say it has been interesting. I have definitely learnt a bit or two about statistics, know which tests to use when, why, and how they work. I feel quite proud. Small flashbacks of high school mathematics was provokingly enough thrown in my face; like y=kx+m, and the natural logarithm (ln). But I was able to handle the provocation of being presented with formulas, and terms of the days of yorn, and I really believe I'll pass this course. I have enough attendance - which is the only criteria for passing the courses.

But I am beat. Yesterday I had already been at course for all the hours I am supposed to work each week. I can tell you I can really feel it in my body. I am tired most of the time, but without being able to fall asleep. Tired because of the attention I need to pay, and a hard time falling asleep because of the stress 'being on a course' makes me feel. But I am alright actually. I am quite proud of myself for managing these 75-100% courses, it might cost my body a tad bit, but I have past one of the two courses at least!

You are supposed to have passed all these compulsory courses before being "allowed" to do your half-time control thing, which I have firmly scheduled for 9th of January at 4pm. I won't pass the ethics course until I have sat through two days in March on the lectures. But I won't let it hold me back doing my half-time control thingy.

Weird University rules are there to be challenged! Wish me luck! =)

And if you ever need advice on statistics, you know where to find me.

More Lund decorations

Happy colourful trees.

And more rabbits...

The Cutest of Dogs

This weekend I have met the dog version of Cute Cat. Had Cute Cat been a dog, he'd been something like Hugo the Dog.
Isn't he perfect? Unfortunately I can't take him home with me. I think my (future) parents-in-law would resign from their post if I did.

Maybe it is worth it?

Christmas preparations

The city of Lund is getting ready to celebrate the Christmas holiday.

The tree is on the square outside Grand Hotel. But wait, isn't it blue? And plastic?

And the pink bunnies are waiting for Santa by the Central Station-building.

- "Oh, I'm Lund, I'm sooo arty. Traditionalists, eat me"

Stuff on my cat

In case of fur loss, you can just order a cat toupé. Doesn't it look natural?

Check out the site of inspiration: http://www.stuffonmycat.com/

The new room

My parents have spent a crazy amount of money and time to (themselves) fix the house up with a new room, with almost only windows as walls. It is so cozy and pretty, just check it out.

Cute Cat's brother resting in the chair.

The amount of furniture is a bit steep at the moment, due to my parents having moved on to fix up another room of the house (and moved all the furniture from that room out into this new one).

A brave new Cat

Just check him out - my cat ladies and gentlemen! This was the RiessenSchnauzer-dog Cute Cat was living with the first 12 weeks of his life. Such a huge dog, such a small cat! So brave.

Here Cute Cat has effectively gone from being brave, to plain stupid - standing ON the great big dog! He is so smaaaaall. Back then he probably weighed 0.8 kg. Now he weighs 5.5 kg, and is terrified when meeting a dog, even those smaller than himself!

The hourglass analogy

I have always been under the impression that hourglasses were rather innocent. And when I look at one, which obviously is an infrequently occuring event, I see nothing more than an hourglass. Some bulbs of glass, some sand, some wood or plastic frame to hold it. Well, those days are gone now.

My lovely boyfriend and I were we were cooking, eating and hanging out last night. He took all the chances he got yesterday to interpret my words sexually, and doing some indecent gestures towards/against me, whenever an opportunity opened up. I did by no means mind, but I called him on it, and asked if the thought activity in his head were of the sexual kind the further away from last sexual experience he was. I suggested the sex thoughts were increasing linearly, or perhaps even exponentially with the time passed since last intercourse.

He did not approve of my analogy with a line in a diagram, instead he delivered the hourglass analogy;

"Imagine that the lower bulb in a hourglass being the entire thought capacity. The sand represents thoughts of sex, and the air (non-sand filled) space represents all other thoughts. When you've just had sex, the hourglass is flipped, and there is a lot of space for regular thoughts, and only few thoughts of sex. Then ever increasing with time, the sand (thoughts of sex) takes over more and more, until it all starts over again."

I have never heard of an analogy like that, and I am pretty sure it was new not only to me, but to the world in general. I strongly suspect he came up with the theory, right there and then, just off the top of his head.

He claims it is not only him, but all boys, and girls too, working according to this theory. He's quite sweet you know. And I think he is right, sort of. Just that all are not aware of the analogy, yet. I don't think the theory will make it into any psychology books, I am afraid.

But onto my blog, for sure!

Material love

Over the last 8 years I have had three different mobile phones. The last one was a left-over old phone I got from a friend, and I have had it for about two years now. I started getting rather sick and tired of it though. It locked up, the battery went flat on one day, and the menu-system was ridiculously user unfriendly.

