I´ve been in the US for 8 months now and one thing that keeps bugging me is how old-fashioned my bank is. There are many things about it (and possibly the financial system in the US) that are different from what I am used to… Read More »US banking from a foreigner´s perspective
This week I took a look at my calendar and realized that I´ve spent more than 100 days working from home. It feels like time has stood still this whole time, but when I look through my calendar and my journal I see that in… Read More »100 days at home
Today is another pseudoholiday in an endless month at home (although as of today we are in stage 3 in San Mateo County). We have gotten e-mails from some administrators stating that they have gotten paid time off today. However, as we are all working… Read More »Juneteenth
Following the release of videos showing black males discriminated against and even killed by white people with police affiliations, people have started to protest on the streets and some cities have been crowded with people, mostly marching against police violence under the Black Lives Matter… Read More »Curfews
This has been a very nice, warm long weekend. Yesterday was Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of our first Ramadan in the US. And today, it´s another public holiday. So far, I´ve experienced several public holidays that we don´t have parallels to in Sweden. Among… Read More »Memorial Day and Eid
This week I attended two courses for my Teaching Certificate. Both were about backwards course design. What is backwards course design? Well, it´s a student-centric way of designing your course. Instead of thinking about what to fill a lecture with, then figuring out how to… Read More »Backwards course design
It´s Friday evening and seriously warm in California. In southern Californa there is apparantly a heatwave generating record temperatures. But here we have days and night warmer than I´m used to in May. 30 degrees (Celcius) is around 15 degrees warmer than Stockholm right now.… Read More »Halfway through Ramadan 2020
We´ve had our first day of fasting here in California and although first days are usually quite ok, today was really difficult. It could be due to the warm weather that we´ve had this wekk, or it could be due to having two toddlers in… Read More »1st Ramadan 1441
After almost six months in the US, I still find that it´s difficult to find out what has happened in the country without getting a biased message. News channels here are all biased towards either the Republican or the Democrat political parties. The main Republican… Read More »Which news should you watch?
I attended a virtual seminar this week that was about understanding my own strengths. Most of us like to focus on our weaknesses to become better, but this seminar was about understanding what our best features are so we can use them to our advantage.… Read More »StrengthQuest
It´s been an odd couple of weeks, to say the least. The Corona Virus and Covid-19 are the new buzzwords and we are all acutely aware of it. This week several counties in California ordered a Shelter-in-Place order. Both Santa Clara, where Stanford is, and… Read More »Shelter-in-Place and at-home schooling
Last week I attended a three-hour seminar in the Scientific Management Series where we learned about negotiation and negotiation styles. The basic point was that when negotiating it is possible for both parties to leave the table satisfied. If you communicate well you can both… Read More »Negotiation seminar
I´m attending a six-week course on how to write in Academia. The course is for postdocs that are non-native English speaker and it´s taught by a very funny guy, Dr. Kristopher Geda. The course is held every Tuesday 5 pm-7 pm and although it seems… Read More »Professional and Academic Writing
I was curious about what makes a great blog, and I learned that good blogs with ardent followers have a niche. And so I thought “What is my niche?”. Is it being a postdoc? Being a foreigner in the US? Being in the privileged Stanford… Read More »What is my niche?
Another week, another learning opportunity! I have the possibility of obtaining a Teaching certificate through the Postdoctoral Office at Stanford. To obtain the certificate I need to attend a journal club, teach at least 20 hours, and participate in a teaching workshop. The workshop is… Read More »Teaching workshop
I attended another postdoc workshop last Friday. It was called Creativity in Research and we learned to use our creativity to get unstuck, create collaborative projects, and design our research projects. The workshop started out with various games. One of them was to spontaneously draw… Read More »Creativity in Research
The new year has started and Stanford has been open for a week. During this week I´ve already managed to sign up for a course and various seminars. And set my learning goals on LinkedIn Learning. Did you know that Stanford and SLAC affiliates have… Read More »LinkedIn Learning for Stanford and SLAC employees
My family has been in the US for almost two months, and what have we learned so far? Everything is expensive Very early on, we learned how expensive things are in the Bay Area. Housing is ridiculously expensive, and we spend around half our income… Read More »Two months in the USA
After flying from Stockholm-Arlanda Airport early on Thursday morning via Munich we finally landed in San Fransisco International airport late at night, Pacific time. There, we had to queue for more than an hour to get through passport control before our youngest kids started screaming.… Read More »Arriving at Stanford
Last winter I thought about doing my postdoc at Stanford University in California, USA. I applied to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation for a two-year grant with the possibility of another two years back in Sweden. Now I am excited to learn that I… Read More »Wallenberg Postdoc grant for research at Stanford University