6th Day of Class

We had the usual great breakfast. Lena had to go to Stockholm for a couple of days, so were on our own until she comes back.

The weather has started to turn colder with precipitation here.

I spent some time reworking my lectures and evaluating the suitability of the students’ projects. Sture had meetings most of the afternoon, so I had lunch with some other members of staff. Rather interestingly, I had meat loaf at a Chinese restaurant.

After lunch I saw a couple of other students and talked to them about their projects.

I then gave a lecture on plotting and Python control structures.

We had leftovers for dinner, and then Sture had a tennis match. When he came home, we had tea and bread with marmalade, and then I retired.

Sunday, 17 October

We had our usual fine breakfast. Lena needed to do some work, so Sture and I had a bit of a discussion and planning session about the book he wants us to write. After an hour or so, we decided that we would go for a walk at a local restored country manor. We have arrived at the Gunnebo Estate which originally belonged to a 19th century Gothenburg merchant.

Here is a very attractive stand of birches:

 

This stable has been around since 2001. Sture has this affinity for horses and no fear of the electric fence.

You don’t see many wooden cows like this one:

I don’t think this building is covered with ivy, but whatever it is, I think it changes colours with the season.

We were now getting close to the manor house and its surrounding gardens.

Apparently, when the gardens were restored, efforts were made to grow the same types of plants as were grown in the 19th century. The produce is now used in the resident cafe.

 

As we approach the house, the garden is getting rather formal.

Here is the side view of the manor house. Clearly, they are still doing restoration (scaffolding).

And the corresponding back view.

There were some very formal lawns.

Sture talked us into walking to the top of a knoll where we found this sundial.

It is very difficult keeping Sture from climbing trees, even after they have been chopped down.

Here is Stony Lake which is fairly close to the Manor House.

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Here is the bridge house and the bridge is is guarding.

Here is a nice view across the water at a upmarket dwelling.

We finally made the long circuit around to the front of the manor house.

After following a shortish trail back to our car park, Sture drove us home. Lena fixed a green salad and cheese platter, and I fixed an omelette for everyone. Sture and Lena did their schoolwork for  most of the afternoon. I worked a bit on my statistics lecture.

Late in the afternoon, Lena took a break, so I showed her how to get her CDs into iTunes and then into her iTouch. After a minor glitch that we cured by rebooting, everything went pretty well.

Lena had Johannes and his significant other, Lisa, over for dinner. As usual, Lena fixed a great meal featuring meat and mushrooms topped off with a very nice cheese platter.

Saturday, 16 October

Lena and Sture had a late night at the tennis last night plus it was the weekend end, so we had the usual fine breakfast at the Nordholms a bit later than usual. It was a big day for Lena as it was commencement day at her University. But before all that happened, she did the weekly grocery shopping. We tagged along, as I needed a few condiments for the dinner I was to fix.

Sture and I then left Lena to her shopping and went to the new cheese shop (actually, a very good deli) that Sture was keen to investigate. Anyway, we got a few different cheeses and some sourdough bread. When we tried it all out later in the day, it was all very tasty stuff.

Sture and I then walked back to his house (about 15-20 minutes). At about the same time, Lena drove back from the store, unpacked the groceries and left for University. Sture usually devotes his Saturday mornings to cleaning the house. I offered to help, but we both knew I wasn’t up to his cleaning standard. So, he graciously declined my offer.

In the meantime, I spent some more time working on a lecture. I also tried to contact Linda on Skype. I eventually was able to contact her in the shower after she had finished putting the undercoat on some of the woodwork in the house in preparation for the painter that she hopes to have in to paint the interior in a couple of weeks. Anyway, we both agreed that we are getting a bit too old for that kind of activity as she was pretty tired.

Sture finished cleaning about 1:30, and we had some of Lena’s delicious left over baked flat fish for lunch. Sture was then was kind enough to take me on a walk through the woods.

This old military facility was opposite the road to where we parked the car. Sture wasn’t sure if if was now used for anything else, but I think it must be as it didn’t look disused.

We walked uphill for a while along a logger’s road which also led to a firing range, but we didn’t follow road that far.

We crossed this stream a few times during our walk.

There were quite a few volunteer pine tree seedlings in the open part of the little valley:

We cam across this bush rig for diverting the water so that it was easier to fetch water from the stream. This was new to Sture, so its origin will remain a mystery, I suppose.

Here is a sample of the mossy ground over the rocky ground that typified the area:

There were a lot of these rocky (granite, I think) outcroppings in the area as well.

Here is my panorama shot of Little Hole Lake. It consist of 6 hand held shots stitched together with the automatic panorama algorithm in Photoshop Elements 8.

