maya@hgb

What time of day am I?

2008-02-14T12:20:00.001+01:00

You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that's cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that's just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don't want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it's checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there's plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes.

Secret Forest on Tour again!

2008-01-21T01:26:00.000+01:00

It is rare that I do open promotion for a favourite band or musicican but I feel that in this case, it is wise to deviate from this policy for once.

You see, John Kelly and Maite Itoiz are back on tour this spring. The special thing about said tour is that they organised it all themselves and are also doing the promotion on their own. So, in their blog, Maite asks people for support and to spread the word:

[edited on Feb. 3rd, 2008]

TOUR 2008 (first dates)

Here I write the first confirmed tour dates for 2008. Please, keep an eye on this blog because in the next days we'll be adding minimum up to 10 concerts to the list!!

APRIL:

22 Soest
25 Rüsselsheim
26 Heilbronn
27 Bayreuth
29 Spremberg
30 Berlin

MAY:

1 Stendal
2 Bremen
3 Braunschweig

[my addition] June 28th, Linz, AUSTRIA[/my addition]

Tickets already available here:

JohnMaiteOffice@aol.com

Ticket hotline Germany: 0151 20038300

Ticket hotline international: + (49) 151 20038300

Give us a hand!! This tour is 100% auto promoted and auto organized, so we need YOU, myspace friends, (and your family and friends and neighbours and and )to visit our concerts so we can make it!

We promise you a musical trip through the deepest feelings of humankind, fairies and elfs, with lots of fantasy, reality, medieval rock, ethereal melodies, Celtic flavours, dark and light angels, rhythmic dances, historical music, and of course, lots of fun!

Come and cross the gates of the Secret Forest and dance altogether till Solstice's Ends!

Only one more date to be confirmed (near Koeln I think) and that's it!!!!

I have seen one of their concerts in late 2006 and I say that the journey from Stuttgart to Wiesbaden was wort it all!

So, if you live in Germany and if there's any date near the area you live at, make a point of attending their concerts. They are such good musicians and such kind and friendly people that it would be a shame not to attend their concert. :)

University Finals!!!

2008-01-14T17:47:00.000+01:00

Hi out there!

I'm terribly sorry for not keeping you updated on a more regular basis. My thesis kept me busy. However, the work paid off: I handed it in on Dec 14th and was told on the 19th that it is positive!

So there. I'm in the final stages of my studies, for I have been studying for my finals since New Year's Day and tomorrows the big day...

I'm finally gonna have my finals at university *aaarghh*! I'm trying to study here but I'm feeling distracted somehow, almost as if I'd have stage fright. :|
Keep your fingers crossed..please?

Another big change is that I'm thinking of changing my employer in the near future. I do like my work, but there are certain circumstances which make me want to look for another challenge.

I'll try to keep you posted!

Fairy Cube - A Manga dealing with Irish Fairy Tales

2007-11-30T17:33:00.001+01:00

Today I paid a visit to the bookstore at Millenium City to look for new books. Well, and there this new manga almost jumped at me: Fairy Cube by Kaori Yuki.

The basic story is as follows:

Ian is a special boy - he can see fairies. He seems to have a twin called Tokage who can only be seen by him and a pair of wings on his back. This pair of wings, his father scars to prevent him from 'flying away' as his wife, Ian's mother left father and son. In the city he is in, a number of grisly murders occur. These murders are known as the Fairy Murders as the victims have backs slit open, with blood pouring out in the shape of a butterfly's wings. Ian's childhood friend returns and Tokage gets him into trouble, and slowly Ian begins to unravel the past and realise who he is, and solve the Fairy Murders. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_Cube)

For those familiar with the world of Celtic mythology and fairy tales this manga is a visual delight. Yuki-san has done her homework on names and places. However, she mixed it up with a Japanese touch and so familiar fairy beings suddenly romp around in Japanese cities or create havoc in schoolyards.
In spite of this, do try and get it! Personally, I know of English and German versions, but I am sure that other versions (e.g., Spanish) should be easy to find. My fingers are itching for part 2 and 3 which I didn't yet see at the bookstore but are already released in German. ^_^

Hmmm you wonder who the little fellow on the right is? In English he's called an "urchin" and is an elf-like creature which can take the shape of an hedgehog. Perhaps I'll borrow him and his people for one of my own stories, he's sooo cute :)

Tea Tea Tea

2007-11-28T22:06:00.001+01:00

Lately I had a few interesting conversations and discoveries - all of them because of TEA! Yeah that's right! *g* Therefore I figured I might as well write a post about that favourite drink of mine (I'm almost infamous for it already since the most frequent present I currently get is - tea).

Did you know IKEA currently sells Christmas tea? To be exact, flavoured black tea. I recently bought it for € 2 at IKEA Wien Nord. I suppose your local branch of IKEA sells it too, so you really should go and grab some.

I also noticed that people seem to remember one very well if one drinks tea more often than coffee. Beats me, though, why that is so. >^_^<

But what exactly is tea and what is a tea plant?

According to wikipedia.com, tea

"is a beverage made by steeping processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush, Camellia sinensis, in hot water for a few minutes. The processing can include oxidation, heating, drying, and the addition of other herbs, flowers, spices, and fruits. [...] Camellia sinensis is an evergreen plant and grows in tropical to sub-tropical climates. In addition to tropical climates (at least 50 inches of rainfall a year), it also prefers acidic soils[citation needed]. Many high quality tea plants grow at elevations up to 1500 meters (5,000 ft), as the plants grow more slowly and acquire a better flavor[citation needed]. Only the top 1-2 inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called flushes,[5] and a plant will grow a new flush every seven to ten days during the growing season.

Tea plants will grow into a tree if left undisturbed, but cultivated plants are pruned to waist height for ease of plucking."

There are four basic types of true tea which refer to the degree of fermentation:

black tea

oolong tea

green tea

white tea

The main producers of tea are China, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Turkey.

Apart from this "real" tea, there are also herbal infusions which are also called "tea". Often, they are consumed for medical reasons, but there are also "normal" herbal teas which can be consumed without any problems (e.g., rosehip, peppermint, hibiscus, etc.).

Personally, I prefer black tea either pure or flavoured (such as Milford My Chai, Twinings Earl Grey or Twinings Irish Breakfast), green tea (standard and with Jasmine) herbal teas (peppermint, hibiscus, rosebud), fruit tea (Twinings Strawberry and Mango) and mixed teas (two types of herbal tea mixed, e.g., peppermint + hibiscus).

If I choose to drink black tea, I often drink it like the British do: with milk and sugar. Sometimes, though, I'll also have it with only sugar or with citron and sugar. That purely depends on my moood. :)

What are your favourite teas? Do you like tea at all or do you prefer coffee (I like tea better but still, I'm not opposed to a decent cuppa coffee with lots of milk and sugar)?

Brain Damage caused by 4 Years of University

2007-11-19T19:46:00.000+01:00

Well, recently I copied some stuff for a friend on DVD. But not on any DVD, but a DVD+R DL (= Double Layer). The response following my question whether that friend owned a DVD drive capable of reading DL DVDs proved to me just how brain-damaged I've become after 4 years of studying at Hagenberg. The friend told me that, well, at home they had a PC, a Mac and a DVD player.

And there I was, having assumed that said friend knew what I wished to know by asking this question from years of habit at the Hagenberg university dorm where such a question would have elicited an answer like, "Oh, I have that and that model of this and this DVD drive. Sure you can give me a DL disk." or "Uhm, nope, I have this old model so-and-so, I'm afraid it doesn't read DL disks yet. Still gotta flash it or buy a new one, but I'm broke now."

I read the e-mail and then I was like, oh s****, I completely forgot that not all people grew up using a PC like I did and had the privilege to use it on a daily basis at university and home. I felt so embarassed!

You see, in my family it's the most normal thing to have a PC and a laptop and wireless LAN. Not to mention an array of technical thingamajigs like TV cards hooked up to a satellite receiver and such.

It's easy to forget sometimes that not everyone grew up the way I did and had the chance to lay hands on IT stuff from childhood (I started in primary school and learned programming at age 12). Furthermore, I am pursuing a career in IT (e-learning) and am therefore majoring in Engineering for Computer-Based Learning.

Today's encounter served as a very necessary reminder that things that are most normal for me might be completely new territory for others.

Wanna know what I told my friend? I wrote I'd send the disk anyway and that said friend should try it out on a computer which was bought less than 2-3 years ago.

I don't know if you'll ever read that blog post, but still I'd like to say "Thank you for reminding me!"

The beautiful side of the Amazonas and Maite's plea

2007-11-05T00:04:00.001+01:00

As a contrast to the previous video, Maite and John show here the beauty of the Amazonas which makes it even clearer just why it should be protected for future generations.

Maite's original description states:

(20 seconds black before the video starts) This is the beauty of the Amazonas rain forest, the one that is still there, full of life and strength. In this video you can see the beautiful Cristalino river and forest and the amazing Salto Augusto waterfalls, inside of the recently named National Park of Juruena, still closed to the public.
Have a look also to the video we uploaded here about the Amazonas' drama. All this was filmed just few weeks ago. If you feel like you want to help to keep the world lung alive, please contact the WWF and ask what you can do to help. I'm sure every single person can do something for it and altogether is really power.
www.wwf.de
www.wwf.com

The music of this video is the "Fairy's Song" and the instrumental version of "The Secret Forest", included in the CD of the show "Tales from the Secret Forest". If you want to hear more songs, copy this links:
www.myspace.com/johnkellymaiteitoiz
www.johnkelly-maiteitoiz.com

I am shocked and speechless.... Brazilian Rainforest destroyed

2007-10-29T01:35:00.000+01:00

John Kelly and Maite Itoiz travelled to Brazil with a team of WWF to see with their own eyes the situation of the Amazonas rain forest and to visit the new National park of Juruena. For each sold CD of the show "Tales from the Secret Forest", one euro is going to the WWF, to manage this national park. Juruena is safe now. This park stops the deforestation advance in a big area. The music of the video is the orchestral version of "In Memoriam" which is included in "Tales from the Secret Forest" CD.

Watch the video - I think it speaks for itself, as well as Maite's Report on myspace....

Dancing....

