Even though I haven't improved my english as much as I was hoping for, it's much better then when I left Sweden and hopefully I don't have to do English B but can continue directly to English C. I have learned to take care of myself this year. I know it's always up to me and if I want something I need to get it by myslef. I have also learned how to behave around new people. When I came to my first hostfamily I was scared to death, I sleaped on needles and everything was weird and different from home. When I moved to this family it felt natural and I was a part of the family just after a week or so. Next year I'm getting back to the same old swedish school for contionuation of my highschool there. Because this year doesn't count I need to go with the class that is one year younger than me. It means that I will have almost all of my classes with my little brother. I'm kind of excited because we are good friends but I'm very sad that i can't go with my friends from before. After Highschool I want to go into science, probably about climate. The problem is that it's bacically only one school in sweden where you can read about climate, and it's a school I don't want to go to.

Perfect?

People call me a perfectionist, I think it's in a bad way. This is the order of how I treat task:

1. I always start with trying to make something perfect. Try to make the science essay in style with what only a Nobel Prize winner can do, to sew the dress just as perfect as if it came from a store, if not even better.
2. Then I realize that I never will be able to so.
3. I get destroyed. I cry, bang the wall with my hands.
4. I give up and just try to make it average.
5. Then, I get angry at myself because I haven't done my best and tries to fix it.

Every single time. Every single time. It's the 5th part that make people believe that i'm a perfectionist. I unsually run around, crying and working at the same time. To believe that I'm a perfectionist is wrong. I just get's crazt because of a task. Right now I'm trying to make a web page for a biotech competition. Our first goal was to win this thing but now I'm in the 2nd stage. I just realized that it's only a week left and that it's really, really hard. Tomorrow I will cry, and the day after that I'll work like crazy, making my head hurt even more (yes I have still headache after my concussion). My can't I learn on my misstakes?

PCR!!!

There was a time when to amplify DNA, You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells. (Oooh) Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis, Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.

Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers, Nucleotides and polymerases too. Denaturing, annealing, and extending, Well it’s amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.

[Chorus] PCR when you need to detect mutation (detect mutation) PCR when you need to recombine (recombine) PCR when you need to find out who the daddy is (who’s your daddy?) PCR when you need to solve a crime (solve a crime) [x2]

Link to movie (you HAVE to see this!!!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5yPkxCLads&feature=related
My teacher in Biotech showed us this movie in class. It's a commercial for BioRad (biotechnology company) and I love it. It's the best song in the entire world it even beats wizard rock.
The song text tells you pretty well what PCR it is. You take a test tube, put in some stuff in it and do "heating and cooling and heating". The DNA will split, special designed primers will attaches if you have the special gene we are searching for and then polymerase will fill it in. This will happen about 30 times and you end up with millions of the same gene, and then you run it on a gel. If you have the gene, there will be a mark and if you don't, then nothing will happens.
We will start with our PCR lab tomorrow. I'm really excited and I hope it will go well. We are doing it on a ALU piece that not everyone have.
ALU is a mutation in form of a "jumping gene". It gets copied to RNA, and then "back copied" to DNA again, and then jumps in to a place in the gene. Because of this 5%!!! of our DNA is ALU! It only exist in primates.

Picture of our chromosomes and how much of it that is ALU. (green is ALU)

Voting for the European Parlament.

I'm so excited for voting. A week a go I got to know that there is an election for the European Parliament in June. First I got mad and angry. The first time I ever would be able to vote (I turned 18 in February) I was away in a foreign country, far away from all voting cards, ballots and ballot boxes and I shouldn't be able to do it. But then, I thought, maybe there is a way... I had heard about mail voting before. I look at their website: http://www.val.se/in_english/index.html (yes they have it in English too :). Now i know that I can vote either by mail or by going to the Swedish consulate in SF. Though, I can't decide what to vote for. I have some options:



Miljöpartiet:

Pros:

• Very environmental and nature focused.
• Does not want the IPRED-law. Which is a stupid law that companies can spy on people and see if they are doing illegal downloading of music etc. I'm not a big "legalize downloading" fan but I believe that it is the police that is supposed to take care of crimes and not companies.
• Want to keep the 6 years study help. I think we would get a lower level of education if they made it to 4 years.

