Luleå diary. Day 5.
Getting an accommodation here in Luleå can be tough. Apparently there is housing crisis all over Sweden. Here one has to register at housing companies and request them to allocate an accommodation. I registered at three housing companies in May right after I was admitted at the university but yet to climb up in the queue to get one.
We had rented a one-room apartment for the time being with a hope of getting a bigger place in the coming months. It’s our fifth day here. We sort of managed ourselves in this small apartment but need to find out a permanent place soon.
Classes started today and the teaching techniques blew me away. I think I will enjoy this quarter. Meet seven classmates from five different countries. The lecturer is from South Africa. That’s the level on internationalization in the program. Only thing Swedish about the course is the origin of the university.
A local resident came to meet us today. A wonderful gentleman. He gave some tips and later sent me a whole list of places through email.
The evening went down in a flash as I started reading the texts for the Marketing Management course.
Wafiq has been a good boy since we arrived here, which is a big big relief. For Asma and me, the shift was not much of a challenge but Wafiq left behind his world, his comfort zone, his music. He is coping well I think. I try to give him more time to fill up the time he used to spend with abba amma back home.
It was a good decision bringing his guitar. He is of his own most of the time, trying to create music. Asma and I are his obvious listeners.
Luleå dairy. Day 6.
Classes, group-studies, complex cases kept me running the whole day. Stated for university at 7:30 a.m. and came back at 3:30. I was on my toes all day and had just an apple in the break time because I want to keep the doctor away at least for now.
In one of the courses, we were introduced into the market-place. It’s a virtual corporate world. Eight groups were formed – each representing a bicycle company. Hence eight companies will fight over the next 10 weeks to dominate the market. There are five members in my group. As anticipated – five of us are from five different countries; one is from Kenya, one from Finland, one from Sri Lanka, one from Japan and me from Bangladesh of course. It will be exciting getting inputs from people of five different countries. We had two team meetings and already innovative ideas started to come in.
Had lunch after coming back home. Asma seems trying different menus every day. I advised her not to take much hassle but being a Bangali housewife, she is always doing something – cooking something new, cleaning the desks, organizing the suitcases.
After three attempts, we learned how to do laundry. It was tough I tell you! The whole system is automated, starting from entrance. We thought we just walk-in to the laundry room. Found out, first we have to book, that too in the system. The system only speaks Swedish, hense we took help from google. We booked and then came back later at our designated time. The system only lets people enter in the designated time. We got-in after a mess up, no thanks to language barrier. We got-in alright but none of the washing machines were starting. There was a German guy around, we took his help. He informed us that the system also designated a specific washing machine for us and no other machine will start. So we went back, tried to figure out the designated machine from the system and entered the laundry room again. This time it worked! But we did not know how much time we should insert for washing the clothes and how much to insert for drying. We called our good friend Ahmed Kabir who lives in Stockholm. After getting a brief from him, we finally managed to wash and dry our cloths. Huge achievement!
Luleå dairy. Day 7.
Our first weekend in Lulea! I had to spend time reading the cases and getting hold of the course materials. Asma was busy with household things and Wafiq was busy with his guitar.
Went for an evening walk in the woods. I miss jogging. Will need to start.
Tomorrow we plan to go to the harbor.
Getting an accommodation here in Luleå can be tough. Apparently there is housing crisis all over Sweden. Here one has to register at housing companies and request them to allocate an accommodation. I registered at three housing companies in May right after I was admitted at the university but yet to climb up in the queue to get one.
We had rented a one-room apartment for the time being with a hope of getting a bigger place in the coming months. It’s our fifth day here. We sort of managed ourselves in this small apartment but need to find out a permanent place soon.
Classes started today and the teaching techniques blew me away. I think I will enjoy this quarter. Meet seven classmates from five different countries. The lecturer is from South Africa. That’s the level on internationalization in the program. Only thing Swedish about the course is the origin of the university.
A local resident came to meet us today. A wonderful gentleman. He gave some tips and later sent me a whole list of places through email.
The evening went down in a flash as I started reading the texts for the Marketing Management course.
Wafiq has been a good boy since we arrived here, which is a big big relief. For Asma and me, the shift was not much of a challenge but Wafiq left behind his world, his comfort zone, his music. He is coping well I think. I try to give him more time to fill up the time he used to spend with abba amma back home.
It was a good decision bringing his guitar. He is of his own most of the time, trying to create music. Asma and I are his obvious listeners.
Luleå dairy. Day 6.
Classes, group-studies, complex cases kept me running the whole day. Stated for university at 7:30 a.m. and came back at 3:30. I was on my toes all day and had just an apple in the break time because I want to keep the doctor away at least for now.
In one of the courses, we were introduced into the market-place. It’s a virtual corporate world. Eight groups were formed – each representing a bicycle company. Hence eight companies will fight over the next 10 weeks to dominate the market. There are five members in my group. As anticipated – five of us are from five different countries; one is from Kenya, one from Finland, one from Sri Lanka, one from Japan and me from Bangladesh of course. It will be exciting getting inputs from people of five different countries. We had two team meetings and already innovative ideas started to come in.
Had lunch after coming back home. Asma seems trying different menus every day. I advised her not to take much hassle but being a Bangali housewife, she is always doing something – cooking something new, cleaning the desks, organizing the suitcases.
After three attempts, we learned how to do laundry. It was tough I tell you! The whole system is automated, starting from entrance. We thought we just walk-in to the laundry room. Found out, first we have to book, that too in the system. The system only speaks Swedish, hense we took help from google. We booked and then came back later at our designated time. The system only lets people enter in the designated time. We got-in after a mess up, no thanks to language barrier. We got-in alright but none of the washing machines were starting. There was a German guy around, we took his help. He informed us that the system also designated a specific washing machine for us and no other machine will start. So we went back, tried to figure out the designated machine from the system and entered the laundry room again. This time it worked! But we did not know how much time we should insert for washing the clothes and how much to insert for drying. We called our good friend Ahmed Kabir who lives in Stockholm. After getting a brief from him, we finally managed to wash and dry our cloths. Huge achievement!
Our first weekend in Lulea! I had to spend time reading the cases and getting hold of the course materials. Asma was busy with household things and Wafiq was busy with his guitar.
Went for an evening walk in the woods. I miss jogging. Will need to start.
Tomorrow we plan to go to the harbor.
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