2007-09-14T01:11:00.000+02:00

Ahh today was my first Irish Dance lesson for this term! Oh, how I have missed dancing! ;) After some warm-up exercises we immediately went into the middle of things and I, together with 3 others, started learning the "Single Jig". It has a cute leadaround which is pretty difficult, though, becuase of the steps and the beat. *bleh*
Guess I'll be practicing till next week, hehe!
I'll also practise the Easy Reel since I embarassed myself thoroughly with it today. *argh* The steps are easy, no tricky timing - but they look all the same and I confuse them all the time. *grrr*

Another thing about dancing is this youtube video showing John Kelly & Maite Itoiz doing some mediaeval dancing at a festival at Kerpen (Germany). It looks cute and in spite of the tricky steps and the beat I was able to transcribe the steps. *proud look* John's steps are easy to find out, but Maite's aren't because of the wide sleeves she is wearing.

Google Sets

2007-09-12T17:26:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday I stumbled over a new tool by Google which is called Google Sets. It is still in beta stadium, but looks very promising. (it helped me find a topic for my thesis *g*)

Basically, the only thing to be done to use Google Sets is to enter one to five terms into the input fields and then press either the button "Large Set" or "Small Set". Google then generates a certain number of related terms on which you can click to initiate a search.

Practical, huh? :) Try it out!

Tidy Desk and an Idea for a Thesis Topic

2007-09-11T23:58:00.000+02:00

Guess what? I tidied my desk and the table next to the storage racks in my room. A miracle, some of you might say. *g*

But it was so necessary because my room looked horrible (well, the stuf on top of my piano still looks crowded), but at least I got rid of all the old stuff of my old thesis, lots of unnecessay sheets of paper and my "dead" inkjet printer (which died in June after 7 faithful years of service).

Now I have space enough for the 4 books I got today from the university libraries of the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Vienna. I think I tapped into a gold mine since there's a lot of interesting articles on the topic I thought up while tidying: Social Networking and Foreign Language Teaching (although I still wonder which target group to choose and if I should limit the language(s) to English).

Well, we'll see...I still have to conjure up a decent proposal that will be accepted by the people at Hagenberg and I better hurry with that. *argks* But I still need to reasearch more literature and providers of online language instruction to have an idea what is already available and what not and where I could jump in and create something.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Disaster Struck

2007-09-09T23:08:00.000+02:00

Why, you say?

Well, I handed in my thesis on Aug. 31st and on Thursday I was told that it was negative. This means back to starting point: find a suitable topic, do research etc. and produce something useful until mid-November. Arrrgh! *gnashes teeth*

At least I had a kind of enlightenment today for a topic: Social Networking and Language Learning. I didn't yet decide on any detail since I have to get some literature from the university library and check what is already in existence for that topic.

Wish me luck for attempt no. 3!

Celtic Woman - the Voice

2007-07-05T17:23:00.001+02:00

A fascinating song by a fascinating singer - by the way: afaik, Mairead Nesbitt was the violinist in Lord of the Dance and maybe Riverdance (but I'm not sure of the second one)

Little questionnaire ^_^

2007-04-30T18:50:00.000+02:00

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My Tarot Card

2007-03-30T21:03:00.001+02:00

hmmm...curiosity killed the cat.......

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Montezuma's Revenge

2007-03-19T11:09:00.000+01:00

...only not in my belly, but in my left foot.

"Why?", I hear you ask? Well, I assume you know that on Saturday it was St. Patrick's Day? For me, this is an occasion to celebrate in style.

On Saturday, the 17th, I met with my friend K. (a third friend who had intended to join us had cancelled the day before, claiming that she was suffering from problems with her blood pressure and that she had confused appointments, thinking St. Paddy's Day was next week - eh? how can one confuse that? there is only one 17th March per year! *scratches head*) at 17.15 at the tram station near my place and we travelled to the city centre. Near the Burgtheater, the Irish embassy had set up a big tent and arranged for music groups and Irish dancers (among them the IDCV children and the group "Irish Fire") and of course generous amounts of Guiness beer and Jameson whiskey.
We applauded the dancers and then went behind the tent to have a word or two with "our" dancers.

As luck would have it, we met one of my coursemates, Grania. With her, we first went to Flanagan's Pub. Alas, it was very full (3 TVs showing: Cricket Ireland vs?, Rugby Ireland vs ? and Football Ireland vs? - couple that with St. Patrick's Day and you get the picture), so we had to go to an American restaurant instead.

Let's just say I came home pretty late. *g* Oh, and did I mention that I had (and still have ) a hoarse voice? *cough*

Yesterday, I attended the St. Patrick's Day celebration at IDCV, where I met all old acquaintances again from Grania to K. to C. (and many more ^_^) Of course we also did a ceili (Irish folk dance) and later, a few girls (including K., Grania and myself) went to the small backroom to do some dancing and practising. Well...and that was why I'm suffering from Montezuma's Revenge on my left foot today. I injured myself during Tai Chi some 3 weeks ago and, intelligent as I was, reinjured myself last Thursday (hm yeah - one shouldn't forget an injury, even if one is on a dancing high and willing to jump...if you jump on your injured foot then, it gets *very* painful).

I do think you folks get the picture, don't you? Now I'm sitting at home with the intention of skipping today's USI sports course and tomorrow's Tai Chi lesson in order to cure that leg, so that I might be able to properly dance on Thursday. I do hope so!

And while you're waiting for my next update: Go and check out Grania's blog!

Thoughful Evening....

2007-03-11T01:13:00.000+01:00

As some of you might know, John Kelly celebrated his 40th birthday on Thursday. On their myspace page, many congratulated him and wished him and his wife Maite well. Nobody expected any real reaction, but tonight John wrote such a kind and sweet message in his blog that I cannot resist citing it here for you.

MY BIRTHDAY

Wow

How lucky I am to know that so many people really love me. You really give me strength. To everysingle one of you out there, thank you with my deepest love! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the birthday greetings. I also specially want to thank my mother, because it was a special day also for her, she gave me life, on the 8th of March, I´m eternally grateful, I love you mama.

Though I don´t write here too often (I was two days thinking what to write), I´m aware of the traffic of the page. I think Maite is doing a fantastic job with it.

She will publish tonight some new dates. I hope to see some of you soon.

With love,

John

I say that if only we all were as humble and kind as he is and if we all honoured our parents as he apparently does, the world would indeed be a better place....

hilarious story (in German!)

2007-03-07T22:11:00.000+01:00

www.daujones.com occasionally is a source for stories that make you burst into laughter right away: http://www.daujones.com/detail.php?usrid=7691

edit: yet another good story : http://www.daujones.com/detail.php?usrid=7692

*rofl*

Interesting new development

2007-03-07T14:53:00.000+01:00

A startup company wants to develop a new way to interact with computer games. Instead of joystick, mouse or keyboard the user will be able to use his thoughts, emotions and mimics!

The article can be found here (In German!).

Creative Chaos....

2007-03-04T22:59:00.000+01:00

What do you do if you have quarreled with LaTeX for two days and your head feels mangled and upside down? Furthermore, it's full moon which tends to worsen matters even more...

That's what came out so far at my desk.....creative chaos at its finest!

Oh, and yes, I admit this transgression of youth - there was a time, many years ago, when I was a fan of The Kelly Family. The photo book seen on above photo is a relic from that time. But hey - it's an excellent source for movement images, emotions and ornaments for clothes I can use for my drawings. Back then (~1993 - 1997/8), the Kellys pretty often used to wear mediaeval-style stage clothing with ornaments, borders and laces.

So, I used the evening to look through my four photo books I still have and indeed found some nice photos like the one below that might be of use to me.

As you see, I wasn't that interested in the guy himself, rather in the ornament on his shirt. It does look neat and with some variations it might make a good ornament or two for my own characters' clothes. Don't you agree?

I found some more good pictures and in order not to lose them, I put post-its on the relevant pages of the book.

Where do the artists among you gather their ideas from?

Irish Dance again!

2007-02-19T11:08:00.000+01:00

I bring great news: On Thursday I will go and have a trial lesson at IDCV!
The school's full name is Irish Dance Centre Vienna and they are acknowledged by An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha in Ireland; don't be shocked by the atrocious layout of IDCV's page - they are said to have a good reputation as dancing school, not as web designers. *g* I am so glad and happy, I really miss dancing.

Of course I will be extra careful as not to reinjure my left knee (I was operated on it last spring after a torn meniscus), but if I like the group and the dancing school I'm in. *hihi* Of course, there's also the condition of my knee not going on strike after over an hour of dancing.

Oh, but I am so giddy and happy about it! *jumps around* Finally, after such a long time! *squeal*

Lord Inchiquin

2007-02-18T13:51:00.000+01:00

... is one of my favourite pieces of Irish music. It was written by Turlough O'Carolan(picture on the left from a portrait in the National Irish Gallery, painted from life by an unknown artist), an itinerant blind harper who lived in the 18th century.

You can find the notes here (melody line + guitar chords for accompaniment).

If you want to listen to it, youtube provides a video containing two tunes: the first one is called "Fanny Poer" and the second one is "Lord Inchiquin".

Don't forget tonight on TV

2007-02-09T17:35:00.000+01:00

I did a screenshot of MDR's teletext as a little reminder for you Secret Forest fans out there...

Tonight, 10.00 pm GMT+1, MDR (German TV station)
John Kelly & Maite Itoiz are guests of the talk show "Riverboat" (and no, in spite of what MDR's teletext page says, they do not belong to the Kelly Family anymore! John left them in 2000!)

My Chinese Mythological Being

2007-02-07T22:14:00.000+01:00

Which Chinese Mythological Being Are You?

You are Xuan Wu!Mythological background: Because the turtle has a thick, solid shell that serves as protection - this animal is associated with stability. You enjoy intellectual pursuits. Also, in Feng Shui (the Chinese myths behind choosing a house), the black turtle's solidity is used to protect from cold northern winds.
Take this quiz!

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Windows Vista

2007-02-04T13:13:00.000+01:00

I don't know who of you noticed that from now on not only businesses can have Windows Vista but also normal people like you and I.

I do not own it myself, but my youngest brother does (Vista Ultimate afaik) and seems to be pretty content with it. Alas, I saw myself that Vista coupled with Office 2007 demands roughly 17GB of hard disk memory and you need a pretty good graphics card for Aero. Additionally, it needs a lot of RAM, esp. if you want to play games with it.