It is difficult to tell from the photo below, but the water is about a foot deep there. It just shows how crystal clear the water was. I tested the temperature as well – cold. If Sture had been able to talk me into climbing over a rocky ridge, he would have taken me to their place for swimming which apparently has a better rock platform. During the summer, Lena and Sture often walk the 40 minutes it takes to get them to the lake, swim a couple of hours, and walk home. Sture refers to it as their private swimming hole.

 

Sture couldn’t resist doing a bit of mushroom hunting and picking. This specie’s common name is the funnel chantrelle. The vast majority that we have picked have been of this type.

Sture managed to talk me into an uphill side trail to have a look at this little waterfall.

 

From there we took a forest trail back to the van. Sture then drove us back to his house and fixed us a cup of tea. We then had a brief discussion about his book plans. We arranged to have a more detailed discussion early next week.

Sture then started to work on a number of outside gardening tasks, while I prepared dinner. I fixed grilled Moroccan chicken, Roman style cauliflower and broccoli, green salad, and couscous. There was an exiting moment when, I let the chilli powder get too hot in the pan, it put off some amazing fumes. I expect that everyone got a good whiff, but I certainly got a good intake into the respiratory system. Anyway, after that little drama, dinner was served up, and everyone seemed to forgive my kitchen faux pas. Sydney was also there. It was good to see him again.

I managed to Skype Doretha later in the evening to see how she and Mother were getting on. So, all in all, for a “weekend rest day”, it was a pretty full day.

Fifth Day of Class

After the usual fine breakfast at the Nordholms, we left for school. We make a slight detour to drop off the recycling. As you can see there are quite a few more ways to divide your recycling here. Also, you need to bring your recycling to the centre to sort it. It is hard enough to get people to recycle in Canberra where they pick it up, and you don’t have to sort through it very much.

On the way to Chemistry building we pass the library:

We are in right place:

Timing is critical when you want to enter the Chemistry building through the revolving door.

  

I am hanging my hat in Sture’s office while I am in Sweden:

I then spent the first part of the morning discussing with Sture the quality of the project proposals that had been submitted by the students thus far. But as fate would have it, it was time for morning tea in the tea room for the 5th and 6th floor. One of the more interesting things about the tea room is that it has 4 microwaves to cope for the demand for people heating their lunch.

After tea, I skyped Linda and found out that she had been industriously sanding away in preparation for painting the interior woodwork in the house. The settings for cable in the living room had been scrambled, so we also able to fix that up during the conversation.

After a bit more work on the students’ proposals, it was time to go to lunch. We first passed by a fairly recent wooden structure. On previous days, I had seen students relaxing on top of the sculpture.

We also passed what used to be part of the hospital complex now taken over by the University. It is now apparently occupied by some type of consultancy firm:

We had a nice (and too large) meal with some of Sture’s colleagues off campus where I got to discuss LSU, cajuns, and frogging in the swamp at some length. Sture needed a bandage for his tennis elbow, so he stopped at the pharmacy:

Apparently, they used to be government run, but they are now private.

I think all of the restrooms in the building are unisex. I know they were on Sture’s floor:

I spend the rest of the early afternoon working on a lecture and talking to a student about his project. Then it was time for class. Rather amazingly, the vast majority of the students were there on a 3-5 PM Friday class. Here is a picture I took of part of the class:

Sture took this picture of me right before class.

After class, we came more or less straight home. Lena had come home early as she and Sture had a tennis match and subsequent socializing from 7 PM. She fixed a delicious flatfish with a roe and mayonnaise sauce.

I have been in Sweden a week now, so I had to do my laundry. The Nordholms have a drying room which is where I have put my washed clothes to dry overnight. One of the reasons this works well is the their washer spins so much water out of the clothes.

Fourth Day of Class

As usual, I had a very nice breakfast at the Nordholms. After travelling to school, I spend some time working on drafting suggestions to the students who had submitted ideas for their projects. Once Sture and I had agreed on those suggestions, I sent them to the students.

Later in the morning, we walked downtown (about 15-20 min downhill) to do some shopping. Sture was able to locate a nice stereo hi-fi system to replace the smaller radio in the kitchen. It is also able to play music from Lena’s iTouch. Apparently, her model of iTouch is not yet available in Sweden.

We then made a mad dash (at least for me) uphill for a lunchtime talk (sandwich and drink provided). It seemed a very interesting talk, but I had on my reading glasses so I couldn’t make out the slides very well. Unfortunately, I also “rested my eyes” a bit as well.

Later in the afternoon, I gave the next instalment of the course. I talked a lot about how to code common numerical methods such as root finding. About 10 members of the class have now selected their projects. Hopefully, they will make a start on them before I leave as I think I can help them better while I am here than by email.

Lena went to a concert last night, so I fixed some chilli, and Sture fixed a salad for us to eat. I don’t think the chilli was quite up to scratch as I had to resort to using baked beans in it, but Sture seemed satisfied enough.

