Student blogs

I am proud and happy to say that as of late December, I have been accepted into PrU, the program committee at KI. The program committee is a student section at KI’s student union (MF) responsible for the friday pubs, big parties, fancy sittings, balls, and more. For a year, I worked as a trainee, but now that I have been “called into” the committee I will no longer be spotted wearing the AT (trainee) medical clothing. Instead I’ll be wearing the 4 different colored overalls that I’ve dreamt of owning since I got here.

Here’s a guide that could help you get them too!

1. Work your way to the overalls

To recieve overalls you have to become a PrU member. To become a PrU member you must show you can work the pubs, parties and sittings. For a year, I have been working the pubs and parties, but it took me a while to get my schedule to allign and finally work at a sitting. The sitting I worked at was the Lucia Ball, one of the most formal sittings hosted at the student union. (The Nobel Laureatte Fred Ramsdell attended and loved the experience of a Swedish sitting.)

2. Collect 4 white overalls, and dye one black, one yellow, one red. (Do not put dye in the dryer!!!)

I was selected into PrU along with a friend, and together we decided to get the overalls made as soon as possible. Yes, you have to craft the overalls yourself. They start off as just 4 pairs of white overalls that you have to dye, cut, and sew back together. Just before winter break, we spent an entire afternoon at the student union dying our overalls.

…We ran into a minor complication. Perhaps we were a bit to eager to get things done quickly…so, we didn’t check which machine was the dryer and which was the actual washing machine. We may have accidentally put in the overalls and the dye into the dryer. Despite noticing this straight away, we had to become experts at cleaning dryers…and gave ourselves multiple days of work. But now the dryer is even cleaner than it was before!

3. Cut up the overalls

After they were out of the washer and dried we got whatever tools we had to cut them apart at the seam. We had everything but seam cutters. We tried using nail scissors, knifes, a weird can opener…? Next followed the decision of who gets what leg and what color we wanted the legs and arms to be.

4. Sew them together

Lucky me, I had taken the overall peices home where my grandmother gladly helped sew them together. Now that they were all in one peice, they were almost complete.

5. Add on the PrU logo

What was missing was the PrU logo at the back. I added this together with my friend when I was back in Stockholm. Turns out that up to the age of 25 you can go to kulturhuset during open hours and use sewing machines for free! They will even help you set it up, and teach you how to use the machine if you need help. It was super cool to find that out, and it was fun getting to sew in the heart of Stockholm with a nice view.

Lastly, to make the overalls interesting: they need patches!

I luckily have some patches saved up already…the bigger issue is finding the time to sew them on!