I admit, though, that Vista's Aero interface does look very neat, as you can see on this screenshot taken from my brother's computer.

I think that I'll wait with adopting Vista until SP1 has been released by MS and my own computer has the computational strength (e.g. more than 1 GB RAM, larger HD, reliable graphics card, working network cabling,...) to withstand it.

As finish to this article I am proud to announce that possibly one of my brothers is going to write a guest article for my blog on Vista! So - stay tuned!

edit: I forgot to mention Microsoft's Vista Austrian Blog!

A Parent's Lot..

2007-01-28T18:36:00.000+01:00

...can be heavy as two ladies are to find out (one of which is played by ex -Nightwish singer Tarja Turunen)

A Streak of Bad Luck

2007-01-22T18:40:00.000+01:00

Phew, I guess I'm one of those few following Maite Itoiz' myspace threads, right? Well, Michi's music-related post in her blog motivated me to comment on the development in the realm of their Secret Forest project again.

Well, it seems as if those two have a streak of bad luck currently. Maite is still waiting for the confirmation of several TV and radio appearances in Germany that are scheduled for February. (of which I guess that if they're confirmed it will happen so late that many won't be able to come - %&($)%$=$§ company; Maite's NOT amused, I swear, and John isn't either, based on what I already saw last November in Eltville) Additionally, she is organizing classical concerts in Spain (I take from her posts the next really fixed date she has is in the end of February in Pamplona, her native city) which doesn't go without problems either, it seems.

On a more funny note, she complained that she was unable to continue her work on a project with a Basque heavy metal band. Why, you ask? Well, it seems as if she did most of her work on a laptop - which is currently in France. Yeah - in France! John, her beloved husband, took it with him on his trip to France and in order to continue editing the audio tracks and to set up appointments to record an additional voice, she needs both her laptop and her husband. :) Luckily, he is said to return on Friday! :o)

Recently, John was in Germany to work on a DVD for "Tales from the Secret Forest". I am really looking forward to it, especially since I am sure that it will be worth the money I spend on it. What makes me even more curious is that Maite said in one of her posts that John was very pleased with it so far when she spoke to him on the phone during his stay in Germany.

Well, let's see how this whole thing continues..... I'll keep you updated.

funny Youtube clip

2007-01-19T19:22:00.000+01:00

In Lisi's blog I found a link to a youtube clip which I don't want to keep back from you:

simply hilarious!

Storm in Austria

2007-01-19T11:40:00.000+01:00

I guess you all noticed yesterday's storm, didn't you? Well, Vienna wasn't hit very hard, we did have a few damages (roofs that were torn away in the 18th district and damages to a building at the airport), but apart from that the main thing that could be noticed - other than the wind - was that by midnight it had 19 degrees!

Most damage was reported in the states of Salzburg, Upper Austria and Lower Austria. In the St. Pölten area a state of emergency was declared in the wee hours of the morning after several housetops came off and families couldn't stay in their houses anymore. In some areas, electricity was gone after cables were torn by falling branches or trees.
The southern states of Styria, Carinthia and Burgenland were mostly spared, according to the Austrian broadcasting company ORF.

Of course, compared to what happened in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, England and Ireland, what we had was quite harmless. No dead people, only some who were injured.

Today it's raining a bit and the temperature dropped back to about 3 degrees. Talk about weird weather conditions...

edit: If you want to read more about Kyrill (the storm's "name"), go to this page on Wikipedia (German!).

Google Reader

2007-01-18T19:51:00.000+01:00

As promised, I will today introduce you to Google Reader. It's a web-based newsreader, no more, no less, and very practical if you want to subscribe to RSS feeds but can't add them to your e-mail program for some reason.

The URL for Google Reader is http://www.google.com/reader and you will be required to get a Google ID to be able to use this feature. For this article I presume that you already have one.

When you open the page, this screen will appear before you:

On the left you see your list of subscriptions as well as a link which lets you add a subscription. On the right you see your current RSS feeds and the messages that came in through them. You can click on the link that is the header of each message which leads you to the article's page (which might be a blog or a news site).

How do you add a feed to Google Reader? Let me show you with the example of the Irish newspaper "Irish Independent" (www.unison.ie)

On their web page, I klick on the RSS Feed icon (see left of paragraph) and copy the link for the feed.
Now I switch back to Google Reader and click on "Add subscription". Now I get a dialog with a field into which I can paste the link.

Then I press the button "Add", and voilá, seconds later I am presented with the list of the most current news from the RSS feed in the right pane.

Neat thing, huh?

Cleaning urges....

2007-01-17T21:20:00.000+01:00

Well, I thought I wouldn't post twice today...but I wonder if Stuttgart twisted my mind somehow? Today I got the urge to do some washing and to put lots of dishes into the dishwasher and start it. I just couldn't bear seeing our kitchen looking that untidy and horrible. Guests would faint at it! (and no, I won't take a photo of the kitchen in its present state)

Besides, it brought me a praise from mom! *proud look*

RSS - how practical with Outlook 2007

2007-01-17T14:21:00.000+01:00

These days I finally grew very much aware of RSS feeds. I knew of them already for several months but have only recently started to use them actively. In fact, it was my classmate Michi who told me that she subscribed all CBL03 blogs through RSS which saved her a lot of browsing for updates.
So I figured I might try this too and voilá, I convinced my Outlook 2007 to subscribe to her RSS feed.

How does it work now? I'll show you how it works when you have Mozilla Firefox and Outlook 2007.

The neat little symbol you see on the left of this paragraph shows you that a site (e.g. a blog or a news site) provides an RSS feed to which you can subscribe.

Firefox indicates this in its address bar as follows:

When you click on the symbol, a new page opens where Firefox shows you the feed and asks you which program you want to use to subscribe to the feed.

Now the upper part of the displayed page is of interest for us, for it offers us two ways to get the RSS feed link to Outlook.

The first way to achieve this is to select "Mirosoft Office Outlook" in the upper part of the page as shown above. Then you click on "Subscribe now". Now, Outlook will open and present you with the following screen:

In the upper part of the screen you see an address bar containing the link to the RSS feed. Copy the link by highlighting it and pressing Ctrl + C on your keyboard.

Now go to Extras -> Account Settings. A dialog field opens in which you select the register labelled "RSS feeds".

Press the button "New..." and paste the link you copied earlier into the field of the now appearing dialog.

After you have pressed the button "Add", another dialog appears which shows you several pieces of information about the feed and where it'll be saved.

Press OK.

That was it! Finish!

Of course, there's a shorter variation for this whole thing. Just copy the feed URL directly from your browser's address bar after you have clicked on the RSS icon, go directly to your account settings and insert it into your list of feeds.

In my next post, I'll introduce you to Google Reader! Stay tuned!

Edit: In her blog Michi shows you how to add RSS feeds to Thunderbird!

Before and After...

2007-01-16T17:31:00.000+01:00

Special Service for Skima....pictures of my desk....

Before I tidied it up...

And after tidying up...

Quite a difference, I'd say *g*

Thesis and more.....

2007-01-15T14:39:00.000+01:00

Here I am again - and have I got news for you!

My thesis topic is fixed! I cannot say much about it since it's confidential, but what I am allowed to say is that it's about a platform similar to myspace or Xing that is developed by a company in Geneva, Switzerland. I am supposed to develop a good Flash frontend and improve it. Well, we'll see what will come of it, I was never particularly good at Flash programming and wonder till today just how I passed the finals for AUT. *g*

Then I finally got round to have my hair cut and new strands made. I went to the hairdresser, who is my best friend's mum, on Saturday. I even have a photo of my new hairstyle:

I know, the photo is a bit dark, but it should give you an impression of how it looks. Do you like it?

Today I called up the scholarship department in Linz because there was a rumour saying that one loses the state scholarship (a.k.a. Studienbeihilfe) if one doesn't live at Hagenberg or near it. So, I decided to ask them personally about that matter and now it comes: It's true! *yowl* How idiotic is that??
Besides, do they think train tickets are for free just because one works for the thesis?? It's not as if I would get any money for it anyway. At least, that's how it looks right now.

I mean, I am not overly inclined to pay for a dorm room just because I might lose the grant otherwise. I will mainly stay in Vienna because we don't have lessons every week anymore, but only every 2-3 weeks. You see, it would be useless for me to be up there. Besides, all the large libraries like the university library of the Uni of Vienna are here, not there.
On the other hand, I must look and see what can be done about this. Currently I am negotiating with my relatives about that. It's wait and see, I guess.

Yesterday I got a cleaning urge and I tidied my desk, my worktable and I put all Stuttgart stuff away. Gee, it was tons of stuff! But - I have proof of it! Here's a photo of my now tidy desk:

Pretty decent, huh? *g* Those who know me know that it usually looks as if a bomb had struck. *g*

Also, I removed the rest of the Stuttgart photos from my digicam and decided to post a few nice ones here:

some of my flatmates (only exception - the guy on the very left, he was a friend of Antje's)
from right to left: Manuela, Robert, Antje, Antje's friend

View of Esslingen with Stuttgart at the back of the image

harpist at the Christmas market at Esslingen (that's a treat for you romantics *g*)

And finally, a small John & Maite update for you Secret Forest fans (I know there are a few of you reading this blog *hehe*):

Judging from Maite's posts in various myspace and Youtube threads, both are quite busy these days. Maite is working at a production of her own for a Basque metal band and will have to record another voice for it. Additionally, it seems as if she has some rehearsals down in Madrid round the 27th.

John was in Germany for the last few days in order to work at their DVD. He will go to Germany again next week and return to Spain on the 26th. Many fans expressed their good wishes for this "project" and Maite said she'd told him about the wishes and that he had been very happy about it. Additionally, John seems to be pretty pleased with the DVD so far. :o)

This might possibly interfere with the Madrid fanmeeting they are thinking about for the 27th/28th because the schedule is very tight and they also wanted to see some friends.
I'd say those two have a little appointment chaos. *grins*

And a little goodie for you...the picture below shows the (maybe initial) cover image that was shown for a time on Maite's web page before the final design for the "Tales from the Secret Forest" CD was done...

All rights for this image lie with John Kelly & Maite Itoiz, not with me!