Last week my SonyEricsson-working wonderful sister managed to hook me up with one of those new foldable models. It is apparently a z530i, the phone informs me of this with a push of a button - which I must say is a rather useless function actually. It is silver and grey, and has two screens - one inside, and one on the outside which lights up when I order it to. It has a camera as well, but I can't quite see what I would use it for either. My phone cash-card won't let me send MMS, or WAP, or blog it instantly or so. And what's the use of taking a picture and just keeping it in the phone? Apart from the obvious, making new desktops from time to time. Right now I have a picture of Cute Cat's fur, very nice!

But I don't mean to bad mouth the phone, with "the camera is crap" and "it tells me useless info"-blogging. I really like it. The menu system is far superior to the one in my last phone. Writing text messages is quick. The buttons has a nice feel. It is easy to have close to your ear and mouth at the same time, which I put value in when trying to talk and listen to the one I am talking to on the phone. And the battery, it holds for days! It was fully charged on friday, and it lasted until today when I had a chance to recharge it again. Friday to thursday, that's pretty good! And I have used it quite a lot too, so it's not only that it has been lying on my table - resting and saving battery.

Mobile phone development is moving forward rapidly, and apparently I am moving on with it, at least for a while. Until my sister's boss wants the phone back.

Come and get it.

Bored mute

I am taking another sick-day. My tonsilitis has succumbed to the antibiotics, and the throat looks prettier. There is still some weird things in there. Sensitive readers are advised not to continue reading =).

Anamnesis:
I have two blisters, or they aren't blisters really, they don't look fluid filled and transparent, they are more like a small hill of throat tissue - one larger by my left tonsil (about 1 cm in diameter) and one smaller on the back of my throat (about 0.5 cm in diameter). I first thought these were just a sign of my tonsilitis, but now I don't think so anymore; because the symptoms of the tonsilitis started to attenuate on saturday, and should be properly gone now, after 6 days of antibiotics.

There is also some really white lumps of something, about 2 mm in diameter each, on the top of my right tonsil. I tried to remove them yesterday with a q-tip yesterday, and got some of them out. They were yellowish, and quite hard. I tried to remove the rest, but my vomit reflex stopped me from continuing. I haven't seen them there earlier, eventhough I have checked my throat status every day since thursday. So I guess they are some new phenomena.

I started coughing and losing my voice on monday around lunch time. Since then my vocal abilities have gone down-hill, and today they are at some record low. This morning I could only whisper. When forced to talk (when entering the bus this morning, or answering my phone a couple of minutes ago) some sounds can come out, but it is nothing pretty. I sound like I am at some terminal smoking stage, and along with every smoke I have had (20 every day for the last 30 years) I have had a couple of centiliters of whiskey as well. There is some horrible rasping tone to my voice, and everyother word turns into a whisper.

Diagnosis:
I am thinking I have had a viral infection (causing the two throat blisters/hills) all along, simultaneously as I got the tonsilitis. I noticed the tonsilitis only, since this is what I am used to getting, and started treating that with antibiotics. When the tonsilitis bacteria started dying off from the antibiotics, the viral infection was given more space to exert its opportunistic effect, infecting my poor cells with its evil genome.

Plan of handling:
Well, being a viral infection and all, there isn't much to do. Oh wait, I think I heard some natural "medicine" being able to prevent/remove/alleviate/shorten (or whatever lie they used) viral infections like the common cold and such. Maybe I should try that. Although, if anything those "medicines" work through placebo effect, and if you are as negative and sceptic as I am about them, there is just no chance for them to help me out. Surely it is possible to alleviate a common cold, by reducing some of the symptoms, like headache and blocked nose. But I prefer taking some ibuprofen, and blowing my nose, before even going into one of those "natural medicine" shops. My way relieves the symptoms, all while me avoiding getting annoyed by the high-sounding empty phrases I assume you are being fed with at such places.

My actual plan of handling is to call, oh wait I can't talk. I mean, I will e-mail my treating doctor, i.e. my colleague that prescribed me the antibiotics, and ask if she has some opinion of the matter. If I should go see my GP after all, or just ride it out. Maybe she'll tell me to take some natural medicine, no wait, she's not a quack, she's a proper doctor.

Man I am being sceptical today! I am just so boooored!

What every baby needs

I cannot remember ever blogging this picture, although I have thought about it several times. If you have seen it before on my blog, please let me know, and I might apologize for repeting myself. But it is just so important that everyone get to see these lovely pacifiers.

It is avaliable in pink with a little pink flower on, or in blue. I assume for girls and boys respectively (and stereotypically). Either colour you choose to go for, you get the back and ring of the pacifier in 18k gold. All for the price of 432 euro (approx 550 USD) each. A small price for such a brilliant gift (do note the pure irony). I better hope the baby will suck onto it hard, really hard.

