HELLO 🙂
It’s been a while since my last post -more than I’ve anticipated if I am being honest, but it is summer and I am at home. The whole summer was like a ride on a scary-super fast-beautiful rollercoaster with more downs than the ups but that’s life after all.
We plan – God laughs at us 🙂 got a new dimension this summer.
In a couple of days, I am traveling back to Sweden and I am starting my last year at LiU 😀 Time flies like crazy but before that let’s dive into some practicalities for you LiU-newbies.

Some of you already arrived in Sweden and some of you, we are expecting to see in the upcoming days.
For both groups, it’s highly relevant to check all information on the LiU webpage and to stay up-to-date with everything. If you don’t follow us on our Instagram account – DO THAT! The address is linkoping.university
At the moment, Simona is running a highly interactive profile where she shares a lot of interesting stuff (among the others – ARRIVAL DAYS > get a sneak peek of what awaits for you when you arrive at the bus/train station).
The second address you should familiarize yourself with is the official LiU webpage. This part especially:

Keep in mind that you have to select your Master’s program to get relevant and specific information! 
Third address and probably the most important since this is the place where you will get your LiU card (and make some selfies 😉 ) is International Student Reception located at Campus Valla.  As a rule of a thumb – read, read, read, and come prepared! Do your research 🙂
Be excited, be prepared, and enjoy every step on your journey!
See you in Linköping next week!

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Tags: biomedical sciences - new semester - student life - WS2020

Bonjour people!
It’s Tuesday morning, it’s raining but today I’m not bothered by those tiny drops on my window. This morning my coffee tastes better and the music is mellower. It’s my final week in Linköping before flying back home. It still feels surreal that I have managed to buy a plane ticket, considering the crazy political situation in my country, and that I am going home. Yet the most tedious part of the whole traveling process is just in front of me – packing! Even though I have moved more than 15 times in my life, mostly alone or with my best friend, packing is always the worst part and the most boring one for me.
Speaking of which – today’s post is about moving and packing. What to take from your home country and what to eventually buy in Sweden (and where).

As a student in a new country or city, knowing that an empty room or a half-empty room is waiting for you, you will probably have the feeling that you need everything. And that’s true in a way, but let’s be rational – you don’t. I think we all, in general, co-exist and live surrounded by too many unnecessary objects. Two questions I always ask myself before I (buy) pack something is how much do I really need this? and does this fit my current lifestyle, trip? 

Following is my list of things I brought with me when I first moved to Sweden (generally speaking – but you will get an idea):

to take
😀 electronics (laptop, tablet, phone, speakers, chargers, etc.)
😀 clothes (be super smart with this one, since you can buy almost everything in Sweden)
😀 medications (analgesics, antipyretics, vitamin supplements, etc.; in Sweden they are expensive)
😀 cosmetics&toiletries (in Sweden the offer is a bit different than in the rest of Europe and definitely more expensive than e.g in Austria)
😀 documents+money
😀 favorite coffee or spices

to buy (in Sweden)
🙁 bedsheets and blankets
🙁 towels
🙁 books (in a paper form)
🙁 cutlery
🙁 extension cords
🙁 artsy stuff
🙁 stationery things
🙁 winter clothes

The good thing is that all non-essentials you can buy in Linköping as a second-hand! From your bicycle ’till sofa and whatnot. FB group ”ESN Linköping Flea Market” offers daily various things for funny prices! It is very common that students who are leaving Sweden, after their semester is over, sell all their belongings on this FB page. Therefore join the group and buy/sell according to your needs.  And if you don’t like second hand, there is always IKEA or ÅHLENS.
If you need some stuff like batteries, extension cords, wall paint or bicycle accessorize a good place is Clas Ohlson.
If you want to play a room decorator and save some money go to the Dollarstore (close to IKEA) 🙂 On this address you can buy various hobby accessories, candles, cosmetics, and even some weird tasty snacks.
Another very good store for almost everything is located in the city center and its called Öob. Here you can buy stuff for the kitchen, bathroom, stationary things, travel essentials, candies, coffee, etc.
One thing that you should have probably in mind is that all of this is just transitory. Most likely you will not live more than 1 or 2 years at your Swedish address and everything you bought and put in your room, you will have to sell or give to someone.