I am back in Austria

2007-01-10T22:36:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I know ..I'm damn late with posting, am I not? Don't you hit me!
I must admit I was quite busy in the last few weeks of my time at Stuttgart and also a wee bit lazy.

Well, where to start without getting it all jumbled?

Hm....yeah, in the end of November I wento to a concert of John Kelly & Maite Itoiz in Eltville, a small town near Wiesbaden. Said concert took place in a former monastery church which provided great acoustics especially for Maite's aria "Mi chiamano Mimì". It truly is beyond me how such a little person (she's perhaps 1.55m tall at most) can sing so loud and clear! Not that her husband is much taller! In fact, I think he's only 1.75m tall and thin as a reed with so slender and graceful hands.

The concert itself was just great. It was only a pity that they were only allowed to play slow songs, I would have loved to hear songs such as "Through the barriers of time". I was also pleased to meet a few girls and ladies from the Klönecke, a meeting-point for John & Maite fans from the German-speakig countries. Through it I also found Dagmar who gave me a ride to and from the concert. She's really nice, so it's quite a pity that we are separated by roughly 30 years. Her son is a year older than my brother Florian (he's 16) and her daugher is 14.

But the very best thing of the whole trip Stuttgart - Eltville/Rhine was the fact that I was able to meet Maite and John afterwards, talk to them and give them a present (teabags for both and weblinks for HTML/CSS programming for Maite since she is administrating a page on Youtube and on myspace). Both are really kind and nice people and without any airs and graces.
Maite's personality is quite extroverted and she loves to talk (just read her myspace page - every time John is away she is bored and starts to chat away in her blog entries, it's so cute!). She seems to be the type of person who is gifted with a sunny, easygoing personality. *g* John is rather calm, but very kind and patient. This became very prominent when he occupied himself very patiently with the disabled daughter of Uli, one of our group, with the name of Anja. He spoke to her slowly and very kindly and even laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. As far as I am concerned, I really give him credit for it! Just think: he's a "star" (even if he doesn't see himself as such, that's for sure) but he takes the time to talk to a girl he doesn't even really know.

I am sorry that I don't have any photos from this occasion. In the church it was too dark and during the talk, I found it unfair to ruin the atmosphere by taking photos). After all, John and Maite took the time to talk to us although I bet they were exhausted from a long day and longing for bed. *bows in admiration*

My internship developed pretty well, only the last 3 weeks turned out to be quite boring since they didn't have anything for me to do anymore. Additionally, they were flooded with work because of 2 large orders from Hornbach and Deutsche Versicherung (something like that).
In the final talk with my boss he told me he was pleased with me, only my tendency to chaos is something that ought to be remedied. Well, I'll try but miracles shouldn't be expected.

My return to Austria was a bit chaotic due to the caretaker who was in a very irritable mood and accused me of not being dilligent enough. Hey, the room was supposed to be clean swept and not to be sterile! Besides, there were no cleansing agents available, only after a very loud and violent quarrel with my mother, he deigned to get some. Believe it or not, but he had all the supplies locked away in his room although he was supposed to give them to each floor in the dorm. How insolent! How dare he? He's paid for being there to assist the students, not to take his inferiority complexes out on the dorm inhabitants.

I returned just on time to spend Christmas and New Year with my family in Austria. My presents were jewellery (a Rachel, go raibh maith agat, mo charaidh!), money for drawing supplies (which I spent on Copic markers), a fan-made CD with songs of John Kelly from his time with the Kelly Family (he left them in 2000 and moved to Spain, in 2001 he married Maite Itoiz) and several other items.
The New Year was spent in Gutau, Upper Austria with my family. :o) We shot rockets and it was hilarious to watch my uncle's dog Sissi chase every rocket with loud barks and excited jumping.

Past Thursday I finally returned to Vienna permanently (that means no moving around for the next time which is just fine with me!). The last days were mostly spent with meeting friends I haven't seen in months and renewing old bonds. I haven't seen them all, though. Several of them are quite stressed now at work or university.
Yesterday I went to Linz for a meeting with my prospective thesis tutor and another meeting with a project partner from 6th semester to straighten out a few kinks (the guy had cancer and therefore wasn't able to get in touch with my colleague Claudia and me sooner).

The result of the meeting with my tutor was that the topic I had envisioned would not be a wise one. Instead it was suggested I take another topic which had come in only the week before. Oh it is interesting and all, but Flash! *yowl* Flash programming never was my forte and I wonder till today just how I passed that goddamn exam. But Claudia assured me that we had learned more than I believed. Well, I'll have to ponder it and research a bit. I have time till Monday to think it over and decide. Rarely has a decision been so difficult for me because if I fail, my university would be embarassed to the bone and that must not happen, I was told.
The upside of this would be that I'd be working with a company from Geneva, Switzerland, and that I would practice my English a lot because communications seem to run mainly in English. Fine with me, I say. *laugh*
Guess I'll have to talk it over once more with my mom and my friends, I am afraid of taking such an important decision alone.

Tomorrow I'll meet my friend Theresia who I haven't seen since late spring, that is, before the finals of 6th semester. Oh my God, about high time!

Huh, it's already 0.30 am! How time flies by! I will go to bed now!

I promise to update here soon! また　ね！

Snow in Austria, furious Maite and Old High German

2006-11-07T20:51:00.000+01:00

I'm back from my trip to Austria! It was very nice, but rather stressful.

I flew home on the 31st at night and arrived safely at home - the arrival was even punctual!
On the first I travelled to Gutau where it started to snow at midnight! On the 2nd I went to Hagenberg to have a talk with our head of studies concerning my upcoming thesis and afterwards I met my dear friend Pati. It was really a delight to see her again and we had a long talk in the western bar on campus.
The 3rd was my 23rd birthday. It started off quite badly since we got stuck with the car on the icy uphill road and had to be towed. Therefore, I was 2hrs late for the seminar. Luckily I had my mobile with me so I could call ahead and tell them that I would be late. Afterwards, I went with my family to a Japanese restaurant to eat Running Sushi. It was delicious and we were so full!
But I tell ye, the amounts my brothers are able to gobble down are huge! But okay, they are growing right now.

On Saturday I returned to Vienna in order to meet two other very kind friends. We ate in an Israelian restaurant and once again, I ate way too much. What should I do? The food was just excellent: Falaffel with chicken meat and various dips. *yummy*

Maite Itoiz is both furious and desperate. Her and John Kelly's project "Tales from the Secret Forest" is in danger of going down the drain. The concert in Göttingen which had been scheduled for the 26th has been cancelled and Maite says nobody cared to notify them about it.
On their Youtube page she says she's horrified at the chaos and doesn't dare to write more than she already has for fear of problems since John is not present at the moment.
Oh my - how could it end like this? They have worked so hard and now all might be ruined. I don't know John but extrapolating from my brother's character (it's roughly similar) I imagine the phone lines between Spain and Germany might be trembling right now with his fury.
I just hope they can get things worked out, I don't want a project that is as excellent as this to simply disappear because of somebody's (no I won't say what I think about whose fault it might be) ineptitude!

What does a programmer have to do with Old and Middle High German? Nothing, when you go by profession, but much if you go by interest. Strange as it may sound, but I am truly fascinated by it. This epoch is so complex and in spite of much that can be said about it there is still so much that is strange and yet so familiar.

Old High German (750 - 1050 AD) is so foreign und yet so familiar. A famous examples are the Merseburg spells:

Phol ende Uodan uorun zi holza.
du uuart demo Balderes uolon sin uoz birenkit.
thu biguol en Sinthgunt, Sunna era suister,
thu biguol en Friia, Uolla era suister,
thu biguol en Uodan, so he uuola conda:
sose berenki, sose bluotrenki, sose lidirenki,
ben zi bena, bluot zi bluoda,
lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin!

(my) Translation, based on "Althochdeutsche Literatur" by Horst Dieter Schlosser:

Phol and Wodan rode into the forest.
There, Balder's colt cricked its leg.
So, Sindgund and Sunna, her sister, bespoke it
So, Frija and Volla, her sister, bespoke it
So, Wodan bespoke it, in a way as only he could do it:
Like the dislocation of the leg, like the one of the blood, so that of the whole limb!
Bone to bone, limb to limb, as if they were glued together!

Strange, right, but right familiar to my ears.

But I am also drawn to Middle High German (1050 - 1350 AD) because of the troubadours and Minnesänger who lived at that time, like Walther von der Vogelweide or Dietmar von Aist. I especially like Walther's poems because they are so lively and well-written. They illustrate the political situation of his time and give us an image of how he thought and felt about the things that happened around him.

An example:

Saget mir ieman, waz ist minne?
weiz ich des ein teil, sô wist ichs gerne mê.
der sich baz denn ich versinne,
der berihte mich durch waz si tuot sô wê.
minne ist minne tuot si wol:
tout sie wê, so enheizet si niht rehte minne.
sus enweiz ich wie si danne heizen sol.

My translation (based on the German translation of Hans-Uwe Rump):

Can anyone tell me what minne is?
Although I know quite a bit about it, I would very much like to know more about it.
Who understands more of it than I do,
should teach me why it hurts so much.
Because minne is minne if it feels good!
If it hurts, it cannot rightfully be called minne.
And I do not know how it should then be called.

Odd, isn't it?

Well, it is pretty late, so I'll finish for today. I'm waiting for your comments and thoughts!

Fall, Office 2003/2007, opera singers and me

2006-10-24T13:42:00.000+02:00

Finally, fall has also reached Stuttgart... the leaves are falling, it is windy, wet and dark. When I rise in the morning at 7.10 a.m., it is usually still pitch-dark. Only when I leave at ~ 8 a.m. the sun has risen and - if the weather is nice - casts long yellow rays along Hackstraße (which I must cross on my way to the underground station Stöckach where I get on the U1).
When I leave the office at ~ 5 p.m. it usually still light, but should I have to run some errands, it might well happen that I return home way past 6 p.m. and then it's already dusk again. *sigh*

The weather has become distinctly fall-like with lots of clouds and rain. But I shan't complain since September was extraordinarily warm and pleasant. Although - sometimes it is annoying if you get off the train in the morning and are dripping wet after the 5 minute walk to work from the train station. Even worse when the same happens on your way back home! *argh*

Luckily, the temperature didn't fall below 5°C yet, the lowest we had so far was 7°C at 8 in the morning. efha tells me they had already lower temperatures up north in Helsinki. Poor girl!

