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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...

Friday I went to town during the morning for buying a mask for the evening. Because of Magda's and Fedde's birthday, there was a mask-party at 18b. The party was pretty cool! The only official pictures made Philipp . For all others, you have to member of facebook. Tonight will be a salsa-party. I have slight headache, don't know why. For sure not from the party, because I already had it before. It feels like weather-headache. I hope, I will overcome it until tonight.

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 ...

"At least the bartenders should be worth the entrance..." Forget the Kårhuset. I do not know what is up with this house. Perhaps it is the duration of my abroad that I experience the Kårhuset as boring now. But wasn't it more fun last semester? The parties were bigger and I was almost never bored. And now... just one good party at Kårhuset in 3 month. That's weak. Philipp and me feel like getting old. The new erasmus students tried their best to party the house, but we were tired and sit in the restaurant watching Oasis unplugged on television. For me it was the optimum of getting fun at the Kårhuset this night. The one picture shows me when I try to call Spain when Oasis played "Wonderwall" as last song of the concert... The saturday itself was very nice. As always I had my laundry from 11 to 14 o'clock. After that I slept a little bit, had a tea with Selene and Sarah, cleaned with Philipp our flat and ate original italian pizza as dinner with Selene, S...

The week only contained of work. Every day I went to university quite early and worked on the exam. On wedenesday I became very angry about the confusion of this exam, but then I received an email from my lecturer: "Don't worry about your results, just explain how you got there". That's better. I do not know, how I have to do it, but I will choose the most likely way and explain why I used it and what I will do with the result. Now I have finished ca. 50% of the exam after 50% of the time I have. On thursday I had a swedish test. Philipp and me learned one hour for it, but it in the end it was just a little essay about our best holiday. I have chosen my first scandinavien trip in 1993 , where we spend 4 weeks in a caravan and visited whole scandinavien and Finland. Again a few students are at Kiruna this weekend, but there are still opportunities to party. Perhaps we will go to Kårhuset tomorrow. The motto of the tomorrow's party is "Reeperbahn" and wil...

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...

Monday evening Goska, the last of our students, arrived. Because it was too late for getting keys, she slept at our living room for one night. During tuesday Goska and I walked a lot through Sundsvall. First we went to university for picking up some stuff and papers for her. Back at Nacksta we visited StuBo for receiving her keys, but because the contract was at Mitthem, we took the bus to town. There she signed the contract and we made a small tour thourgh the town searching for an ethernet-cable and opening a bank account. And we visited Skattverket for changing my address to 16b. Since tuesday afternoon Goska has her own room. Welcome to Sweden! In the evening I cooked for my flatmates and drank tea with them and Nawelle. But it was not my only drink this night, because I had my first original good-night-beer since beginning of february! Internet is a very beautiful invention . Now Basti needs a webcam. And beer, next time. Or we both need a bottle of wine. It was a really nice nigh...

Sunday was not as lazy as I had assumed it. Spontanous Philipp, Nawelle and I joined for a walk to Sidsjön in the afternoon. On our way we came along with a sign to a path called "Klissberget". This was the way Phil and me had chosen once 3 month ago (oh my god, it's already quarter of a year since I have been on an adventure trip). And we could not resist this time, too. Encouraged by daylight we walked the path this time and were even able to follow the signs. But while the snow in Sundsvall is melting it consists in the wood. We walked tiny pathes and the snow was really deep. Deeper then the height of my knee. And my boots could not resist the water for ever. After a while we reached the top of mountain. There was even a sign pronouncing a height of 219 meters. For me it was also a sign, that we have followed a civilzed path and not only the way of some forest workers. A second sign showed to another path "Klissberget 1.6 km". But because it was already 4pm...

Although I had a short night, I took my laundry in the morning. Just for going to bed afterwards again being prepared for the evening. There I got to know the "new Ulli". Her name is Sebastian, is in fact a man and likes cosy beer. Therefore Philipp, Sebastian, Ulrich and me went to Skeppsbrokällaren instead of the pyjama-party at 18A and enjoyed the really good music and the cosy beer. At midnight we started for the Kårhuset, but it was not that good. We should have stayed at Skeppsbro, but for just two hours, Kåren was acceptable. We had Jonnys car, but we were 8 people, so Ulrich, Sebastian and me had to walk, because the girls had only their pyjamas. When I've been at ICA at Nacksta, my mobile ringed. On the phone where one well known voice singing "LaFuga - Mendigo" for me. At half past two at night! I am really happy about this suprise. Gracias Gema&Cris! Te quiero, España! And the night was still not over. We went on to the pyjama party and stayed the...