Markus i Sverige

What a weekend. Friday I watched "The Ring" with Christian and Maritha. And for getting down after the movie we watched Scream3. Saturday was a soccer-tournament in the Nacksta sportshall. When we entered the hall and watched the other teams we realzied immediately "Damn, they know how to play". So we started straight away we tactical plans. "Ok, first, with which foot do you shoot" - "Right" - "I as well right" - "Right, too" - "Don't know, I never kicked a ball before"... We were definitely the team with the most fun. We laughed so much. More and more werid tactics arised. From playing in a circle, so everybody can shot with the right foot, to Eileen's scare-tactic which should not explained in detail here. After three matches we were out, but we won at least the second. During the second game in injured somehow my ankle. I have no idea when and how, but I skipped for that reason the last match. The girls h...

Wednesday was the coldest day so far. During the whole day we did not have more than -6 degrees. In the morning it were even -11. But it began to snow during last night when the temperatures became near 0. Now we have a nice pouder-snow everywhere. This night Stefan and I went by car to Sidsjön for sledging down the skislope. It was so fun. After days in office and room at home this was an awesome joke at night.

It is constantly cold here. Actually -5 degress at 8am. Sometimes it snows a little bit, but usually it is not worth to mention. Snow on the sidewalks is by now that compressed that you might be able to skate to university without a problem. Looking back at the past three days nothing specific has happened. From monday I remember badminton and sauna. Tuesday was a staying-home day. Yesterday I got my first feedback about my thesis. In 3 months. But it seems things are rolling now. The thesis is "method vodoo" but not a hopeless case. That's more than I have expected. Todays tasks: writing CV, writing applications , and writing thesis, of course. At the weekend there is a vodka-party announced at Norrmalms. We all shall share vodka. To "get wasted like one big family". Yeah, right... seems like I've been to long away from home. Yesterday the skiweek has also been booked. We are one week too late for getting the accomodation I prefered. Damnit. But at least w...

Work goes quite well these days. Every day my thesis gets more text. I start now every morning at 9. Effectively at 10 or later, because before I do everything else than working: getting tea, checking mails, reading news and stuff like that. On Tuesday my students wrote my exam. Pretty cool thing. Yesterday I corrected it. Strange to see them in my situation from one year ago. These days are more serious than the days before. Not only because of workload. Since my future in Sweden depends on the result of my thesis there is a uncertain timespan after February. Even if they accept me as PhD I cannot imagine that bureaucracy (even in Sweden) can let me start immediately in March. Therefore I should check for some B-plans. I already canceled my room at Nacksta, because in case I stay here it is no problem to take the cancellation back. May thoughts about plans in spring are quite vague. There is still the master thesis that needs to be written. I could bridge the time between diploma thes...

It is Monday morning, short before 11am. The view from my desk is directed to the window to a clear blue sky. The first snow from Thursday is gone since days. Most trees have lost their leves now. The remaining leaves lost their colors and present a palette of ocher-variances. In Sunsdvall most of the time seems to shine the sun. From Friday evening until Sunday night the Erasmus students (and me) went to Stockholm. We started with the Ybuss Friday evening. I do not know how long the ride finally lasted. Something over 4 hours. Having arrived at the City Terminalen we bought tickets for the metro. With almost 40 people that can take quite a while. Our hotel was somewhere in an industry-area, it seems. Until that point I planned to split off from the main group as soon as possible to manage things by myself. But it was not necessary. The hotel was good. And already at the first night we started into town. I appreciate the metro ticket. In May Philipp and I did not buy one. But the inve...