My job at work is still connected to Office programming, or rather: to force Office (Word) 2003 to accept a customised action pane. I've got it so far that there is a template containing all necessary routines for accessing a web service and searching for key words. Much to my boss' chagrin (and that means my chagrin as a consequence) it is only possible to work it out on a document or template basis, but not programmatically. Well, he'll have to live with it since that approach will only be realized in Office 2007 of which there is only a beta so far.

Microsoft says Office 2007 will officially be released in late winter/spring 2007. Well, I think I'll get it as soon as it is affordable for a poor student like me since I have been working with the beta version on my laptop already and am very content with it, esp. Outlook 2007 (improved calendar - very important for scatterbrained me), in spite of the beta status and the still-existing flaws.

2 weeks ago I made a little trip to southern Stuttgart because I wanted to take photos of the area there. The district I went to is clearly inhabited by upper-class people and very close to a hill and the forest. Very pleasant, I say, since I need some fresh air every now and then after a week of being cloistered in front of my computer.

[photos coming soon]

What do I have to do with opera singers, you ask? Basically, nothing.
But I found 2 female singers whose voices I like very much: Maite Itoiz (famous Spanish singer, wife to John Kelly, shares the project "Tales of the Secret Forest" with him) and Tarja Turunen (Finnish singer, former member of the Heavy Metal band Nightwish). Both have excellent voices and - as far as I can judge from videos I saw - a great stage presence. Besides, they are not only involved in opera projects but practice different styles of music from Heavy Metal to Folk and Celtic.

efha has gracefully agreed to get me some of Tarja's solo CDs (she's in Finland right now, remember?) and I'll try to get Maite's solo CD round Christmas (of course I'd be pleased if Santa brought it, but well... *g*).

The Japanese course I had hoped for did not come into being. *sigh* I got a letter from the Volkshochschule saying that there were not enough participants for it. I envy my pal Phil who can do a course in Linz. *snief* But I hope that there will be a possibility to continue in summer term when several of the old Japanese group (including myself) are back from their various internships.

One of my flatmates moved out yesterday. The lucky girl is finished with her internship and returned back to university (was it Rostock university?). I hope to stay in contact with her, she was really nice in spite of her shyness.
Now I'm curious who will move in in November? I hope he/she is nice.

Speaking of people: Recently I met a Japanese girl by the name of Nami, a student of architecture. We hit it off almost immediately. She was happy to hear that I am learning Japanese and am already able to read and write a few kanji (which reminds me I ought to resume studying them, else I'll forget).
Recently she paid a visit to Vienna (my hometown) and Graz. She loved it! She took tons of photos (although mainly of architectural buildings) and was a delight to listen to. ;oD

I will return to Austria for a few days from Oct. 31st till Nov. 5th. I'm looking forward to it since my birthday is near! That means celebration and fun - apart from one lecture at university which I must attend (what a nuisance, but it can't be helped).
At Hagenberg I'll meet several old friends I haven't seen for ages but I hope I manage to see a few people in Vienna, too. I only have to convince my mother that we leave on the 2nd for Hagenberg and return on the 3rd because I'm also due for the hairdresser. Everything's fixed already and I'll be strangled if I don't attend. *g*

Well, I must return to work....looking forward to your comments and thoughts!

cheers!

Gee...long time no see!

2006-10-05T22:38:00.000+02:00

Phew - I know I made myself scarce during the last few weeks. But it seems to me as if life carries me away and when I happen to catch my breath in the evening, I'm usually too tired to do much more than watch TV, surf the net, chatwith my flatmates in the common kitchen and such things.

But - wait, there actually is an interesting thing:
Recently I stubled across a beautiful song called "Txoria Txori" (a.k.a "Hegoak"). It is written in Basque and is about true love:

Hegoak ebaki banizkio
Nerea izango zen
Ez zuen aldegingo
Bainan, honela
Ez zen gehiago txoria izango
Eta nik...txoria nuen maite

Translation:
The bird which is a bird

If I had cut her wings
She would have been mine
She would not have fled
But, thus,
She would not have been a bird anymore
And me...it was the bird I loved

I understand that it has been performed by many singers, but I heard it sung for the first time by John Kelly and Maite Itoiz and immediately fell in love with it. Listen to it here (Youtube video clip). What do you think of it?

I think I once mentioned the Chinese guy from my dorm, right? Anyway, he is finished with his internship now and returned to Darmstadt to continue his studies. I think that one of these days he will return to China for 2-3 weeks vacation. Before he left, he gave me some really cute presents like 2 Chinese postcards on which he had written a poem about friendship and a dedication in Chinese calligraphy. I am really impressed because it really looks very cool. Just to think how many characters he must know for that makes me almost dizzy.
The funny thing about his present was that he handed them to me in the kitchen in front of 3 people and they obviously thought I had something going on with him! Oh my, I didn't even know him for a month! Where should a relationship come from? Thin air?

Now on to how work is going... Well, I finished that image conversion project and also the following project in which I wrote a converter that disassembles large SCORM packages and makes a lot of very small packages from them (1 package = 1 chapter = 1 XML manifest + assets). Gee, it took me almost two weeks for the last one.
The last 2 days were comparatively easy: Only some Photoshop fiddling with a few screenshots. Today I was given a new assigment which seems to be pretty difficult
I am supposed to find out how to connect a web service to MS Word 2003 (with .NET) such that it displays relevant links provided by the service on the right side of the screen. In the same breath my boss told me that neither he nor the others had any idea how this might work and that - as soon as I find it out - I am to teach them! *argh* *flails hands* I'm afraid!! What if I mess this up? I'd be so ashamed of myself! I don't want to be a burden to them and do everything right. Am I too perfectionistic? My boss told me already that I shouldn't demand too much of myself...

Past weekend I was back at Vienna for a few days. What a welcome change that was! I mean, I really love Stuttgart but there's nothing like home. Familiar accent, familiar words, familiar public transport system,.. Ah, I could continue the list w/o end!
But I swear the journey was horrible! The planes were late (I travelled via Zurich), the replacement tickets cost me 80,- (I still have to write a letter of complaint) and my luggage spent an extra night at Zurich airport because of the chaotic transfer. My plane landed at 10pm, but I finally left the airport at midnight and came home round 1 in the morning. Oh, I was so tired and so furious!

On Saturday I met with my oldest and best friend, Babsi, and we had a beauty day with solarium, face mask, bathing and everything that's connected with it. To put it simple: A women's day! And I say it was great!

On Sunday I was away with my family. We went to a famous fish restaurant and lunched there. Exquisite, really. But I didn't have the fish, though. I preferred a real Schnitzel because you don't get it in Germany.

On Monday I first met with Mika and Kathi and we lunched at a Chinese restaurant. It was great fun. Afterwards Mika had to go back to work, but Kathi and I went through several clothes stores to check out the newest offers.
In the evening I once again met with Babsi and we had "dinner" at Burger King and a final chat before I had to return to Germany on Tuesday. All in all, a very pleasant weekend, really!

Next week, my Japanese course should start. But I'll call them up tomorrow and ask if there are enough participants. Just in case, I don't want to leave early from work just to stand in front of a closed door because the course was cancelled. If it works out, I shall be very glad indeed.

My flatmate was so funny this evening. He suddenly appeared in front of my window and I wondered what he was doing out there at that ungodly hour. Well, he had locked himself out! How, you ask? He forgot his keys in his room and took his access card from work with him (force of habit, I guess) only to realize - when he was already outside in front of the garbage bins - that he couldn't get back in w/o a key! Oh my! *giggle* Of course, I went and let the poor bugger in.

Huh, it's already 11.50 pm and I have to get up at 7 am tomorrow, so I better stop rambling for today. Waiting for your comments and ideas!

じゃ、また　ね！*bows and scurries off*

Happy End, crazy Irish, a nice picture and a Chinese guy

2006-09-07T23:20:00.000+02:00

The matter with my laptop finally had a Happy End! Two weeks ago it was finally picked up, repaired and delivered back to me one week later. Ironically, the repair sheet showed me that the problem had exactly been what Phil and I had believed it to be: broken backlight.
But no - I had to quarrel for almost three weeks in order to get the support to believe me. *hmpf*
Gee, I'm soo glad I have my own 16" laptop back, it makes working and surfing the net so much easier. Besides, a big keyboard is more practical, for you don't have to look for your keys as much.

Additionally, my media and software collection is on my hard disk and it would have been disastrous to lose it all.

But now to another topic:
Last week, Stuttgart hosted the soccer match Ireland vs. Germany. As far as I know, Germany won 1:0. But the more interesting and funny part were the Irish fans!
You see, on that very Saturday I went downtown to buy some empty DVDs and do some windowshopping. When I got off the underground at the main station I stopped and stared. So many people in green "Eircom" T-shirts who were speaking English! The last time I heard that much English in the street was during my time in Ireland back in 2001! It felt as if half of Ireland had emigrated here for the match!

When I approached Königstrasse and Königspassage to get to the Saturn store, the density of partying and drinking fans rose quite abruptly. On Schloßplatz I realised what the matter was and why they were gathering just there: There was a large silver screen in the nearby park and the Irish and German fans had peacefully and joyfully gathered there to celebrate the match and - drink beer in huge amounts. I'm not baffled by much when it comes to alcohol after three years of university, but this was just amazing. *shakes head*

I tell ya, had I known that the match was on and that it would be celebrated like this, I would have taken my digital camera along. A pity I missed it, it was partially hilarious!

Some of you might remember that I am working on a story, right? Well, an acquaintance from deviantart.com took the time and drew one of the main characters, Lia. I really love the picture because it's really close to my image of her. I recommend you take a look at it, it's really cute!

Now on to the matter of the Chinese guy. His name is Yao Li and he is studying mechanical engineering at TU Darmstadt, Germany. He does an internship with Bosch for a month during which he is staying at my dorm, only not on my floor but one floor above it.
We ran across each other on the fire stairs one warm evening last week when I was sitting there with my dorm mates and chatting away with them.
Well, one word gave the other and now we'll exchange music and maybe I'll join him and a few other Chinese for a trip to the local Irish pub on Saturday night. If things work out, this'll be a very pleasant evening. *g* Maybe he can also teach me some new kanji....after all, if not he, who else at hand might know them?

