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I apologize for my delay in posting news. The second semester will only last one more month and after that people will leave to their homecountries. As far as I can say this does not count for me. It turned this week that I will be most likely stay for at least one additional semester. But I did not sign anything until now. The week is quick told. Streetdancing on wednesday was at the disco in the basement of Kårhuset, because in the usual room was a meeting. Therefore we made our exercises in the basement. I've never expected to lie on that floor - esspecially not when I am sober. The lesson was great. I am still everything but well coordinated, but I made progress in the exercises. On that evening Julia from Östersund arrived for interviews at SCA. For showing her the city we made a trip to Liquid and Kåren having two beer and a nice chat. On thursday we studied for the swedish exam on friday. We had an old exam which consists of exercises that returned in every exam. Therefore P...

While I unsuccesfully tried the whole saturday to rest a little bit for being prepared for another party night, I decided in the evening, I would not need any rest. The best is going out. You can sleep afterwards well in every case. According to rumors there shall be rock music on saturdays at Liquidbar. Therefore we went to Liquid, but they had just the common everywhere music that's why we finally stopped at Skeppsbrokällaren. Confidently conquered the french the VIP-room and we spent two nice hours there, drinking beer and listening to the music. Sunday morning started with a huge suprise. Not my alarm clock but my mobile woke me up half past 10am, because I received a phone call from Méjico! Muchas gracias y besos, pequeña amiga! After this waking up the day just had to become good. At 12 Ulrich, Jonny, Nawelle and I wandered to Klissberget. It was now my third try reaching this mountain. But this time we had no snow and no lack of daylight, so we made it easily to the top afte...

I did not make much this week. I received an answer for my article topic. It is good, but I should focus on Decision Support Systems, because otherwise it would be too much. Decision Support Systems... the topic I wanted to scratch at last. I will go on Expert Systems pointing instead. Thursday morning I rapidly made my swedish homework. I wrote a summary about " större dagsvärmare ". The summary was about an article I found in a biological magazine called "Flora & Fauna". It said, that there were many butterflies last summer. Intersting. I recognized the same in end of July in Germany. I had bought my camera for Sweden and experimented with it in our garden when I noticed those uncommon insects. In the evening started the new salsa course. Oh, it is even better than the first two courses. The steps are more fun, the atmosphere is more relaxed, the group has a nice size... I love it. On friday I felt like going out. As nice the Nacksta-partys are, after 8 month...

Would a wonderful day. I went to bed last evening earlier than usual and woke up one hour before my alarm clock. I forgot the article specification at home, so I had to rewrite it once again. I've chosen "Solving limited rationality with knowledge engineering" as a quite general topic. I specificated some sub topics as general techniques, expert systems, agents and decision support systems which could likely be too much for an article of 20 pages. I also introduced UML as descriptive language. Because the thing, that annoyes me at most in Decision Analysis is, that people from different sciences like philosophy, sociology and ecology give their prose descriptions, but everybody writes in his own technical terms. Furthermore, literal descriptions are just imprecise. I hope, I can make it better with UML as graphical description. After lunch we sit in the sun next to the river like approximatly 99% of the remaining students. I borrowed a book from the library and for one ho...

Time passed quickly. Again are 4 days gone and I cannot really say what I have done. Thursday I read some papers Aron gave me, but I think I will go into an own topic. Perhaps, I can work to towards his suggestions. But for me expert systems are more interesting than stochastical tit for tat. In the evening was 3 hours salsa. It was so exhausting. After only one hour everybody was tired, because it was so warm. In a way, I was glad when it was over. Next week, the second course will start. On friday was Soranas Rock'n'Roll party. A really nice idea I like very much! I hope, she enjoyed it as well. Saturday was laundry as usual. And the weather has been just great! It was just perfect for the good-bye barbeque for Gary. Unimaginable that it was just my second barbeque here in Sundsvall . I had made my own salad which was pretty tasty. After dinner we played kubbs and soccer until it was too cold for staying outside. Sunday was less active. I wrote a few mails, wrote a first vers...

Although I was the whole day at the library reading wired stuff about decision support systems and getting 4 suggestions for master thesis, I am facing the most active week of my semester abroad. Since jogging on friday, climbing at Norra Berget at saturday, (wakling at sunday, ) BodaBorg at monday, jogging at tuesday, streetdance at wednesday, 3 hours salsa at thursday and Rock'N'Roll at friday. Today was the first streetdance lesson and where I faced old sins. Perhaps you know those situation from earlier days: your mother tells you to do more sport, but you don't always thinking about doing it somewhen later or you satisfy your bad conscience with two hours tennis a week, because you are not able to do real gymnastics. But after having started with dancing I need something new I would never have done at home. The streetdance lesson is one of this. I am sure, my body will hurt tomorrow at parts I never felt before. After the warm-up I've been already exhausted. Tendon...

The easter weekend was a good opportunity for several partys. It started with thursdays black-and-white party for Celine's birthday and went on with a fridays pizza party at the italian flat with a lot of dancing. Saturday was relatively quite, because everybody was already exhausted from the two big partys the days before. And finally at sunday Ionut celebrated his birthday above Wayne's Coffee at town. But of course, we had some easter traditions, too. Philipp offered a easter brunch, therefore we had a cosy group of guests at sunday morning in our kitchen. Katharina, Sebastian and he had baked cakes and had painted eggs. After the brunch we had a walk with Petter around Sidsjön. The days could have been also active. On saturday I tried a smaller path in the woods of Norra Berget which led over the rocks above the city. Finally it led to the tower where I've not been since november . It was the first time I had a clear sight from there. When I've been there in septemb...

The new block has started and I am registered for my probably last course of my studies. It is a distance course an consists of writing an article about a self chosen topic. We have no guideline which topic to choose. Yesterday I read a few pages in a course-literature. It is a book from one of our lecturers. They should have advised us this book a few month before instead of this official literature. Because, when the lecturer wrote this thesis, he was a student, too, so it is written in an understandable way without redundance and therefore well readable. So I am reading and hoping for an idea. Today I thought reading stuff I already know does not make sense, so I borrowed another book about Applied Decision Support Systems. Because I am sick of theorizing I try to find something about solution process. Something that people can apply. I will read about that topic a few pages and believe that I will receive a topic-idea. There did much happen else in the past days. At tuesday I had ...

The weekend was pretty. Saturday I had my usual 11am-laundry. In the afternoon I slept recharging from the mask party. And I needed to be recharged, because Nadja had invited to a preparty before the evenings salsa party at town, so Ulrich, Philipp, Sebastian, Nawelle and I went to her. At the end of the preparty we played a funny game. You can see the pictures at Philipp's gallery . It seems to be common on swedish partys to play games. Jätte roligt! The salsa party itself was nice. It was the first time I danced outside of the course and I felt very stupid. Courses are easy. Once you have the steps, you follow just the pattern all the time and look for some details in leading and moving. You are dancing in a group and everything is organized. But dancing outside is chaos. Finding the rythm, remembering steps, combining those to complete figures, showing the girl what to do (that's the most difficult)... everything at the same time. Really embarrasing, because I just evolved s...