Nowadays everyone is getting Covid-19. The latest Omicron outbreak seems to have reached every corner of Sweden, including Uppsala, our students, and the staff at our department. But now it seems to have calmed down a bit. A couple of weeks ago I was on… Read More »Covid-19 outbreaks
This week I’ve started teaching a foundation course in chemistry. It’s the first chemistry course for the students at university level, and although it seemed that this course might be taught in-person, we’ve started off teaching it online. Since this is the first time teaching… Read More »Modern teaching?
Mid-December until the first week week of January is the holiday season in Sweden. It starts around the 13th of December when we celebrate Lucia, a festive day centering around the concepts of light, buns and biscuits. More exactly, saffron buns called “lussekatt” and gingerbread… Read More »Winter holidays
One thing I miss about pre-COVID Stanford is all the workshops and seminars for postdocs. Of course, some were offered online during COVID, but it really wasn’t the same thing as the in-person variants. Back in Uppsala one of the first things I did in… Read More »Introductory workshops
Nowadays, it’s rare to see snow before Christmas, but this year, we got snow in mid-November! It was great, and I was able to fulfill a promise to the kids from way back in hot California that we would build a snow man when we… Read More »First snow!
This week I started my new position as a researcher at the Department of Chemistry-BMC at Uppsala University in Sweden. This is the same university where I got my MSc and PhD degrees. Coming back has been nice in a sense, but also somewhat confusing.… Read More »New position at Uppsala University
I’m in my final month as a Stanford postdoc and this month I aim to finish writing up one of my projects. For some people, manuscripts are tedious and time-consuming to write. For me, it’s something I truly enjoy. To me, the time spent writing… Read More »Scientific manuscripts
After a month back home, I’ve decided that I really enjoy being back home. Although I miss my lab mates, I think I might have missed them more had I spent most of my two years in the US actually in the lab. But the… Read More »Switching Stanford for Sweden
It’s 3 AM, Swedish time, and I’m jetlagged. 48 hours ago we were sitting on the plane from San Francisco headed for Lisbon, Portugal. Three days before that, I was finishing up experiments and clearing out my things in the lab so we could focus… Read More »Flying in Covid times
It is the 4th of July, the Independence Day here in the US. It’s likely the last one I will experience and as I’m typing this fireworks are going off. Although we can’t really see any fireworks from our apartment window, we have been able… Read More »4th of July 2021
I came to Stanford in late October 2019 for a two-year appointment as a postdoc. But with four months to go, I’m already preparing to go home. This past year has been really different for a lot of people. Many have had the opportunity to… Read More »Preparing to go home
This week I finally got the second Covid-19 vaccine shot. And my arm is still sore. But in two weeks I should be fully protected against serious illness due to the coronavirus. I got my first vaccine a month ago at Stanford. One of the… Read More »Fully vaccinated!
I’ve successfully finished a 5-part workshop series going through various modules of the Schrodinger Bioluminate package. As part of the Stanford Teaching certificate I need to teach a certain number of hours, and at the same time I wanted to introduce my lab members to… Read More »Schrodinger online workshops
The US doesn’t have a lot of religious holidays, but it does have plenty of, let’s say, political (?) holidays. One of them just passed by – Martin Luther King Jr, or MLK day. Since this holiday happened to occur in the weekend this year,… Read More »Martin Luther King Jr – day
My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas. But I’ve always appreciated the associated Christmas break. To me, Christmas is the time period starting with Lucia on the 13th of December up until New Years Day. And it’s filled with different seasonally available foods, lights and candles in… Read More »‘Tis the time for holidays
This week was the Thanksgiving week and I was surprised to see how big this holiday is. Last year people started going back to their family homes early in the week, but this year I thought that travel restrictions would keep some people in the… Read More »Black Friday weekend
Today we´ve been in the US for one year. It´s been an eventful year and a not very eventful year, both at the same time. Obviously, we´ve had the pandemic going across the the globe in waves, and we´ve had riots and the politically induced… Read More »One year in the US
I´m so tired of watching and reading American news, so for the past week I´ve tuned it out and decided to watch dramas on Netflix instead. Although there are plenty of non-American series out there, I decided I´d like to watch something that wasn´t in… Read More »Korean Netflix-binge
This week started off pretty bad, with a blackout for three hours (!) between Sunday and Monday. It was a very hot night – made worse by the lack of electricity (and working fans). And the following Labor day was also very hot – if… Read More »Is this what the apocalypse looks like?
I have been going through a protein expression and purification bootcamp, courtesy the graduate students in our lab. This is a hands-on experience, starting from the process of making growth media all the way to having a purified protein. Apart from the practical skills I… Read More »Making proteins is a slow process