We are half way thorugh the week and I have a lot going on this week. I'm writing an exam in filmdidactics and it's going forward, slowly but I'm getting there. But today I'm soon going to go to the university and meet my group and work with our teaching plan presentation. I did some work on it yesterday and we are nearly finished there is just a few more things we need to do.

Other than that, I will propably continue writing my paper I really need to finish both the gender analysis and the didactic perspective this week and focus on the conclusion next week. I also have some fun things planed. I'm going to make some saffron buns, it's going to be delicious other than that I don't have anything planned and I will take things as they come today. 

I'm still off until Monday the 12th, which means I have plenty of time to study and prepare for the next course, which starts on Tuesday.

Lucia is around the corner and Åhlens decided to do an advertising campaign but it back fired. Not because they did something wrong but because Swedish people are incredibly easily offended. Some people not all were offended that the Lucia Åhlens depicted in their advertisment was a boy with dark skin color. I don't see the problem, let a child dress as he/she wants and let them be who and what they want to be. Lucia is supposed to be fun and yes it is a traidition we have in Sweden but come on Lucia is not a swedish tradition. It's something we have taken from another culture not something that we made up so people don't be so offended by this, grow up and act as adults.

Adults should never bully anyone not another adult and especially not a child. What the hell is wrong with people? Of course children today bully each other they have been thought by their own parents that this kind of behaviour is okey and it is a huge problem. Cyber bullying grows bigger and bigger and why is that people ask? Well, the short answer is that childrens parents or grandparents bully celeberities on the internet, they comment on their clothes, their looks, their behaviour and god now what and then they act surprised when their children to the same thing.

When I went to 9th grade we were supposed to put up a show for Lucia and a classmate of mine, a boy was the only one who wanted to be Lucia. The music teacher said it was okey but when some of the other teachers heard of it they went to the principle who put and end to it and forced a girl to be Lucia instead. However, clever as we were we decided to do our own thing and in the end of the show we switched Lucia and sang a summer song where all of the students took of their Lucia clothes and wore shorts and t-shirts instead. After that we heard of some teachers who said it was the worst Lucia show they had ever seen while others really enjoyed it. There will always be people who doesn't like what you do but you should still do them if it is what you want.

Everyone needs to step up and take responsibility for their own actions and realise that it's 2016, bullying and hating on other people is WRONG and it shouldn't grow into a bigger problem it should not exist in todays society!

It's Saturday today :D The plans for today is to watch a film for our teaching plan we are going to do next week. My group decided to go with The Little Mermaid and talk about etnicity, gender and class. So, that's what I'm going to do before starting to get ready for the party tonight. We decided to go with The Little Mermaid since it is a film that all of us had seen at least once and because we thought it could be beneficial to use a film the students have seen before, since it might make it easier for them to read the film and not only watching it for entertainment. But more about that after I have analysed the film!

Tonights party is a gala dinner at the university and I'm going with the same dress as I did the previous one, it's way to expensive to get a new one but I have to consider that when I go home to Stockholm over Christmas. There are a lot more dresses to choose from there and a lot cheeper since there are more stores and not only one who has monopoly on dresses. 

How well connected are practice and theory? Studying to become a teacher you study for 5 years of which 20 week are practice. The rest of the time you study didactics, pedagogy and of course the subject you are going to teach. Is this really the best way? Well, yes you can't take away time from learning the subject you are teaching since you need the knowledge, if you are going to teach English you need to know a lot of history, grammar, linguistics, literature and of course how to implement this in the classroom. But is it enough just to talk about it in the classroom? Shouldn't teacher trainees get the opportunity to actually practice what they learn? In one way I think that for a 5 year long programe it's really wierd that you only get 20 weeks of practice and the rest of the time you have approximately 5h/ week of lectures and the rest of the time you study by yourself either at home or at the library.

Personally, I would love to have more practice since you learn so much and you get to find your own teaching role. I found that I hate standing in front of the class preaching about grammar and stuff, that I rather get the students activated and walk around in the classroom and interact with the students and answer questions. This way I believe you get more knowledge about what the students actually know and you get a different kind of connection to your students and your students ask questions. All students are not that confident that they want to speak in front of the entire class so I really believe that walking around gives all students the opportunity to ask you questions without everyone listening.

Being on your teacher practicum also gives you an opportunity to grow as a person. I would have never believed that I would be confident enough to teach grammar or anything at upper secondary school. I have always been really shy and didn't like to speak in front of the class and I still hate giving presentations at uni and I get really nervous but in some way you don't get nervous when teaching and speking in fron of your students. It's relly wierd that talking to 30 students doesn't make you nervous but you really enjoy it but talking in front of your friends makes you so nervous and you forget half of what you are supposed to say.

What I want to say is, practice makes perfect and the more you get to practice and try different things the more you learn.

I just have a short update about my exchange studies. I got my grades into the system and now I have the 15 credits I need to be allowed to apply, yay! The next step is to wait for the nomination to begin. The deadline for applying is today, the 1st of December and international office will go thorugh all the applications and based on credits for the autumn term and on grades from previous terms they make a list and from that list they nominate students for the different universities.

When you get nominated you have 3 days to accept your place or it will go to someone else. I'm a bit nervous that I will miss the email or something since you don't know at all when that email will come or anything. So, I just have to check my email once a day until the nomination period is over.

I don't think I told you were I applied in the end. First I applied to Australia, but the university I applied for only have 2 places so I'm not that sure I will get one of them, secondly I applied to Canada, there we have 6 spots so I'm a bit more hopefull and lasty I applied to the US to 3 different universities and I hope I will get North or South Carolina if I get a spot in the US.