Cons:

• Very much left and socialistic/communistic.
• Want to get rid of our wonderful King Carl XVI Gustaf...
• Want to have a lot, a lot of direct democracy. They think it should be a referendum if only 5% wants so. I think we need at least 30-50% (so that IPRED can't pass).
• Doesn't have clear politics and sometimes it feels like it's angry, extreme, animal-defending teenagers that is in charge of the party.
• Believe in civil disobedience. (I can justify Gandhi, but in a democratic country, laws and elections should decide what is right or wrong, not teenagers destroying animal cages because they feel that's right).

Centern:

Pros:

• Environmental and nature focused.
• Social-liberal, which I like a lot.
• Wants to keep the king!
• Has a mature and clear plan for their political plans for EU, which this election actually is about.

Cons:

• In the "Alliance" with MODERATERNA= a little bit of hate, FOLKPARTET= more hate and KRISTDEMOKRATERA= a lot of hate. (Though the other side is not much better).
• They support the IPRED law (or at least the other parties in the Alliance does)= HATE HATE HATE.
• Too much for the countryside and wants to, instead of making BIO-fuel, make gas less expensive.

Privatpartiet:

Pro:

• This party believes in free downloading of movies and music, and I would only vote for them because I hate the IPRED law (which is made up from the beginning of EU).

Cons:

• They believe in free downloading of movies and music, which I do not believe in.
• They do not have political views for other stuff.
• I do not believe that that downloading of music is our world's biggest problem right now.

Cogito, ergo sum

Real Harry Potter fans usually know this quotes as well as one's pocket. Harry "dies" and meets Dumblebore at Kings Cross. After a long talk they conclude that Harry is not really dead and he makes the decision to go back to the other world and fight against Voldemort. This is the end of their conversation, and happens just before Harry leaves:

"Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?" "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real."

JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

A French philosopher said something with the same theme:

"Cogito, ergo sum"- I think there fore I am.

René Descartes

He said that this was the only statement that where absolutely true, the other stuff is just speculations that we can't be sure about. Maybe this is the only truth. Life is only pattern with thoughts and it's just happening in our head. Imagine a psychically sick person. In his head things are happening that is not real to us. But to him it's absolutely as real as for us. He can smell the smell, hear the sound, feel the spiders crawling on his skin or his "imaginary" friend is talking to him. But does it really matters? Isn't what we feel and sees more important than what is. If we know there is an flower on the table, but we can' see it or feel it or smell it, does it matters if there is a flower on the table? The only thing that is crushing this philosophy like a glass from a skyscraper is death. If someone shoots us, will we die even if we can't see it or feel it? Probably.

From Jessicas starbucks cup:

"Americans spend an average of 20 hours a week watching television - which means in a typical life span we devote 13 uninterrupted years to our TV sets! the biggest problem with mass media isn't low quality - it's high quantity. Cutting down just a hour a day would provide extra years of life - for music and family, exercise and reading, conversation and coffee. "

-Michael Medved

Before I went here I watched a lot of TV. Maybe a 14 hours a week, or maybe even more. I liked it then and I wont blame me for it now. So when I came here, my first host family didn't even have a TV, or they had TV but they had no channels, only used it for watching movies. Sometimes I liked the movies but they also matched stuff like desperate house wives and Buffy the vampire which doesn't interest me at all. The host family i have now watch a lot of TV. They like it and I won't blame them, the thing is that we don't really have the same taste in movies. They love monster movies from 1950's, old science fiction or heavy, depressing, subtitled German movies (at least they are not dubbed, I HATE dubbed stuff, especially if it's the news and they are giving them a silly stereotype, almost comical accent or voice). So I end up sitting by the computer instead and wasting at least as much time, if not more, there.

When I was home because of my concussion, I could neither watch TV or computer. I ended up doing a whole lot of other stuff. Like sleeping (I haven't slept enough since I was in elementary school. Now, the first time for years, I didn't feel tried!), knitting, cleaning etc.

The rule of the bone

One of the blogs in this blog project has to be about the book "Rule of the Bone" which we are reading in English class. 

Basically it's about this kid Chappie trying to find out who he is. He gets kicked out from his home by his mom and stepfather and lives with different people under different circumstances, though all of them are more or less illegal, including drugs and stealing. 

I wouldn't say it's a good book, but it's better than the other ones we have read in school. I love Russel Banks writing, he really makes Chappies reasoning as a kid in that age, or a little younger, and though the language is good he repeats some words like: "plus", "on account"," excellent", "that's cool", which gives him a very specific character.