These pacifiers were found in a jewellery store in Salzburg, I really hope they are still avaliable (i.e. no-one has bought any of them). What a waste!

I suggest the expression "being born with a silver spoon" is immediately replaced with "being born with a gold pacifier".

Stabile weather

You can complain a lot about the weather these days. But I prefer the more diplomatic and less charged; the weather is very stabile this week.

My jacket is haging over the tub, getting dry. My shoes are soaked, just like the trousers. I will take my blanket, put some nice dvd in the player, and hide most of myself under my lovely blanket. I will light some candles, smell my red hyacinthe, and drink some tea.

Excellent sofa weather! Stabile sofa weather. I am happy!

Sick days, are boring days

I woke up at 2.30 am trying to swallow a handful of gravel, nails and razor blades. Or at least how I can imagine that would feel. But it was just my tonsillitis giving me symptoms, that little bugger!

At 6 I was woken up again, by the cat making meowing-sounds. I took my penicillin, and ibuprofen. The cat kept on begging for my attention, so I took my blanket, moved to the couch and played with him for a little while. Then I must have fallen asleep again.

At 7.30 my boyfriend woke me up, suggesting that rather than wrapped in my cover on the couch, the bed was a better place for me to be. I fell asleep again.

At 8.30 he woke me up again, with the breakfast served in front of an episode of friends, and my soft nice couch.

I have been awake since then. With a recurrent throbbing headache, a sharp pain whenever I move my neck, sneezing, coughing (probably mostly due to my bean boiling though). I have been resting on the couch for half an hour or so now, after having spent most of morning trying to plan a schedule for work end of november until end of february. But now I am so cold, freezing and shivering. I fear a fever is coming on, eventhough I really didn't think it'd come now. I expected it to have been worst yesterday, and that it would improve from then on. And also that it wouldn't get so bad, since I started the penicillin so early.

But I guess even the sun has its spots (does this expression even exist in english?); meaning that also someone as good as me can be wrong sometimes.

It is so cold...

...in Sweden these days, so when you wake up, your cat has been frozen in to a block of ice.



Or not.
Maybe it is just cute cat not letting me make the bed alone, wanting to play in the plastic. Plastic in the bed? - you ask. Well, when you have a cat that for some reason has decided that he wants to pee not only in the box, but sometimes also in your bed, this is the perfect thing you buy (or get for free from your dad). This way, he can pee all he wants, but it will stay on the plastic, ready to be wiped up and cleaned off. Thankfully he doesn't do it so often these days, and thankfully only on the bed, so I don't need to put plastic all over the place.

We saw a piece of, well they called it art at least, when we were at the modern museum in Vienna this summer. It was a bed, with a couple in it (non-human origin, just plastic dolls), with lots and lots of plastic wrapped all around it. Maybe I can sell Cute Cat in plastic to an art gallery? Or at least rent him to one, during the morning hours.

Ice-bits keep falling on my head

My very wet autumn garden, if you look closely you'll see the ice-bits

...tra la la laalalalaala la

Or was it "rain dops" in the original song?

Anyway, ice-bits were actually falling hard on my head, or at least on my poor umbrella when walking over to the pharmacy. I had to go there asap to pick up my penicillin, to bar the way for the stupid tonsillitis infection in my throat. I woke up, or rather I was woken up (by a series of meows) around 6 am, and realised I had a hard time to swallow my saliva, my throat was in pains along with my neck and head. I took some fluor tablets, because sometimes I get a pained feeling in my throat when my throat is just too dry, and these fluor tablets increase saliva production as well. I woke up again at 10, or rather I was woken up (this time by a series of beeps coming from my alarm clock), and realised that the pain had not subsided, and if anything it was worse.

I went to the bathroom mirror with the front lamp of my bike (never thought I'd ever use a sentence like that), and feared the worst. With a flick of a button to turn the lamp on, my fears all came true. My throat was red (more than normal), I had small areas of elevation, I had a lump of yellow something, and my tonsils were swollen. I called my doctor friend, told her that all my symptoms fit tonsilitis, plus that this is something I have at least once every year. She called in the prescription to my closest pharmacy, and that is what made me go out with my poor umbrella today.

Rain makes also my cool fluffy Ecco-shoes wet, and not so fluffy.

I picked up the penicillin. It was only 27 kr (3 euro, 4 USD), which of course made me happy. You must focus on the bright sides, always! And when having tonsillitis, the bright sides are; 1. knowing that there is a simple and very effective cure at your closest pharmacy, and 2. what I found out today - you get it almost for free! There is also a the very bright side of it being ok that you spend a whole day on the couch under a blanket, watching old movies, eating ice cream!

