Graduating from NTNU

Some weeks ago it was time for our graduating ceremony at NTNU. Finally after five years we had our degree. Though most of us had not submitted our thesis on graduation day, I think everyone felt that they had. The celebration started with a champagne breakfast at uni, and before we had our picture taken at noon many and at least I, were a bit tipsy. Afterwards we had a poster presentation of our thesis before the main program started. A 2 hour long ceremony with speeches and songs. Most of them were good, but then there was this long monotonous speech and I could not wait to get out of there. Just like some lectures. All I could think of was, this is the last time you have to sit still and try to keep awake in this auditorium.
After the ceremony was done we got tapas and champagne. As much champagne as you could drink. They just kept on topping up our glasses. The tipsiness was back after a little down in the auditorium.
Then we had some more to drink outside in the beautiful weather before it was time to change for dinner. The dinner was at Banksalen, a very nice place, but I am a bit disappointed about the food. It is supposed to taste something, right? The wine was good, and that is the main thing;)
Many speches were held, songs were sung and the atmosphere was indescribable cheerful. The party ended at Samfundet where we had hired Klubben for the evening. Awards were given before we started dancing like crazy, rapping, stage diving and anything that makes a good party=) Sadly(or maybe not) there are no pictures from this part of the party.

Champagne breakfast:) It's something about drinking before noon...

My poster presentation

A marching band started the ceremony

We got to see some new sides of our professors when they performed as a choir:)

"Mathematics are important"-as if we haven't been told that enough during our five years at uni...

The toastmaster of the day:)

The fist speech:) If you look closely, you can see she is prepared for the traditional shout: show the boobs!

Nervous?

On a roll:)

Performing a speech just written:)

Who will get an award?

The award e remember the best: Our next couple;)

A couple of weeks after graduation, It was time for me to submit my thesis. After a week with almost no sleep and an extreme amount of coffee all I had to do was push a button. That can be very hard. My palms were sweaty, I was dizzy and a bit shaky. Once I push the button, there is no turning back. After some pressure from the rest of the office and been given a glass of wine, I managed to hand in my thesis. I had to lay down on the floor to calm down and for some time it was impossible to drink with only one hand.
Then it was another celebration. I had bought Bollinger and after one glass I was back to being tipsy me. Even though we were an exhausted bunch of people, we rocked the club and those who had bought the NTH ring(a proof of our degree) wore it well:) My time as a student is officially over, no it is time to explore other possibilities!=)

Motivation nb 1=)

Could life be better?:)

Guys drinking cider, just had to take a photo:)

Addicted to coffee??

It's time for deep conversations

Or? At least we're not old and boring yet!=)

Even more coffee...<3

Courseday and Lohn

In order for us to get money from the faculty when we're traveling to Argentina on our class excursion, we have to arrange 4 days with academic contents. Since it has been difficult to arrange for us to visit companies in Argentina we had to have one of the days in Norway before we leave. I helped planing and arranging it. The first part of the day the class split in 3 and visited a company each. I went to Siemens and learned about what they do. It was really interesting and all of them were really committed to their work.But once again I was made aware of that I am going to work in a male dominated business. Out of the 9 speakers one were a woman and she worked in the HR department:p

The second part of the day we met back at uni where Statnett gave us a presentation. This presentation was really good and motivating. Since I am in my year, many of the people i knew at uni before I left for Australia has started working, but they all seem to come back when their company comes to Trondheim to recruit students. This time it was Pål I got to see again. It is always interesting to hear how it is like to start working, especially from someone you know:)

Statnett was also so kind that they hired some Spanish speaking to teach us something about both Argentina and the language. It was really helpful, but I've also realized I might have to spend the Christmas holiday studying Spanish.

After the academic part of the day was finished some of us went to Samfundet to listen to Lohn's concert. For every time I listen to their music I like it more=) The lyrics are in Norwegian and they have actual meaning and I think that is part of why I like it so much. Here's a link to some of their songs if you want to listen to it:
Lohn

We have all got our sponsor t-shirt on:)

Pål

Spanish, Argentinian, Argentinian=)

Lohn:)

to eat or not to eat carbohydrats?

That was the question that was discussed on Saturday when Samfundet invited to debate. Two experts with different opinions started the debate. The first one was a speaker for low-carb diets. He had a really good presentation and some of what he said really made sense, but it also seemed like he hid behind fancy words. He made it impossible to follow the presentation at times with his medical vocabulary and his use of abbreviations. The other, that is the speaker on behalf of the states suggested diet, kept it simple. During the debate I learned some new things about both diets, but I am still not convinced a low-carb diet is necessary for a normal person. I would never try it unless I had to. A lot of good questions were asked from the audience, but it seemed to me some of them did not have enough knowledge to be really critical. It is no wonder that people start feeling better when they start caring about what they put in their mouths and tries to be healthy is it?

Anyway, at the end of the debate it became obvious that the parts also agreed on several aspects: no sugar, good fat and salt and think about what you eat and drink:) It is a really interesting subject, but remember: we only live once so enjoy it!