Speaking of other people....on my floor we're now 6 girls and 1 guy. *g* He must feel like the cock of the walk. The other girls are all quite nice, but mostly I'm in contact with three of them who I usually meet on the stairs when I come home from work. There, they usually, talk, smoke and chill out which is just fine with me (though I don't smoke) and very relaxing after a long day of programming and twisting my brain through lines of C++ code.

A thing I am really looking forward to right now is my "holiday" at home in Vienna from Sept. 29th - Oct 3rd. I have already booked my plane tickets and am only waiting for them to be delivered. I will fly with Swiss via Zurich.
As soon as I know if my friend Ines will come to Stuttgart for the Schandmaul concert on Oct 31st, I can talk to my boss, Alex, to see if I get Nov. 2nd off. Then I can maybe fly home on the 31st at night (if the concert doesn't work out) or on the 1st in the morning. Anyway, I must hurry to get cheap tickets as early as possible. This would grant me a "vacation" from Nov. 1st - 5th which is interrupted by a trip to Hagenberg for a seminar on the 3rd *sigh* - my 23rd birthday. But well..it'll be nice to see Hagenberg and my friends there again after so long. To be honest I miss it pretty much!

huh - it's alredy 0.13 a.m. and I have to be up early tomorrow. So I'll finish this post for now...

また　ね！ see ya!

Laptop Drama, Part 2, and delightful finds in a bookstore

2006-08-27T23:22:00.000+02:00

Phew! I guess you all remember what I told you about the drama with my laptop a few days ago, don't you? Well, I am glad to say that finally, on Thursday, a guy from DHL came to pick my laptop up to transport it to the repair facility situated in the Czech Republic. Thank Goodness, it was about high time! I think I should get it back by the end of the week. What a reason for celebration this will be, especially if they did all right and repaired my monitor and checked the accu for any problems.
Besides, then I can quit using the replacement laptop that I currently use. I mean it was really nice of my youngest brother to borrow it to me but it seems I can't get to terms with its keyboard b/c it's so small. My own keyboard is much more comfortable (of course, my laptop's screen has ~16" insted of this laptop's ~13"). °_°

Do any of you by accident know the animé "Utawarerumono" (apart from you, Phil..I know that you know it)? It's a great series with a pretty complicated story. Alas, I got stuck with watching it round ep 16 (that is, before I moved) and now have a lot of catching up to do once I get my Dell laptop (which is capable of playing them w/o any breakdowns).
BTW - my favourite characters are Hakuoro, Aruruu and Eruruu. They're sweet and interesting. :o)

Yesterday I went downtown for a walk along Königstraße, the main street of Stuttgart. On a hunch I went down one of the side streets and guess what I found? A comic store which also sells lots of mangas, among them book 5 and 6 of the manga "Subaru" which I have been looking for everywhere! I am only waiting to get my salary to indulge myself into a "Subaru" book and yet another "Inuyasha" book (I'm quite behind on it!).

Another find was that the large bookstore "Wittwer" directly on Königstraße has the book I'll need for the Japanese course I'll start taking in October. Bah, yet another 30 Euros! I did look on ebay for a used copy but, alas, no such luck. Only original copies at the same price.

My salary should arrive in the course of this week which is about high time since I'm almost broke and 750 Euros more or less makes a great difference on my account. OK, I must immediately subtract 350 Euros for rent, Internet and monthly ticket for public transport and yet another 200 - 250 Euros for food and the like. But the other money I'll either save or spend on useful things like some extra clothing and books (like abovementioned mangas *hrhr*).

I am sure several of you used to make friendship bracelets back at school, right? I have started that again and found a few really cool patterns here. I even went and bought white, blue, red and yellow bead yarn to have a few colours at my disposal. Once I can upload a few pics onto my own laptop, I'll take a photo of the bracelet I'm currently making as I'm quite pleased with it, considering the fact that I haven't knotted in ages. Seems to me one doesn't forget such manual skills, eh?

ah - @Rachel: thx for allowing me to name that one character - one of these days I ought to repay you for that :o) you know what I mean! *g*

Tomorrow my boss will be back from his vacation. Huh that'll mean some more stress at work again. *sigh* But at least I only have to assemble on final thing, the XML writing, into my code and then I "only" have to clean up my code. But that final thing might cost me a day if I'm not lucky. *sigh* Ah yes C++ programming can be a nuisance sometimes! However, I love it - it's a really interesting challenge for me and not as boring as other things would be to me.

So - it's almost midnight now, so I guess I'll call it a day, esp since I went to bed very late yesterday (at 3 a.m.), the weather is bad outside (it's raining cats and dogs once again) and I have to get up at 7 a.m. tomorrow...

See ya!

Stuttgart, weird student dorm and Dell support

2006-08-20T13:47:00.000+02:00

Hey over there!

I think many among you surely missed a sign from me to prove that I am safe and well here at Stuttgart. I would have written much sooner if not my laptop's screen hadn't gone black all of a sudden some time ago. Since then, I have been discussing with Dell's support b/c they wouldn't just accept that it was my monitor (or rather either its background lighting or the inverter) that is broken and not my graphics card! Only after x repetitions that no, I cannot look into the bios b/c I can't see anything on my monitor and no, the cabling is not loose and no, an external monitor works perfectly with my graphics card, they finally sent me an e-mail yesterday, telling me that they'd send a courier and have the LCD screen exchanged.
But it leaves me to wonder just how they got that service award they are bragging about on their German service web page. I'm tempted to say they got it for supreme chaos and slow thinking rather than good service.
But well, at least my monitor will get replaced and that's all I want.

Right now I'm working at a 6 years old laptop my family sent me from Vienna so that I might stay in contact with family and friends. It's small and ancient but it serves its general purpose which is to allow me to surf the net and tend to my e-mails and maybe even chat a bit via ICQ or Skype. But I tell ya, I will be so glad when my laptop's back and fully functional once again. *sigh*

But now on to something else:
As you surely know by now, I live in a student dorm close to the city centre of Stuttgart. Basically, this isn't so bad. If only the dorm administration wasn't even more chaotic than the one at Hagenberg! The building's completely new, ok, but we lack cleaning equimpent, a clotheshorse, hooks to hang our clothes on (unless somebody did a trip to Ikea to buy them) and trashbins in our rooms. The best thing is that they want their "customers" to open a German bank account even if they're only there for a few months because they want to debit the rent directly from the account. This is really cumbersome!
Besides, there were no bedclothes in the rooms and the table lamp and the clothes rail in the cupboard - though mentioned in the contract - were also missing. *scratches head in frustration* Thank goodness that the people on my floor are generally very nice and cooperative. That's why we were able to work out a system to handle the problems at hand.

The next flaw is that in order to get Internet, you have to travel across Stuttgart to the uni campus at Vaihingen. There you must apply for it and once again leave your bank account No. because they too debit from the account. So, I pay € 315,- per month only for room and Internet. Perhaps it doesn't sound much to you, but if you only earn € ~750,- a month and have to cover the monthly ticket for public transport (€ 50,-) together with lunch and the occasional going out on Saturday night as well, there's not much left afterwards.

The one thing I am really content about is my workplace. My colleages are really nice and kind. They take the time to explain things to me even if they are stressed by deadlines and allow me to join them for lunchtime.
Best of all is that I get real jobs to do and that I am challenged by them. :o) Up to now, I was usually rather bored by my jobs because they did not have much to do with my actual interests and likes. You wonder what my duties are right now: I implement an algorithm in C++ which is supposed to compare 2 pictures and find the differences between them. Then it is supposed to only save the parts of the picture that have changed (=Delta images). Data source is an XML file. Geez, it's really difficult, but I'm determined to get the hang of it. Besides, if I get stuck, my colleague Mesut is there to help me. *cheers*

My boss, Alex, is on vacation right now in Croatia. Lucky man, although I think that if the weather is only half as unstable as it is here, he is having one wet holiday he won't forget so soon. *g*

Yesterday I went shopping with my dorm mate Anja. She's a really nice girl and we get along pretty well. I bought some cotton pads and bead yarn for making bracelets. I wonder if I can still do some of the ornaments I used to know during my early years of grammar school.

The funny thing over here is that so many words are different. E.g.: "Karfiol" is the Austrian word for cauliflower. Here it is called "Blumenkohl". You can imagine my mildly confused look when I went to lunch with my colleages and the menu announced there was something with "Blumenkohl" and "Broccoli". I had no idea what it was, but after some questioning I was informed about what this food was. *g* Another funny thing is that cups are called "Häferl" in Austria but "Tasse" over here. Or the matter of "Süße Sahne" vs. "Schlagobers". Oh my!
My dorm mates and I had quite a few mock arguments about that already because of misunderstandings. But of course, nothing serious, you know?

The Swabian dialect is also funny for my ears. They put an "sh" sound instead of most of the "s" sounds which makes it sometimes pretty difficult for me to understand more than the basic gist of what is being said.

Well, I'll go now and have some lunch (or rather I'll go and cook some lunch *hihi*)

see ya!

New Hairstyle, Heat and end of Term

2006-07-10T20:16:00.000+02:00

Phew - apart from a short interruption last week by some thunderstorms, the heat wave remains. Not that I'd complain, it was cold long enough for my taste. But I think a few degrees less would be a blessing. It really is troublesome to travel when it is so hot you only want to lie down beside a pool, swim and relax.
But no - I must travel across Austria and study for exams. *sigh* On the other hand, tomorrow studying is over for the time being for tomorrow is my last exam for this term. Oh joy!

But I have also nice news for you: I went to the hairdresser on Saturday to get my hair cut and coloured. The result: my hair is now shoulder-length and has lots of blonde, copper and red strands in it. I think it looks cool and it is practical during summertime. I can easily braid it or pin it up to avoid having a hot neck.
My hairdresser is the mother of an old friend who is really excellent with her trade and I willingly pay the € 40 she charges.
I am really looking forward to my classmates' looks tomorrow when I show of my new hairstyle. *hehe*

Let us return to the upcoming end of term again...I will return from Hagenberg on Saturday after a last seminar ("Diplomandenseminar") on Friday. I bet enthusiasm won't be too great since there will be a celebration at our head of study's place on Thursday night. *g* You see, she lost a bet back in February and her wager was the invitation.
After my return to Vienna the first thing I'll do is to simply relax and meet people I haven't seen in months due to my lack of time. You can bet there are a lot of them. Another thing I have to tend to is my upcoming move to Germany (of which I have already spoken in my last post).

