Week 19 - "Interim Coordinator" Mode, Surprise Visitors, butterflies and sharks

Week 19 felt like one of those weeks where you can really tell that the internship is in full swing now. Malin was on vacation, which meant that my inbox suddenly became my kingdom, my battlefield, and my personal stress test all at once. I was officially the person keeping an eye on international emails, which sounds very professional and calm until you realize it also means spam, questions, forwarding, deleted chaos, and the occasional “I think this can wait until next week” moment.

Monday, 8th of June 2026, started with my first day being fully responsible for the international emails. That meant checking, forwarding, answering and deleting emails as well as sometimes asking colleagues for help when something was above my pay grade and clearly not meant for my brain on a Monday morning. I also made an Excel table for students who wanted to take a Swedish course, which was actually a nice, quiet little task in between the email madness. It was a very “welcome to adulthood” kind of day, but somehow I survived it.

Tuesday was more of the same, except I was slowly getting into a groove as the “interim international coordinator,” which sounds fancier than it felt. I was forwarding questions, deleting spam, answering what I could, and gently parking the rest until Malin came back. I also exported the interview-videos and sent them to the Communication Department, postponed a meeting that was supposed to start at 9:15, and helped colleagues wherever I could. On top of that, I made notes for my blog and work diary, because apparently I like procrastinating to document my own chaos. After work, though, the week suddenly got much better: Martin and Louise came to Stockholm with their friend Wiebke all the way from Erfurt on their roadtrip through Sweden! We had gluten-free fika, did a bit of second-hand shopping in Gamla Stan, and then said goodbye at the central station — though luckily only for now.

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Wednesday kept the same inbox rhythm going, but there was a little more structure thanks to our department meeting. I updated the list of students interested in the Swedish course and kindly asked them to wait one more week for the final placement, which felt very diplomatic of me. After work, I met up with Martin and Louise again and went shopping with them around Slussen, which made the day feel much less like a workday and much more like a little city adventure.

Shopping spree with Martin and Louise

Thursday and Friday were, in the grand tradition of this week, more international emails, more forwarding, more answering, more deleting, and more Swedish course list updates. Not exactly glamorous, but honestly there’s something almost soothing about getting everything neatly sorted when the inbox is trying its hardest to be dramatic. By the end of the week, I felt like I had successfully entered a new level of internship: slightly more confident, slightly more inbox-resistant, and still very much in need of fika.

The weekend brought a completely different kind of adventure. Sebbe’s mom took us to Haga Ocean – Fjärilshuset in Hagaparken, and despite the rain it was such a beautiful outing. It’s a "mini" shark-aquarium and butterfly house, which already sounds lovely enough, but we also got a guided shark tour in Swedish — which I mostly understood, which I’m choosing to count as a win. After that, we had lunch at ChopChop, which was somehow both very random and very delicious. A rainy weekend, yes, but in a charming Stockholm way.