Don't Forget Our Twittering Friends...

...I hung up some tallow balls today. It's cold outside, but at least the small birds don't have to starve.

The Winter Solstice Festival

Yesterday was the longest winter solstice and also the longest night of the year. The winter solstice is celebrated by Southeast Asian people it's called 冬至 (Dong Zhi) and is one of the biggest festivals. There are different traditions in different countries.

However, we celebrated at my grandparents where we lightened incense to reminiscens our ancestors and then ate some chinese food. We also had 湯圓 for dessert which is traditional glutinous rice balls in sweet soup. It's said that each time you eat rice balls you one year older. The big ones is stuffed with sweet mungbean filling.

Gingerbread Baking in the Making...

I invited my younger cousins to bake gingerbread a few days ago. We made some animals-shaped cookies like horses, mooses, pigs and camels. It was fun and they're just too sweet.

Instead of Christmas Tree...

...a shooting star, disco ball, tomtenissar, and candles of course.

No More School...

... for this year, I should add. So, last week was all about to finish all the assessments, home exam, lab reports (often simultaneously with lots of fika :P) etc etc and yesterday I had my final exam in biostatistics. I love the feeling to step out of the exam room and take the first deep breath in, knowing that I've tried my best and that I cannot do anything more. Winter holiday, yay!

 

So sweet of my friend E. to give all of us a giant "skumtomte" keep up the study mode.

Surprise in the Letterbox...

... after spending unhealthy much time in school lately, I found this very sweet Christmas card with a Taiwanese stamp from G. today. This made my day!

Statistics&Chocolate Muffins...

...One must just love statistics when it involves chocolate muffins. Me and E. were supposed to design a 2³ experiment and decided to bake muffins with three different factors at two levels and then measure the height of them. We chose the factors temperatures, time and with or without baking powder. The results...

...were yummy!

Mini-christmas-mania...

On Friday me and a couple of friends went to spex, which is interactive student theater combined with song and dance. They were so good and there was much laughter.

pic source: student.liu.se

On Saturday I put up some christmas decorations and baked some "lussekatter". I sort of failed baking that (and I normally consider myself as a pretty good baker). The funny thing is that I know all you need to know about yeasts (I take a course in Industrial Biotechnology) or should I say Saccharomyces cerevisae, what temperature is optimal and what substrate they like and so on. Of course I forgot to heat the milk and the dough took forever to rise. Gah.

Me and E went to the Christmas fair in Gamla Linköping on the first advent. So nice to just strolling around in the old town. 

pic source: linkoping.se

Well, as you've maybe noticed, I've gotten some Christmas-mania. I love Christmas, but the few weeks before is almost even better like take a walk in the snowy landscape or baking with christmas music in the background or just count down the days left. I can't wait for the my winter holiday to come!