As far as I know by now, I will leave around the 27th and will stay in Germany until Christmas. Maybe I am able to come home for my birthday round the 1st of November, but that depends on my company's policy and how much time I will have.

@Rachel: ehm...I inquired about the state of things and I think the dorm's kitchen ought to be adequate, but they don't have cupboards with locks in their common kitchens. I guess I'll store everything in my room for fear it might be taken away. *sigh*

During the 2 weeks in Vienna, I will also try and see a few doctors like dentist, gyn and orthopedist to get a thorough check-up before I depart. This is especially important when it comes to my left knee. I want to dance again, but I think it will take some time until I can dance again. My knee isn't fully healed yet and I have a feeling it might take until Christmas or so. But then.....*hehe*

I met Kathi on Friday night and we agreed that as soon as I may dance again, she'll tutor me a bit to help me regain my muscles, flexibility and stamina. I lost most of it during the last year. *snief* I think she'll make an excellent tutor since she knows all the steps and has recently made a 1st place during the Munich feis (Two-Hand Reel, age group 18-30). Besides, we have danced together for three years and she knows my style and manner very well.
If it is possible, I want to join her dancing school (IDCV - don't be shocked by the atrocious web page, Kathi tells me the school is excellent) in spring '07. I hope that it'll work out but of course there's no guarantee that it'll eventually work out for real. *sigh*

Speaking about Ireland....today I did some research on the infamous Potato Famine of 1845-1848 and was apalled at how bad things were due to the government's inactivity and the general circumstances. No wonder that so many chose emigration over certain death through starvation.
During my research I found a few interesting sites which illustrate very clearly what happened then:
Irelandseye.com
Wikipedia.com
An gorta mór
CELT - Corpus of Electronic Texts

Well - it's time to get back to studying for tomorrow's Linux exam... wish me luck!

is mise le meas!

Mediaeval festival and horrible heat

2006-06-21T15:19:00.000+02:00

Hi!

Is it also so hot at your place? Here at Hagenberg, the heat is stifling, especially if you inhabit a dorm room that faces south/south-west. Even when night finally falls, the temperature only drops by a few degrees. You can imagine that I am hot day and night. *sigh* My laptop doesn't like it either, peak hard disk temperatures are round 60°C which is not very healthy for my hard disk.

Luckily the rooms at university are air-conditioned, else esp. the LB02 lab would not be useable and the whole IT infrastructure would crash. This happened once 2 years ago when the main server crashed during a heat wave and lots of data was lost.

Have you ever worked with TYPO3? I have started only recently with it during an elective subject and I'm not quite sure what to think of it. I can see that it's very powerful and able to manage lots of users and large pages. But it's really complex! Besides, it's not exactly amusing having to reinstall it every time you are at your PC in the lab because someone always reinstalls the web server and deletes your database with it.
Now I put it onto my laptop and it works now - but there's no data yet.

Yesterday an e-mail was sent out by our head of studies which was a forward of a CATT advertisement for the VULCANUS programme. VULCANUS is an exchange programme supported by the EU and Japan for students and alumni of technical universities. It sounds very good and I am quite inclined to apply for it so that I can go there after my studies are finished (my finals are in June/July 2007). At least my mum would be all for it, judging from her enthusiastic response to it. Besides, who knows what might come of it? ;o)

But right now, I focus on my upcoming internship at Stuttgart. I finally found a place in a student dorm but I don't know any details for it yet. I really have to remember to write the dorm administration an e-mail and inquire about the equipment there so that I might know what to take with me apart from clothes and my laptop.
The good thing is that the building was opened only a few weeks ago, so I'll live in an entirely new building. I just hope that my future dorm mates are nice and that the kitchen is at least somewhat clean. I know how disgusting an uncleaned kitchen can be. *shudder*

But now to something else: Recently I attended a mediaeval festival at Prandegg. Luckily we had good weather, so the whole thing was a lot of fun. Alas, I couldn't stay for long because I had to go home by train and my cousin had to take me to Linz for that. But I say that it was worth it! :o)

The photo above shows the band "Rhiannon" (www.rhiannon.at) together with some guest drummers. They were really good and if I had had more money with me at that time, I would have bought one of their CDs.

Things that make or ruin a day...

2006-06-02T10:56:00.000+02:00

... or rather - how to reduce what little enthusiasm one ever had about a matter to nothingness....

You see, today and tomorrow we have a blocked lecture about law and our new teacher is a minimalist. Now combine that and you'll just guess what that means: team work. *snort* Basically "go on and do the teaching yourself". And, next time we'll have a test. *sigh* Essentially, this is quite a bad joke. At least as far as I'm concerned, I can't speak for my classmates, you know.

On a more positive note....my family will come to visit! I spoke to my mum just a day ago via MSN and Skype and she said that it looks like it. I'm glad, it saves me the money for the train (13.80 € for a single ticket! *argh*) .
It's really pleasing to see that my mum adopts new means of communication that fast and easily compared to other people I know. I know several people at my age or only slightly older than I am who have trouble handling their e-mail traffic! But my mum handles MSN chatting (including shortcuts like cu, np or smileys) and phoning each other through Skype with webcam and headset virtually without much effort.

I, though, prefer Miranda because it combines several IM protocols (e.g. ICQ, MSN, Yahoo,...) into one interface. Besides, it's open source and for free. The most recent version even has Unicode support included which makes it easy to exchange messages in Japanese with my coursemates.

I'm so glad that my internship is finally fixed. I'll work with Know How in Stuttgart, Germany, from August 1st until Christmas. Now the only thing I still lack is a place to live at. I applied for a room in a student dorm at Stuttgart but I consider it rather improbable that I'll get one. So I am looking for flat shares at www.wg-gesucht.de and www.studenten-wg.de. I already have some contacts and negotiations going on but nothing really concrete. Well, I still have some time, but I'll rather be sure about things too early than too late. If need be, I still have to book a flight in time.

Here's a new intersting web page: http://www.gaijinsmash.net/ - at least it's interesting for friends of Japan

Well, that's all for today, folks!

As always, leave comments and thoughts!

Talk of Masahiko Inami at Hagenberg & more...

2006-05-19T11:50:00.000+02:00

Yesterday evening, Masahiko Inami held a talk here at university which dealt with various types of augmented reality. I must say it was really impressive what he and his research team at the University of Electro-Communications Tokyo/Inami Labs have developed.
Many of the things shown reminded me strongly of the well-known animé "Kokaku Kidôtai" (Ghost in the Shell) and its sequel "Ghost in the Shell: Innocence".

(image above taken from http://www.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/hmp/index.html)

After the talk, Inami-san showed us a small robot that could be guided by a circle containing a colour gradient. Neat thing, really!
My friend Phil immediately said he wanted to try something similar at home too. Old tinkerer! *gg*

I spent the morning transcribing and supplementing my notes and can now proudly announce that they can be downloaded as a MS Word 2003 document here. I will switch to a PDF version as soon as I am back at my own laptop at the dorm (I am currently at a BIN lab where the computers don't have Adobe Acrobat *hmpf*).

Anyway, the lecture had a really pleasant aftermath: Phil paid me a visit and we ate strawberries with yoghurt and talked until 0.30 am - although we both knew that today's lessons would start at 8 am and we would have to rise at 7 am. *g*

Boring lectures can be really practical for tending to matters one usually would forget or ignore. I was given the link to a really funny blog http://passionate.twoday.net/topics/Fortgehen+und+seine+Folgen/ by a colleague from the class above mine (I'm CBL03, she's CBL02). Mind you, though, it's written in German!

I couldn't suppress a snicker while reading because it is partially so hilarious. But my favourite funny page is www.daujones.com (also in German). The stories are hilarious! My favourite author is "chlodwig" and my favourite story is "Guru meditation". Every time I read this story I must be very careful not to burst into laughter. Besides, it's seem very strange if I were grinning during a lecture. The prof would surely wonder just what is so amusing about his lecture. ;oD

lovely May, internship and more...

2006-05-12T22:32:00.000+02:00

Hi guys and gals!

After ages I once again take the times to write into my blog. Sorry for my huge delay but now there's enough to tell once again.

Spring is here! After a long and cold winter, it came during the Easter holidays. At that time I was at home in Vienna to have knee surgery. As you all surely remember I injured my left knee during dancing (at least that was my doc's theory). After lots of examinations and an MRI before Christmas, it turned out that my meniscus was torn and had to be operated on to get fixed.
Currently, said knee is still somewhat swollen and tends to hurt if I move too much or overdo the light strengthening exercises I am supposed to do or walk too much. Like recently, when I went on a trip to Linz for a project.

Result: I nursed my sore knee for two days. *ouch*

But now on to more pleasant things!

I am pleased to announce that I got an internship at Stuttgart in Germany with a medium-sized e-learning company called Know How! AG. It was only by sheer luck that I got that position because they didn't send an internship offer to our head of study.
You wonder how I got it then? Well, in February I went to a girl from the class above us, Christina, to get a CV printed b/c my printer's ink had run out. We started to talk and soon found that we had much in common like taste of music and - the things we imagined for our future jobs: programming! It was her who told me about this nice position which was fortunate because the offers we had until then were only about concepts and drafts and no decent Java/PHP programming at all.

Now I will do lots of programming with Java, PHP and databases and I am sure I'll enjoy it thoroughly!

The next thing on my agenda is to get a place to stay. Right now, I am torn between two offers. One is a small flat and the other one a flat-share. Both people are nice and the flats seem decent enough to me. Sheesh, I've decided to think it over till Monday and then decide. Besides, the girl who offers the flat share place will send me photos of the place next week.
Additionally, my mum also has a word to say about this because I trust her judgement on people and things. She's got a nose for such things and is hardly ever wrong. Therefore it would be more than foolish not to trust her with that.