Third Day of Class

After the usual fine Nordholm breakfast, we went to school. On the way I reintroduced Sture to the Eagles through the FM transmitter on my iTouch. I spent most of the morning organizing the students’ project proposals into a document that could be used to track correspondence and progress. Additionally, I created a single name alias of the email addresses of members of the class from the list that Sture gave me.

Sture then took me to a luncheon for Chemistry faculty (an initiative by Gunnar, who is now head of PChem here) where we had a great lunch. My main was salmon, but there was also halibut on offer which apparently is preferred by most Swedes. For me, it was a rather tough 20 minute walk uphill to get to the dining place, but everybody else seemed fit enough to handle the walk with ease.

Sture and I with some help from the local IT guy spent the early afternoon getting my laptop to work with his projector. We needed this because we were going to use a different room which didn’t have projection facilities. Unlike my laptop, my iPad worked with the projector right away, so I took it to class as insurance. But after a bit of fiddling, we got the laptop working in class.

As usual, the class was great. It is such a joy teaching bright, motivated students.

After we drove home, Sture did some wood chopping as I declined his offer of another walk since I was still feeling the effects of the walk at lunch. Lena then served up leftovers with new salads and such so that it was a very nice meal.

After supper had settled, and we had discussed Sweden’s disappointing loss to Holland, we got Lena set up on her new iTouch. Everything went well. It is now connected to the house wireless internet, and we downloaded one app to make sure that her Apple account was working. Linda and I hope that Lena gets as much pleasure out of using her iTouch as we do out of ours.

Second Day of Class

Unfortunately, I woke up a bit early at about 2AM. Anyway, I worked on a few things on the computer to get ready for the second day of class. After the usual fine Nordholm breakfast (They are very fond of porridge by the way.) Sture drove us to school.

After some confusion about the room allocations, Berndt, Sture’s friendly IT guy, managed to install the needed programs before the lectures. We also had a tramp around campus to find the computer labs for the 3rd and 4th session as the one we will usually use was previously booked. Unfortunately, they are not as nice (and have no inbuilt projector) as the Chemistry computer labs. As Linda says, we will adapt and overcome.

I gave my second set of lectures, and it continued to be a satisfying experience for me. In particular, the students are genuinely interested in the subject material and are picking projects that are relevant to their research interests: assessment is not the only goal for them.

After class I went to what should have been a reasonably interesting seminar about large molecules in outer space. Unfortunately, I nodded off as I was so tired.

I have been copying a few more CDs for people who want the subject material in the course but are not official registrants. I am also incorporating some feedback from the students into the future lectures and preparing a document that provides web links to queries they have of a specialized nature that aren’t specifically covered by the course.

As we all know Sture has always been a fantastic eater. However, he has really come into his own since I visited the Nordholms last as a cook. He cooked a very good baked cod dish for the evening meal last night.

There was a big soccer match between Sweden and Holland last night. I occupied a place on the couch and dozed through the first half and then went to bed.

First Class

Well, it is Monday. After the usual good breakfast at the Nordholms, we went off to work. Most of my attention was focused on the issue of getting the Python programming environment working in the computer labs. After checking out that there was an IT issue as had been pointed out by the IT guy, Berndt, who had been installing the software, Berndt and I got our heads together until we finally sorted out the problem with an hour or so to spare before my first lecture.

I think the lectures went well, and some of the students have already picked out projects to do for assessment. I even had one student send me an email that said he had been “inspired.” We’ll see how he goes over the next 9 sessions. But he must be a very good judge of teaching!!

After class, we came on back to the Nordholms. After a 30 minute walk around the park adjoining their place, we came back and fixed tacos for dinner. The idea was to relieve Lena of the burden of fixing dinner, but she arrived in the midst of dinner preparation and pitched right in. They like more condiments than we usually prepare: additional condiments from the usual Freasier lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, salsa mix were carrot, cucumber, and yellow capsicum.

Sadly, I woke up at 2AM this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. It will be interesting to see how “inspiring” I am today.

Lake of the Finns Walk

Lena, Sture, and I went for a walk around the Lake of the Finns on a calm, but overcast Sunday morning (temperature, 7C).  We drove there in the Volvo that they were caretaker for Lena’s sister who lives in California. Anyway, this sign indicated that we were almost there.

This is Swedish for Lake of the Finns. Apparently, there have been a fair number of Finns who have immigrated to this area.

This is just to show that we were there.

Here we see a real Swedish sauna. At least thats what Sture tells me.

Reflections in the water.

Sture surveys the launching pad for many of his swimming activies. Apparently, Lena and he swim here quite a bit during the summer.        Panorama of Lake made from  photos.

On the way back only the road, we noticed this feeder stream.

Lena pointed out this rather picturesque wall.

I thought this sign meant kittens for sale. But, Lena said it meant drive carefully.

We spotted another feeder stream going into the lake that was less vigorous than the first one we saw.

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There was a wedding on the way back to the car.