Köra till Cykel-Nisse för att han fixar min cykel. Men han säger bara "Fredag". Visst. Jag komma då en gång till. Kolla biltidskrifter på ICA eftersom jag har kanske en ny job Läsa, läsa och läsa om thesis... på balkongen :D Dricka Cappuccino på balkongen... ensam :( ... Du har en bättre idé? Då kommentera! Läsa mer Svenska kanske ;)

Listening to Swedish webradio (good documentations, good music and besides it has the serioust news I could find in Swedish): Sveriges Radio International Reading news about Sweden (to be sure, to understand everything right, it is in English): TheLocal.se Checking sience news for if something has been discovered that interests you: Science Daily Reading articles about computer science for getting closer to the domain I should think about: IEEE Computer Society Read artciles about Usability Engineering, Managers dealing with Decision Tools and Extrem Engineering Drinking Tea ... Any additional advise? Comment it!

Friday morning I went to Kulturmagasinet by bicycle, because I had a role in Sorana's movie. My designation was "Fan #2" and I had to get a signature in my favorite book from my favorite author while he was presenting them in the library. But first, I had to stand in a queue. But in contrast to Mathieu's movie two weeks ago, I had to look excited. It was interesting to see how the film crew worked. Their effort seemed to be pretty efficient and professional. I do not know how many times the shot Fan #1 (Raya) and Fan #2 from how many angles. Even if they will have determined which compilation of shots they will use in the end, I can hardly imagine they will keep the whole storyline of waiting queue, Fan #1 and Fan #2. At the movie I witnessed last year they just took three shots always from the same angle. And the shots this year were much shorter. I am looking forward to see it. Could be a lively movie (although it is a thriller). Another difference to the movies of ...

I slept long today. When I woke up, Sundsvall looked like my head feels: foggy. I think, I could not see the tower at the Norra berget once this day. Heavy clouds are hanging deep and I can just watch until ICA. Everything is wet and it rains from time to time. This is how I know Sweden from holidays. But I felt a little bit better today, but not well enough. I just blogged my entry about Stockholm (which took me somehow 2 hours?!) and went to ICA to buy some stuff. Worst of all: Philipp is sick now. He has the same as I have. He came home earlier cycling through heavy rain, just came in, took a tea and went to bed for several hours. In the meanwhile I prepared a Picasa-album with my pictures from Stockholm. Stockholmt rip with Philipp For I am convinced you would have seen a dozen of better pictures of Stockholm than those which I could have made, I made less pictures of the town itself. You should look forward to Philipps gallery, but its release could be delayed by his disease for a...

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...

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 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...

Somehow I am very happy at the moment. I guess, it is the spring. Something has changed in my mind and I am happy without any reason. I enjoy the sun while walking to university. I have my camera with me, because I suddenly received back my mood for looking for motives. Yesterday I prepared a presentation for swedish. It was about the EILC. First about what a EILC is and afterwards about the EILC of last august. It was a presentation of Philipp, Ulrich and me and we presented our experience and some picutes at the todays swedish class. Although we did not prepare the speech it took just a few moments after we were back in the EILC-feeling and able to tell some stories even if it was in swedish. Yesterday I made a walk through the woods at norra berget. I have never been there before, but is nice there. Because it is surrounded by Sundsvall you cannot get lost and there exist a lot of ways. I even saw some deer. And I came through Granholmen. It is a part of Sundsvall and on the other s...

Done! Today I finished my home exam. It was the worst I ever had to write. Every exercises base on assumption instead on knowledge. Nobody of the course knows how to solve a question. But I was just fet up with this stuff, so I send it in, after I had everything done. I had 5 hours left, but I did not see any chance to improve the paper. The last exercise I worked on today was a discussion about knowledge, uncertainty and risk in business and society decisions. I am so sick of this theorizing. Always talking about possible problems, but there is no application and no try to solve a problem. My disappointment about this theorizing influenced my discussion. I advised in my conclusion to use some practical things like knowledge engineering and risk management instead of theorizing further in a way "oh, that is unsure, and here is something unclear, but we could do this, but also the opposite...". Hopefully it is something the lecturers want to hear. But no matter how this exam e...

