The summer is not exactly going to waste here, the last two days me and Daniel went with his parents and his sister on a boat trip, soaking up the sun, swimming in the dark blue waters and barbequing ribs (perfectly done by his dad 
).
This summer has been unbelievable and for the first time in years I have truly been able to relax and enjoy a well deserved vacation. There has been travel (to California and Nevada), parties (Surrender nightclub, Benny Benassi @ Steve Angelo) and my favorite thing, good food (lobster, seared tuna and the best ribs in the world!).
We are keeping it healthy thought, no point to pig out just cause it’s summer. There are plenty of ways to combine ribs to get a healthy dinner.
Remember to adjust your portion, and have a fresh salad and vegetables, and drop the Coke and have some refreshing mineral water instead. ‘Loka’ is quite popular here in Sweden, mine was with a drop of lemon.
What can I say, good company good food (provided my Daniels mum- a very good cook!) and good weather. Life is just plain good my dear, very very good. If summer was this great, then autumn and winter will be even better!
Second week at the hospital, one third through my practical training, and one month left of my bachelor (of dietetics). I wish I had something astonishing to tell you about my week, but other than the training at the hospital my life has been somewhat grey. It feels like I am waiting for something. Waiting to finish my degree, waiting to start work, waiting to go to USA on a road trip, and waiting to see how my autumn will turn out. The practical training, combined with little sleep and a lot of thoughts about my future, has left me exhausted this week! Nonetheless, I still managed to get some exercise done (hurray!) and work on my website, make a comic strip, do some spring-cleaning AND set a new personal record on coffee consumed during a working day. I had planned to go out and party this weekend, but I was too tired and actually went to bed quite early. I’m charging my batteries more or less. Almost certainly more. Yes. I cant think of something witty to say, so here is a picture of me at the gym, experiencing a pale day.
Yes, I have found yet another thing to keep myself occupied with, and that is my very own comic strip about dietitians. I hear every day misconceptions about dietitians, and dietitians (and dietetics students) have quite a good time laughing at them. Some misconceptions are truer than others, but most of them are just ridiculous. So today Ann the dietitian was born, poorly drawn with a pen tablet my very good friend Kim B gave me (he is a media graphic designer, check out his website) as a present for my birthday a year ago (given to further inspire my creative work in Adobe Photoshop). Happy to get some feedback and maybe some good stories that you would like to see as a comic strip, and they have to be about dietitians, dieting or health related situations.
This one is the first, but I have many more (just haven’t had the time to draw them properly yet), so keep an eye on this page. More funny things will be added to the humor page, probably over the weekend.
I didn’t sleep to well last night, many thoughts and uncertainties in my head. I was lying awake until four am, before dragging myself to the living room and collapsing on the sofa. For the last couple of weeks I have been applying to various jobs, somewhat uncertain whether I want or should study this autumn. There are no dietitian vacancies.The last five years several of the positions have been cut. With fewer vacancies and more students, the likelihood of finding a job as a dietitian is diminutive. Out of the few jobs available, dietitians with years of experience are often preferred, and there are many of them looking for a job right now. My mind has been working like crazy, mostly during the nights when I can’t keep myself busy with something else, trying to work out what other possibilities there are out there. I feel that I lack guidance on this matter, but maybe it is up to me to figure this one out. I am worried about my future. If I study for two more years my student loan will skyrocket and I will have to spend well over 25 years trying to pay it off- and I won’t be guaranteed that I will get a better paid job, or a job at all, if I add a master to my portfolio. If I choose to work instead, will I find work? Will I find the kind of work I am looking for? The nights are long and my feelings bewildering, and I am exhausted with thoughts and qualms…
Ah! Another week has gone by! This one has been an extraordinary week, as two things I have been looking forward to have happened. One: my practical training as a dietitian started, and two: spring is here! My training will last for six weeks, and I will be at four different hospitals (!) mainly in the geriatric unit and the stroke unit. Due to the privacy law I can’t give you any details about meetings with patients, but I can tell you this:
The first day went by so fast I hardly even noticed I was ever there. I mainly spent the day learning the routines of the hospital and the software used to handle the journals, and met quite a few people. The second day I already had my own patient, and I was so happy, it felt like second nature. Third day I had a follow-up with the patient, and the fourth and fifth day were not that different.
On the weekend Daniel and I went to eat dinner at his parents’ house, and the weather was so lovely. I even tanned for half an hour or so, it was warm enough so I could take my top of. Sunday, today it was back at the gym, and I took the opportunity to wear the new workout dress my mum bought for me as a birthday present, since it was warm outside. We did our weekly grocery shopping, and right now Daniel is studying for his test next week, and I am- well, I am writing this blog entry. A very good week indeed, looking forward to the next one!
Ciao!
I really should blog more often, but working nights has really taken a toll on me and yesterday I slept until four in the afternoon, waking up just in time to have dinner. I suspect sleeping without my dear husband also makes it hard to fall asleep; the bed seems empty and cold without him.
