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.

Okey, we have had a major set back in my chances to go abroad. Apparently you have to have 15 credits from this autumn term. I have the credits or at least I have 12,5 credits that I know of, but since the credits haven't been transfered to the database I have 0 credits at the moment and as I already mentioned I need 15. The last 2,5 credits I get from another course, which I have the exams in this Friday so if the teacher is nice she might put the credits in the system before deadline 1st of December, but she doesn't have to since she has at least 3 weeks to correct papers.

So, if I'm unlucky I won't get the credits I need before the 1st of December, which means that I can't apply for going abroad and I only get to apply if there are places left after this first round of applications. Why is it that everytime you are doing something, something goes wrong? Everytime! You get so frustrated when there is nothing you can do but to hope that your teachers care enough that they actually transfer the credits to the system. 

Since I didn't study yesterday the plans for today is to study a bit. At least I will read what I need to read for the seminar and try to finish my oral presentation. The seminar tomorrow is about the teaching practicum I had a few weeks ago and that means I don't have to read anything for that one :D I just have to bring my 9 page lesson plan. I will aslo try to squeeze in some gaming time with some friends and probably we'll play some terraria. It's a game similar to Minecraft. Other than that I don't have that much plans actually. If I have gotten a response from my teacher I might write on my position paper and try to figure out some good arguments. I'm writing about ethography and my focus is on how it should be a non-acceptable method for data collection. Well, more about that later.

When it comes to going abroad I'm waiting for confirmation of some courses. I sent a list to the person in charge for that on Friday, as soon as I hear from her I think I can write the application and academic statement and then I just have to wait. I actually added a univeristy in Australia in my list and removed San Francisco and replaced it with another university in North Carolina. I'm thinking of taking a look at university of Washington also and maybe apply there to.

There are a lot of universities in the US of which I have chosen four to which I will apply. The universities I have chosen are:

• San Francisco State
• University of Minnesota
• University of North Carolina
• Arizona State University

I don't really have any particular reason behind choosing these four universities. San Francisco was an example from one of my professors so I looked into that one but I'm not quite sure if I want to go there. I think it would be more fun to go to either Minnesota or North Carolina. Minnesota because I know nothing about that part of the US and North Carolina because of its location, it gives me the opportunity to visist Washington, New York and/ or Florida. After looking at these two places I wanted to have some warmer place to choose from to since Minnesota and North Carolina isn't maybe the two warmest states in the US and it can be rather cold in January, therefore, I picked Arizona. 

All four of these universities have courses I can take and North Carolina has far most courses to choose from so I actually think NC is at the top of my list at the moment. Well I still have a few weeks to decide but I have to start email the coordinator and get the courses accepted so that I will be allowed to transfer the credits when I get back home.

I haven't really decided yet if I will leave it at that or if I will take a look at universities in Australia and Canada to, we'll see about that.

I have never really wanted to go to the US, it has never been my dream but still I'm going there to study. I don't like the American accent I prefer the British one and I use British English both when speaking and writing. So it would maybe be wiser of me to go to England to study and my university has a partner university in London so why don't I apply for that one?

Well, the main reason is because I've already been to England to study, I were in Oxford this summer for 1 month and studied English and explored the town, and it was amazing. The second reason of going to the US is because it's easier. When you are going abroad withing the EU you have to find somewhere to live by yourself, which can be really difficult when you don't know how it works in that country. If you then go somewhere outside of the EU the university takes care of that for you, they pick you up at the airport and you get all sorts of help. The third reason, is that I have never been to the US, which will make it and adventure and well lets face it, visiting the US is on everyones bucket list, right?

Okey, going abroad isn't easy and you get a lot of information. The main reason behind why it is diffuclt to go abroad at least for me is because I'm one of the first students going abroad from the newly made teacher program studying history during my time abroad. 

I got two options if when I may go abroad, Autumn term 2017 or Spring term 2018. If I go during the Autumn I don't get to choose courses myself to the same extent as if I go during the Spring term. This is because I changde subject from English to History during Autumn 2017, which means that during this term I will study basic world history, which I can do where ever I am in the world. If I decide to go during the Spring term I will get to choose two courses that doesn't need to be related to my subject since I will have to study two courses back home either before or after I leave. At the moment it looks like I will study the didactics course during this Spring instead and then write the individual paper when I'm in the US.

There is a lot to concider before making the final decision. I still have three week before deadline, which is really good since I still need to find at least one more univeirsity to apply for!

I talked a bit about planning earlier today and I though why don't I show you guys an example of how I plan my weeks with studies, work, and other stuff that I have going on. I try to plan during the weekend before since I usually have things to to until Monday since the first seminar of the week is usually on Monday morgning.

This is just an example of how one of my weeks can look like. I only have two mandatory seminars/ week but there are a lot of work going into these seminars and it is not as chill as many think studies are. Other than studies I have some meetings about me going abroad for one semester and I have two larger work assignments and there is a planned party this weekend which I have gotten a ticket for.

As I already mentioned, this is a rough outline for one week, usually I squeeze in some gaming towards the weekend or in the middle of the week depending on when I have time.

I have decided I want to study abroad. First I wanted to go to England but that is not really possible for me as a teacker trainee since it is very difficult to find courses that suit my studies at my home univeristy. Instead I'm going to the US after one of my preofessors told me that there are three universities where it is easy to find courses that are suitable and where other students have gone and been really happy with it. 

I decided to look further into San Francisco and Duluth. I kind of think that I'm leaning more against Duluth than San Francisco and the reason why is because of the courses that are available. In Duluth there where a lot more courses and I found many that would be interesting and hopefully I will get to study some of them, keep your fingers crossed guys. The sexond reason is kind of lame but Duluth university's webpage was a lot easier to navigate and find the courses than San Francisco, which I think is really bad since I think it should be easy to find what you can study at a university. 

Since I'm probably going to the US I will get housing through the university and don't have to find an appartement on my own which I believe is a really nice benefit. Knowing beforehand that you will have somewhere to live when you get there is really calming in one way, on the other hand it is also a bit scary since you probably will share rooms with other students. But more about that when we get that far.