This time changing is sometimes really frustrating. I was sitting at my laptop last night, writing my blog entry. And after a little while it was already half past three! According to this loss of an hour I slept until 12 today. After "breakfast" I went to university for studiing with my fellow sufferers for the home exam. We do not have any certain clue about the solutions and everybody has a slightly different opinion how to solve the exercises. Even about our own topics we can give certain informations. Now I have a rough collection of some ideas. I will think about them and choose the way that sounds most reasonable to me. The weather is still great! Blue sky and sunshine. After my return from university I rest half an hour on the balconey enjoying the last warm moments of the sun today. Technology is something wonderfull. Philipp sit on the balconey with his laptop, solving assignments and listening to german radio. Now I will try to find some certain informations about ...

On friday night I went to the Kårhuset with Philipp, Ulrich, Sebastian and Petter and watched a really bad ice-hockey match. As always Timrå against Modo. And Timrå lost what led to an additional match on sunday. Timrå earned the loss on friday. They played really bad. But I am no ice-hockey fan at all. I am not the fan of tacklings and prefer fast technical matches. After the match Ulrich, Sebastian, Petter and me went on to Skeppsbro to collect some good mood (=beer) after the match. At half past 12 we left for home. Saturday morning was laundry time, again. Since I have now these fixed washing dates I am really wasting my clothes. I needed three machines with clothes of one week. In the evening was Malin's birthday. She's a friend of Julia and we met weeks before with Philipp for playing cards. I was the only non-swedish and I had to conzentrate to follow the stories, but it was good. I liked it and it was a nice difference to the usual weekend events. I met many interesting...

On wednesday I joined the Kårhuset watching the icehockey match Timrå-Modo. Timrå won and leads now with 3-2 in matches. If they win today, they passed this round and will go for the semi final. Icehockey is not one of my favorite sport, but watching it with friends is very nice and far better than sitting at home. On thursday we listen to a presentation about Midsommar in Sweden. Afterwards I had to sing with Ella the "Små grodorna"-song. You think, that's embarrasing? It depends on the scale for measuring embarrasements. We all had to dance "Små grodorna" while singing it. I was used to it. On the first day at the EILC we had to sing it, too, like "Pippi Långstrump". At that time swedish was for me just a cloud of sounds (the difference today is, that I sometimes understand those sounds). Since the lesson on thursday, I know the correct lyrics of this "song". And I realize, that I sang it totally wrong when I tried to repeat the sounds las...

During the sunday I staid at home trying to revive from saturday. Monday morning I went to university just for realizing that my lesson is on tuesday. But I staid there and worked on my second AI assignment. For those who are interested: it is about the wolf-sheep-cabbage-river-problem. Wolf, sheep, cabbage and farmer are at one side of a river. The farmer has a boat and wants to get every creature to the other side of the river, but the boat can only hold him and one creature. How should he solve his problem while the wolf would eat the sheep and the sheep would eat the cabbage if the farmer is not with them (don't ask me, why he takes care of the wolf...). As with the robot-exercise before, the story is just bluff. The solution for this problem has to be found with a breath-first-search. And because I was upset with C++ I used Java this time, because I know the libraries and datastructures. At C++ I would have had to implement lists by my own (according to a pattern given by the ...

A week has passed since the last post appeared. Since last friday a week of skiing has passed. A week of joy, a week of celebtrating and the last days with a few of my closest friends. But first of all, it were holidays. Friday, 2007-01-19 In the evening we had Basti's Good Bye Dinner with the EILC people. Dennis cooked very tasty fish. As always, very deligious. Later in the evening Marlena arrived. She is Ulrich's fellow-student and just arrived at Sundsvall. As far as I know she was the first of the new students. The remaining night Basti and I worked on our assignments for Decision analysis. We were not able to complete it, but we hoped for receiving a "passed" for our already done work. Saturday, 2007-01-20 This was the first very cold day at Sundsvall since my arrival. Philipp phoned me, telling me, I should take very warm clothes, because it were -15°C. During the ski-week it were every morning that cold. So, early in the morning Basti and I started our last c...