Ice-bits falling from the sky. 5.5 degrees Celsius. Bright leaves and dark skies.
That's autumn for you!

I am your hero

And not only your hero, but a hero in general. Or so the blood central keeps telling me at least. For the first time in 3 years I have been able to donate blood again. First it was trips to far away that prevented me from donating (due to 3-6 month quarantines), and then it was countless number of medicines that stood in my way, but now nothing can stop me! Or not nothing, now of course I have to wait another 4 months, until I can go again.

As most of you probably know, you can describe the oxygen-transmitting capacity of your blood with an Hb value, Hb= hemoglobin, the oxygen carrier of the blood. A normal Hb value is;

for men 140-180 g/L

for women 120-160 g/L

To compensate for the loss you "suffer" from donating 4.5 dL blood, you get iron supplements if you have a low Hb value. Before this limit was sex dependent, but now it has been set to 150 for both men and women. This means, as a woman you almost always get iron supplement after donating blood, which some competitive people might feel like a set back.

This time, as most times, I got iron supplements after donating. I did not see it as a set back though. Maybe it was because I wasn't competitive that exact day, or maybe because I had a Hb-value of 147! This is pretty fucking great for a small woman like me. They often ask me if I eat lots of meat, which obviously provokes me, this rigid thinking of meat=iron. I infom them that I get my iron through beans, and look how good I am doing.

Vegetarian= anemic, my ass!

Large rubbing animals

At wikipedia.org you can learn one thing or another.

Today, or rather tonight, or maybe this morning (it's 5.46am, you tell me...), I learnt that the Sonoma Coast state beach in California have rocks which apparently still bear the evidence of mommoths rubbing themselves here over 40,000 years ago.

Rubbing... how good do you need to rub yourself in order for the evidence to remain 40,000 years?


Apparently, the mammoths were alive already 1.6 million years ago, but became extinct 3,500 years ago. In the current halloween spirit, I will of course post skeleton pictures. The mammoths though, are, as I understand it, believed to have had some flesh and fur too. Some fur that they enjoyed rubbing against rocks...

Coffee - and my love&hate relationship

Love;
Because it is a brilliant social beverage. As soon as I think about meeting up for a chat with someone, I think about cappuchino down town. And sometimes I actually start in this latter end, I think about cappuchino down town, and then ask myself "who can I meet up with?".
The smell is absolutely wonderful, both as the roasted bean and as a finished boiled product. At least nowadays. Because it was only 2 years ago that I started drinking coffee at all. Before I loved the smell of roasted coffee beans, but I could not stand the bitterness of the drink. Then a colleague of mine convinced me to just try to start, and I tried, and I got hooked. Now, I don't mean hooked in a regular "coffee hooked"-fashion, like normal people are I guess; drinking coffee a few times a day. But more in this way that I can think about coffee, wondering when I can drink it next time.

Hate;
Because it too many times gives me ridiculously side effects and flaring up, from just drinking one innocent cup of coffee+milk or cappuchino; rapidly beating heart, cold sweat, nausea, dizziness, and like now - inability to sleep properly up to 10 hours after a single cup.

We were out for a delayed celebration of my mum's 50th birthday yesterday. We went to an absolutely lovely place called Wine and Tapas, here in Lund. We ate lots of nice food, had some wine, my mum opened some gifts, and after all this we still weren't satisfied. We decided to go for dessert. I had a lovely white chocolate mousse with mango puré. Now, in my defence, I usually don't like white chocolate, but this was rather lovely I must say. Anyway, this was nowhere near the point of this section. Alongside my chocolate mousse, I decided to go for a lovely cappuchino. It was excellent, just excellent. Bitter, fluffy, warm, and just... just lovely. The coffee intake was limited to between 9.30 and 10 pm.

And here I am, at least no rapidly beating heart or anything like that, but just a general nausea feeling, and having slept ever so lightly for about 4.5h, and now, not being able to go back to sleep again. And it is only 5 am, this is way too early to wake up. The tricky thing is that I am very very tired. I worked very hard yesterday, got up early, worked for 8.5h (despite my 50% sick leave), then went out for that social event all evening, and not going to bed until after midnight. But however much yawning I do, and however much sleepy I feel - I cannot sleep.

And I blame it all on coffee.

Stockholm

I heard the funniest story on the Halloween party during the weekend. It was one of the girls from my lab that some years ago had been to another costume party with the theme "Stockholm". People were encouraged to interpret it as freely as possible.

My friend was approached at the party by three girls, and my friend said;

- "Oh I am so impressed by the interpretation, I think it is a very important make visible the prostitution in the big cities!"

The three girls looked like a couple of question marks, whereafter one of them said - "What? No, we had totally missed it was a costume party".

I don't recommend anyone trying this ice-breaker for your next party.