Every time I had an opportunity to change my living space and surrounding I felt like a painter in front of the white, empty canvas with a thought > another opportunity to play and to create something new, fresh. Moving to a new country, city or even just a new room is a beautiful opportunity to re-invent yourself and your personal space, to try something new or to upgrade existing. Don’t hesitate to play 🙂

These days only Sonder is making my company. I love it when you accidentally discover one song and that song brings you on the plate the whole new musical cosmos.
Permanent Record by E.Snowden is something I am listening during my walks and I am almost at the end of the audiobook. I think this book should be read by everyone and if not the podcast episode hosted by J.Rogan w/ Snowden is a nice starting point; to warm you up for the whole surveillance topic.
Enjoy the summertime 🙂
Until next post!

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Tags: life in Sweden - lifestyle - student life - tips

Ciao! (:
A warm welcome & virtual hug to all of you, especially to you new-comers who are the first time on my virtual address!
As promised in my last post, from today onwards we will leave for a short time the ”philosophical waters” behind us and we will swim in a bit more practical ones!
The main idea behind the upcoming posts was born during a conversation with my brother who is in your shoes right now & I thought it would be interesting to dissect our 2h conversation and try to expand it even more (as much as this platform and blogpost format allow it).
My main intention first and foremost is: to encourage you, to help you, to make the whole process easier for you, to present to you what some of the possibilities are out there, and hopefully, you can pick something for yourself along the way.
For the sake of clarity, I would like to emphasize that everything I will be writing about is stemming only from my personal experience. What does that concretely mean? It means that the same experience is perceived differently by me & by my friend Nina. Or in other words – what is working for me doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you 🙂 We are all different and in that diversity lies the beauty. We all have ”inner filters and lenses” through which we perceive the world and accordingly react upon it. By no means, I am the person who knows everything – I am lost just as you are. Don’t take anything as it is – question everything, try everything for yourself before integrating into your life, modify it, change it, remodel it – make it suitable for you and your lifestyle. The bottom line here is to KNOW YOURSELF and what works for you!
Perhaps this post should be a nice introduction to everything that will follow with one core statement – know yourself! Know yourself and the reasons why you are doing all of this. That magic word why? has changed everything for me but that’s the topic for the other blogpost…
By saying know I don’t mean you have to know everything – I am suggesting you should have a slight idea of how the direction you are taking is going to look like.
Even more important is to know what you don’t want and what you don’t like! Knowing what you don’t want will get you much closer to ”your thing”.
Take yourself for a date at your favorite coffee shop and spend some time with yourself. Know your reasons why you decided to study what are you going to study or why you decided to go in this direction. Know your motivation (although motivation itself is short-lasting), your expectations, your hopes, your intentions, your interests, your flaws&virtues. Maybe you don’t know the exact path but all these small things can help you to navigate and decide on which doors you should knock and open and which you should avoid.
Internet is full of get-to-know-yourself tests & YT videos on this topic so you have a vast of options to explore everything related to it, but from my experience, the best way to ”meet” and understand yourself is to be exposed to different situations & people, react accordingly to it and later reflect on the whole situation, emotions, feelings and why did you reacted/felt like that. The more something intrigues you, the more something bothers you, stirs your energy, or make you uncomfortable — run towards that! If you are brave enough to explore it you would be surprised what you can find on the other side 🙂
Honestly, I never knew and I still don’t know the endpoint of this journey but my why’s were always there, deeply engraved in my brain since the end of the high school. Some of them have changed over time, some of those why’s don’t matter to me anymore but the pivotal, my inner core why’s are still there. It’s important to recognize where are you going, but even more important is to know where are you coming from.
I will slowly wrap it here 🙂 & leave you with some pictures from the last week’s hike through Vallaskogen which is a forest located in the Valla. Yes, the campus Valla is in close proximity. Our endpoint was Gamla Stan which is an open-air museum. It was really nice & hot that day; finally, the weather is more like in my country. Maybe the best part of living in Sweden is actually summertime and the possibility to be in nature during the long day hours. I caught myself enjoying the long walks through my neighborhood while listening to an audiobook. If I’m not traveling home in a few days I would definitely do a long hike towards some destination in the North and I am sure it would be an amazing experience. That’s something I will try to plan for the next summer :))
People, that’s it for today’s post – enjoy the sunny weather, listen to some good music and until next time!

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Tags: student life - study in Sweden - summer in Sweden

Hej 🙂 🙂

The month of June is finally here! That means only one thing (or two) – the semester is over & it’s time to go down-south (at least I will be going). This girl has the first year of master studies officially behind her 😀 & as much as that feeling makes me excited and happy it also gives me a micromolar concentration of anxiety.