Questions are being asked:)

Uka uka uka uka

During Uka life is hard. There is no time to relax, either you're studying or you're attending an event on Uka. But on wednesday I thought I would get a whole evening to relax and go to sleep early, but no:p A friend of mine had an extra ticket to a concert so of course I joined him!
As we came a bit early to samfundet we went to check out an other concert, the "folk song band" was playing. We were so surprised the place was packed; who knew folk songs were so popular among students?! All the songs are very happy, sort of naive and lacks concerns totally. Of course everyone was cheerful when after the concert, I felt super light and jumped on to the next concert.

To the Norwegian followers I just have to say: voi voi, sommer, sol og søndag og lykkens portal=) I should also mention that to no surprise a certain programming guru was at the concert and that he started dancing swing at the end.

I hadn't heard of any of the two bands, so I had no expectations. The first band was Team Me. The music was cool and they were full of energy! The girl had a very special dancing style, if it hadn't been for the music I would have guessed that she had a mental disease. But with the music it was cool! The lead singer also had amazing carisma and a smile that made you happy.

Team Me

Sign on mirror at the toilet: Okay with clean hands when you're going out grabbing:p

The other band Pelbo, was also pretty cool. The only instruments they had was a tuba and drums and they managed to make a lot of noise=) It is the first time I've seen a man playing tuba while dancing, pretty crazy!

Before we left we went to an other stage to check out a punk band that was playing for free, Fucked Up. I'm no punk fan so we didn't stay for long even though it wasn't too bad:p The guy was scary, he had hair all over and did not have a friendly appearance. Not exactly skinny either.

Yesterday was the 1969 party so we all dressed up. Before the party I went to a dinner in one of the committees I'm in. FestCom(Partycom) is the committee in my student club which arranges parties, so yesterday we practiced=) Three course meal, student songs, lots of wine and even rap battle at the end! The dinner was a success.

FestCom

Main course

It's not goon, wine comes in boxes in Norway. It's cheaper=)

Marie is waiting for an other glass of wine:)

Rap battle number 1

Preparing for battle number 2

Everyone is happy and looking at the table it's no wonder:)

Battle number 2=)

Wine<3 I want a such a big wine glass:)

Lucy posing with the hippie car

Marie posing with the hippie car...=)

All sorts of outfits

I almost made it home, but then all of a sudden some people came walking by, speaking English and I started chatting with them. Before I realized what had happened I was at an after-party drinking whiskey. (today was a tough day, Norwegian saying: hero at night, hero at day). The cool part was that one of the guys, all of which were PhD students, was from NZ. So awesome to listen to the funny dialect again. It makes me think about tint end bid and so on;)

Salmon(laks) colored dress:)

I was wearing a shiny dress and they told me I looked like a laks, that's Norwegian for salmon, so the rest of the evening I was lakswoman. After noticing the color on her dress we both were:p

This is pretty much how the after party was like..=)

I'm off to bed preparing for the last Uka event, a stand up show with three of the most famous Norwegian comedians. It's gonna be sweet=)

Sunday: a boring day when everything is closed, or..?

For those of you who didn't know, the rugby finale was this Sunday. Due to the time difference the kick off was at 10 am in Norway! But after an extremely peaceful Saturday evening it was no problem being at the pub in time for it. In fact I even managed to go for my usual Sunday run (a very common Sunday activity in Norway) before going there. I didn't expect a lot of people at the pub since rugby is not a big sport in Norway, but the place was packed!=) Mostly of French, but also some kiwis. Therefore it was even better when the All Blacks won. They did not have to make it so exciting though. I really enjoyed watching real men in action again:p

Some had even brought flags=)

Later in the evening UKA again caught my attention. This time it was two free concerts at Samfundet, and since I had nothing better to do, I went. I didn't regret event though I was a bit tired at the end. The first band was especially cool to see since one of my classmates plays in it. The other one put up a great show and played a lot of feel good music. I like it!

Lohn

leisure suit lovers

All in all, Sunday can be a very good day even though everything is closed:)

UKA

UKA is a student festival that lasts for approximately 3 weeks. Every day is filled with stuff to do, some of it is even free. One of the main attractions is the revue at Samfundet ( a big, round, red house that students own and run). But this year it was a huge disappointment, and I took myself in thinking about whether I should go running afterwards and where it would be nice to run instead of watching the performance. The performance was good though, it was the material that was sort of flat. After the revue I went to a concert with on of the choirs at Samfundet: Knaus. And what a concert! The singing was amazing and in between they had some skits that made my laugh more than I did during the revue.


Yesterday was a theme party in a huge tent put up for the festival. The theme was to dress as a trønder, that is a person who comes from the middle of Norway. It is a lot of prejudices associated with them! I choose to dress as a farmers wife=) The bands playing were also from the area. I had been looking forward to the party, but it ended up being a huge disappointment:(  No place to sit  and way to dark. I ended up loosing my friends, but after the party ended, I found one of them and we hit the city!=) Much more fun! We did not think we would get any attention at all, but we were all wrong. The guys seemed to like us even more than usual. I don't know if I should take it as a positive or negative thing.
Here's some photos from the evening=)

Predrinking and eating sodd, a dish from the middle of Norway.

Vilde was not too happy with the sodd...

Cecile(to the left) had made a collection of typical songs for the occasion.

=)

Most girls dress up as boys 

Inger Kamilla gave in and dressed up:p

Gunnhild in her home made dress!

Having a mustache is obligatory!

 

Photo shoot on our way to the city! 

Vilde posing:p

We were quit a couple!