It's been completely crazy here for the last two days. Wednesday I woke up to falling snow, a small layer of snow on the ground, and wind that kept throwing the snow back up into the air and rattling doors. I had to dig my bike out of the snow drift that had built up under the bike shelter in order to bike to school. It was not an easy ride to school due to the wind and the fact that nothing had been plowed. I allowed myself extra time, leaving for school more than half an hour before school started. Others did not do that. Buses were delayed, trains stopped, and just everything was crazy. More than half my class was late. The professor was not amused.
After class ended I went and got photo copies made of the chapters we need to read that aren't available at the library or online. That took forever! It was another hour and a quarter before I even was able to leave town. The bike ride back from town was complete hell though. The wind was making it so that there were snow drifts on the roads and bike paths. In some places I could not even see the bike path. As soon as someone walked or biked past, the wind would fill in the footsteps. It was as though no one had been on the path at all, even though I could see lots of people ahead and behind me. It meant I had to walk my bike a lot since the snow was more than 20 cm deep in places! It is hard to bike through that. It was long after dark before I finally got myself and my bike home.
Peter thankfully came over and brought food so that I had something to eat. I was too tired to even go to the store for food. He even made me a dinnerbox so that I have food tonight as well.
Today it dawned clear and cold. The wind had died down so that they actually plowed the pathways. Biking to school was much easier than yesterday. The one problem today though was the ice. It is everywhere! The temperature today got above freezing so there is this nice layer of ice a few cm thick everywhere. I managed to find a section of it on the way home from school today. I was cycling with a classmate and she slipped, I hit my brakes to dodge her and lost control on the ice. I ended up in a pile of snow. I have a few new bruises and so do her fruits and veggies I had in my basket.
School has been interesting. It is going to be a lot of work. There is lots of reading, writing, seminars, and seminar assignments to do. I am now four lectures behind since we had two lectures yesterday and two today. I am going to have to work really hard tomorrow so that I can enjoy Saturday and Sunday this weekend. There was one disaster though. Since the time when the class schedule was requested the professor changed the class. Originally our last day of class before break was supposed to be December 8th, now it is December 18th. There are about 10 students in my class who bought plane tickets and will be missing two seminars, a presentation, and the homeexam. She's having to work around them now, but it caused lots of panic for awhile. I now don't have any class after Christmas though. Only a paper due January 8th. It will be crazy trying to get all of the reading and writing done for the class. On the first day the professor said that she expected the international students to do well, but the Swedish students needed to understand that she was expecting a lot more out of them than most classes and that Swedish students have had problems in the past.
Another interesting thing about the class... it isn't a masters level. There are people who are doing their first semester of anything related to government and people in my group who have already graduated. The class moves VERY slowly at times. The thing is... the class has no prerequisites and no level. It is not an A, B, C, or D course. It just exists. It will be interesting watching who gets lost and who is bored.
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