Good news for all of us and you, future-students, is that from the winter semester 2020 we are going back to ”normal” but with slightly changed and adapted ways of teaching, learning, and working. Biomed students and laborants will be back in the lab (yaaay); the courses will be modified into its ”hybrid version” or in other words, they will be a combination of face-to-face meetings (with a smaller number of people in the room) and digital lectures intended for a bigger audience. Taking everything into consideration, this is not bad at all but still, far from the perfect 🙂 I have a love-hate relationship with this whole concept. On one side I like the aspect of digital lectures from home, but on the other side, I don’t like the aspect of not being able to see my friends in real-time, not being able to give them a hug when they need one or when you need one. And what about all those funny moments when we laugh together about some clumsy-stupid stuff to bypass the (harsh) reality? I am missing all those small moments of real human interaction, all that what makes us humans and that energy exchange between two or more people.
Reflecting back on the past semester and the whole journey from the beginning of January until the present day I have changed a lot as a person, as a friend, as a worker & as a human being. We all changed (for the better I hope). Some changes I forced upon myself, some were imposed on me but in the end, I found myself standing under the blue sky, with that ”everything-will-be-fine-in-the-end-feeling” while Spotify has decided to play Lazarus, a song from David Bowie. For David, this song was THE END of everything known and unknown; for me, it was a beginning…Sometimes life gives you a soundtrack, not the one you have expected to be played and not the one you know how to dance to, but the one you really need 🙂 embrace it!

PS. I am aware of the fact that I owe you a couple of posts & the few future ones will be related to biomed students primarily BUT I hope the rest of you will be able to extract something useful and adapt that for yourself and your courses/events. I will try to share as much as possible from my experience and what I have learned so far. I am planning to write about courses – how to pick & what to pick in the first semester; practical part (lab) – how to find your 15/30 credits project & everything related to that experience (disclaimer! I will be sharing only things stemming from my personal experience & what has been working for me so far); the first month in the new environment – how-to, let’s say, overcome those first few weeks in an unfamiliar environment with unknown people (a dual reflection from someone who is intravert&extravert) & other sub-topics.
As always thanks for the reading and 🙂 Adios!

Small things in the past weeks that made me happy – yoga, coffee & sunsets after the dance nearby my dance studio 🙂

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Tags: biomedical sciences - life in Sweden - Linköping - student life

Hej, hej 🙂

The end of May is almost here — 11 days or 264 hours is all that’s left. What’s even scarier is the fact that in two weeks I will be done with the first year of my master’s program. Where I have been last year at this time and where I am now… I can’t even fully comprehend the change and its significance and weight.
John Lennon was right when he sang: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” This is genuine on so many levels. Plans have never worked in my favor. No plans, no maps, no final destination just the road in front of me and the golden horizon as far as the naked eye can see.
I was more than happy when my friend Goshia, out of the blue, suggested that we go to Stockholm. We spent the whole Saturday in this beautiful capital. We caught some of the cheapest and earliest trains and were already drinking coffee at 9 a.m. in the city center. The feeling was unreal. A walk through the unknown city, a hot espresso, a sunny day and a dear (and highly sarcastic :D) friend beside you is all that is needed for happiness.
I caught myself for a split of a second how I already miss her. How much I will miss her jokes, her presence, our coffee talks in the lab, her golden sarcasm, and that feeling of being myself when I am with her. In one month she will be back in Poland and I will stay here 🙂 Goodbyes were never my thing either…
Probably, it will never happen again that I happen to be in Stockholm and some of the biggest and main tourist attractions are completely empty and without tourists. Entirely empty streets, hidden corners, long stairways (to heaven), shop windows, antique shops, bakeries, and small coffee shops ready to be photographed in their pure essence. I will not go into details regarding the places you should visit – I leave this to you and your preferences but keep in mind that one day is not enough for honestly anything except for a cup of coffee, and a nice walk next to the seashore.
Sadly, I don’t have many photos because when I enjoy something and especially with someone, my first instinct is always to enjoy and to be fully present in that moment. I don’t have a need to create a physical artifact. Some of the most beautiful ”artifacts” will be forever stored in my ”inner album”. A day with Goshia will be always one of them 🙂

Linköping (circa 7 a.m)

Coffeeeee! First & the most important thing immediately after I open my eyes – the strongest one, even better if triple Italiano espresso 😀 Since my friend is a night owl – I gave her a call around 6 am just to make sure she is awake and she was (luckily!) We met 10 min before our train departed at the Linköping Central bus/train station.

Stockholm (circa from 09.10 a.m onwards)

Live, love, laugh – it’s simple as that.
Until next time! 🙂

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Tags: biomedical sciences - biomedical student - life in Sweden - study in Sweden