Saturday was my last night at the bar for quite a while, as I’ll start my internship at the hospital in two weeks after presenting thesis work next week. I put on a little show just for just for fun on Saturday at the Crazy Piano nightclub in Stavanger (Norway), to prove us dietitians are not that boring. I’ve been dancing my whole life, everything from disco to salsa, and for the last few years belly dancing. If you haven’t tried belly dancing, you most definitive should! I actually dare to say that this is how I got my abs, (together with a healthy diet and plenty of other exercise) and my confidence when it comes to showing them off. It is a technical dance that can be hard to master if you aim to master it completely (other than just shaking your bum with a ‘money-belt’), so it is a true pleasure to learn as you can always advance further. On contrary to what many believe, it is not about shaking your bum and boobs, but mastering all the small and large muscles, isolating some, while letting other muscles relax.
The show was popular, but I wasn’t as smooth as I would have been if dancing on the floor, as the 45cm wide bar-top did not allow for any smooth turns and people were ordering and paying for drinks between my legs. Nonetheless I sure had a blast, and received many encouraging comments afterwards when I went back to working in the bar.
Now I am back on the road, and back to Gothenburg again, leaving some of my craziness behind me at the Crazy Piano., but my belly dancing gear is with me and I’ll put on plenty of shows at home (and I suspect Daniel, my husband, is very thankful for that).
Our draft was put together yesterday after nearly 12 hours of non-stop work and after struggling with the darn reference program EndNote. My question is this, how are we supposed to know how to insert manual references in the program if we haven’t been taught the program, nobody can help us- or the manual doesn’t specify how this is done? *Frustrated*. The program is good, awesome if you know it by heart- but I would actually prefer the old fashioned way – entered manually and I do like APA and Harvard- but I get that 
Vancouver gives a cleaner look. Anyways, the reference list should be fine (if not I’ll pull my hair out- I swear). It is currently three pages long with 42 references. I honestly thought we would need more references, but here in Sweden it doesn’t seem like it is as strict as when I studied in Australia. So we have now a 24 pages of beauty, our child. Nurtured for several intense weeks- and now almost grown up, and in two weeks we have to let go. It is always hard when they grow up, but in this case I think we will be very glad. Countdown to examination day, April 13! Yes yes, catch you later , I’m going out to party with Daniels classmates, and then dance the night away. Saturday and Sunday are thesis-days, but let’s not talk about that anymore today – it is paaaaarty time!
Follow my journey, writing on my thesis click here
By putting in a tremendous amount of work we managed to get up-to-date by last Friday. We analyzed our five studies, wrote the method part of the thesis and prepared for the Monday session with our professor. We had taken some drastic conclusions and were worried what she would say, as we had come to the conclusion that we would be unable to answer our research question due to the poor quality of the studies. We wouldn’t even be able to give it a low grade, as there were large chunks of information missing from the studies, and we suspected selection bias on two of thethem. I slept through the weekend, not wanting to think about school. On Saturday I and my husband had Johanna and Rickard over for dinner, and we planned our road trip to California this June. Monday finally arrived. Our meeting with Mette went really well, with nothing needed to be changed in our review. Now the writing and editing work could start for real. Tuesday we made a summary of all the studies with critique, and we started on our discussion. As there are so many things to think about, we decided to make a mind-map on the board. Unfortunately we didn’t have proper pens, so we had to use our highlighters – not sure how much you can read. Anyways, we are well ahead of our schedule and might even finish early if we keep up the good pace.
To read more entries on My bachelor thesis
Halfway through the third week and we are already having problems. Our research question on weight cycling and blood pressure has turned out to be a little problematic, as there is a limited amount of human studies on the subject and few of the ones we found met our criteria’s. Yesterday we discovered that we only had two studies on the subject, by the same research team (which 
might give biased results). We discussed this with a professor, and decided to let go of one criterion and include non-obese subjects, meaning that our new research question would be: what is the effect of weight cycling on blood pressure. The next day, today, after I enjoyed a fabulous lunch (yes, I bring a plate with me as I refuse to eat out of a box five days a week) we had a talk with our examinator Frode. He seemed to prefer our first research question, as it is clinically more relevant. So now it is set. What is the effect of weight cycling on blood pressure in overweight and obese subjects. But to add to the fun, listen to this (or read this): when I came home today I decided to do a new search using the same search words as last time but read every single article that came up. Suddenly I had 14 articles on the topic, with six of them meeting our criteria (or so it seems). I have no idea how we could have missed this earlier, and Cecilia, if you are reading this, I am so sorry- but we have three more articles to analyze and grade by Monday. Good thing is that the we have written our first draft of the introduction (background and aim), we have our research question, and we have read pretty much all the articles that exist on the subject of weight cycling and blood pressure. Read earlier blog entries about my bachelor thesis here