The only thing which saddens me is that I will be far, far away from Linz and Hagenberg and cannot continue my Japanese course which I really like. The people there are really nice and to be honest - there's a guy whose company I will miss sorely. His pleasant, kind, almost shy manner has struck me and I am of the opinion that there are only few like him. *beet red face* I just hope I will see him again in summer term '07 when I return to Hagenberg for my master thesis. Of course, I would be immensely pleased to see him again sooner, like before Christmas.
Besides, my mother seems to like him although she has never met him and has only seen photos so far and listened to my talking about him.

Speaking of Japanese... I luckily found a course at Stuttgart where I could possible continue my studies. It would be a shame not to continue a thing which has brought me so much joy and challenges me anew every time I take my things to study.

Today I spoke with my friend Ines and she says she wants to go to Munich b/c there's a company which does exactly what she wants to do as a job. If that worked out we could stay in contact while I am at Stuttgart since it's only 1-2 hrs by train apart.
But I know that I will return once a month to Vienna by plane because I found that taking a plane is cheaper and faster than going by train. It's also possible that I have to go to Hagenber once or twice because of some blocked lectures we must attend. But that's not sure yet because Ms. Allert says that if we take a course at a university in the city we'll live during our internship which is related to our studies and has the right number of ECTS points, she can accredit it and we won't have to come.
I'm not entirely sure of that, though, as I want to do an English course at the U of Stuttgart and must inquire about how to go on about that.

This semester's project which is a cooperation with the University of Art Linz is much more relaxed than last semester's. We have much freedom and can work at our own pace. Also, there is not no programming to do, only research and concocting some e-learning modules for their e-learning system DMA. It's a really interesting job because of the contrast to the last project.
One of my teammates from the last project joined a project with Microsoft Austria which I also wanted to join initially, but changed my mind afterwards. How right I was! They have to teach ASP.net to themselves and I swear that this is not what I would have wanted for a time which is stressful enough with look ing for a decent internship.
While I wasn't uninterested, I simplay didn't want such stress as during the last winter term again. It's unhealthy. Besides, I want to have a relaxed "last" semester at Hagenberg during which I can enjoy this nice campus and don't have to worry about project deadlines too much.

Well...that's it for today, folks! I would be pleased if you left a note after reading this really long epistle! :o)

University Starts Again....

2005-09-29T14:57:00.000+02:00

Well, long time no see! My life seems to be quite busy at the moment, otherwise I wouldn't write into my blog that rarely.

Hmm...in 2 days university will start again. On a Saturday, you wonder? Yeah, it's a blocked lecture from 11.20 to 18.50: Java Programming using Tomcat. Oh geez, this sure borders on harakiri or suicide. Do they really think we can concentrate on such a difficult matter for a whole day? As far as I'm concerned, I haven't yet seen a student able to keep his/her attention up for more than 2 hrs.Or can you?

I'll go to university by train tomorrow. The weather is really less than pleasing. Imagine carrying a heavy bag in the rain from the bus stop in the village to the dorm in streaming rain with a hurting knee! But maybe I'm lucky and my favourite cousin Lisi can pick me up from the train station. You see, she works in Linz where I would have to change to the regional bus line and her way home takes her more or less right past Hagenberg. *g*

What I am really looking forward to is the Japanese course. This year we can register for it through the internet and at least for me it worked just fine after a bit of confusion whether it's the JAP1 or JAP2 course I'm supposed to register for. They didn't write if both courses are the same or if they are on different levels. In the end I found out that I must enlist for JAP2 since JAP1 is the beginners' course. *sigh* Go figure how many had to play the same guessing game as I.
I just pity the poor freshmans of this year since they sure have no clue (I didn't have any either!) of life on campus. But I'm positive they'll have it figured out until Christmas.

So..I must go and do a bit of packing so that I won't get into a hurry tomorrow with all the last-minute shopping and errand running.

Bye for now :o)

update after ages

2005-08-14T16:39:00.000+02:00

Oh geez, it's ages since I posted anything in here. Univesity just got too stressful and in July, I had exams and started a summer job.Now, in the middle of August, I finally have some time to leave a litle note in here, :o)
Well, today it's Sunday and luckily, tomorrow is a public holiday, so no work. *yeah* I'm no morning person, but I have to get up at 6.30 am to catch the train at ca. 7.20 am to be on time. I takes me roughly 40-50 mins to get there and that's only when there are no problems with either train or tramway.

You wonder where I'm working? I am working with Siemens Austria until Aug. 31st and I really like it. My workmates are nice and the payment is really good. I do need the money sorely since I had to buy a new laptop computer because my old one crashed three weeks ago. I was able to save some data but most of it was lost. I wanted to buy one anyway as my old notebook was already 4 years old but the crash more or less prompted it.
Now I have a nice Dell Inspiron 6000 and I'm quite content with it (as far as I can tell after only a few days of doing software setups and the like). I hope it will make university work much easier for me, esp when I go to university by train. *g*

The beginning of August was a somewhat hard time for me since my father had to go to hospital to have emergency surgery on his main artery, the aorta. He had an aneurysm which was close to rupturing which is perilous. He was lucky and therefore able to leave hopsital after only 10 days. He's still very weak but in good spirits. In Septenber he'll go and take the waters possibly at Bad Tatzmannsdorf in order recover fully from that ordeal.

But now to something more uplifting: I may happen that I'll travel to Ireland with a friend of mine. But we still need to see if we have the money for it.

Well...gotta go..

see ya soon!

Keep Cool!

2005-05-19T11:54:00.000+02:00

Long time, no see! I know I have been lazy during the last few weeks - but hey, I don't know how not to drown in work.
Last Saturday I got severly delayed with my self-made homework schedule when my computer decided to crash on me just because I reinserted my DVD burner into it and an additional hard disk to improve my disk space (it's plain amazing how much space a few movies take! *gg*). Well, I put it in, wired it, started up and - nothing...niente...nada...nix! I tried and tried again and in the end, I had to insert my Windows CD and reset. It was only when I was finished that I found out what seems to have shot my PC: hard disks have jumpers on their back. You have 3 possibilities how to set that jumper: master, slave or cable select. Originally, the disk was set on "master" which crashed with my DVD-ROM drive's setting which is also "master". In the end, I set the disk on "cable select" and voilá - there we were! Everything worked as if nothing had ever happened.
Anyway, I had a night shift until 2.30 a.m. on Saturday and spent half a day on Sunday with reinstalling basically everything from plain ol' Office to Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Not to forget a proper firewall and virus scan.

On Wednesday the dorm intranet was changed to external IP addresses. That's basically all nice and fine since it's supposed to grant us more transmission speed (new 4 MBit connection to the JKU). But now, I can't access my drives on the university server directly anymore and have to go via SSH instead. That's quite annoying esp. if you only need one little file.
Additionally, I didn't notice anything about more speed yet. The only noticeable thing was the network failure during Wednesday and the fact that I cannot access certain servers anymore. *grmbl*

But now to something of a more postive nature: On Thursday I received a letter from a company I have sent an application to in winter saying that I have a summer job with them in August in the same dept. I have been there during the last 2 summers and I like the people there. :o) They have a nice climate in their office and additionally, they pay rather well.
I don't know yet whether I want to work in September as a friend and I have been thinking about going on vacation to the British Isles for a few days. Both of us didn't have proper summer holidays last year and so we figured we deserve them this year.

The next weeks will be really stressful. There are so many tasks to see to and I have started to write to-do lists because I'm getting increasinly chaotic and tend to forget stuff easily.With a list, I have at least something to cling to in order to remember what I am supposed to do.
During the last few weeks I had increasing troubles with my teammates due to these problems and now I made a resolution to do something about that. So, lists will hopefully be my faithful companions from now on until the workload has eased.

So...gotta do something useful again....read you soon!

Work, Work and Work

2005-04-29T17:55:00.000+02:00

Yesterday night I returned to Vienna for the weekend, hoping I'd be relieved of some stress for the next 2 days. Well, until now, nothing has happened that'd make it subside. *sigh*

First, I lost my mobile phone in the boot of my friend's car and had to meet w/ her to get it back. Did I get hysterical when I noticed that I had lost it! You see, I've got all my friends' phone numbers saved to that mobile's SIM card and I certainly was not happy about the prospect of having to retrieve lots of phone numbers once again. Additionally, I had horror visions of someone taking my mobile and placing calls at my expense. Luckily, I got my mobile back!

Then I had some stuff to do for "my" company (www.aivet.com). Not that I wouldn't like working for them, they're a really nice bunch and do pay rather well. Especially one certain colleague is nice, good-looking - let's just say, he's sweet. *gg* I wonder if he's got a girlfriend.....
But sometimes I just feel demotivated, especially now that there are a lot of projects to do for university and that I should at least glance at my Cisco and Japanese stuff.

But now to more positive things: Tonight I'll go out to party! It's one of my friends' birthday (I think it's her 27th or 28th, but don't ask me!) and we'll go into the city and have fun. We'll meet at Schottentor which is close to the Vienna University and then venture into Vienna's nightlife. Knowing the three of us, we'll surely end up in either a pub (e.g. http://www.mollydarcys.at/ - just pray that the link works, their server is a bit odd at times), a café (http://www.schaerf.at/coffeeshop/index4.htm - a visit is really recommended - they're as Austrian as can be!) or an Asian restaurant (www.gowok.at - even you gals from HGB can't claim anymore that you can't go there - they opened a restaurant at the main station in Linz!! *fg*).

I intend to dress myself really nicely for this occasion and to put on some nice make-up. I brought my make-up bag home, so I have everything I'll need for tonight here at hand.

Before I leave, I must do a bit of homework for university since I honestly doubt that I'll be back home before midnight and then I'll be dead tired and only ready to fall into my bunk bed. Our AUT (short for Authoring - a subject that deals with Flash animations and Actionscript programming) assignment says we have to find something really creative and impressive and present it in class on Monday. Well, I selected either the intro to the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Kokâku Kidôtai) series or a short film that won a prize at last year's AEC movie contest. Both of them are impressive in their own way:

The intro for the super CGI and 3D graphics which is outstanding, esp. when you think of the fact that TV series usually don't have that much of a budget.
The short film for the music and the 3D rendering which was done using the Quake engine.

But I'm still unsure which I should choose. *sigh* We'll see about that.

Well..gotta go and do something useful before my time runs out...

See ya around!

Long Time No See

2005-04-25T00:21:00.000+02:00

Geez, so much stress and soo much to do in such a short time!
But luckily, things have calmed down a bit now that the ball is over. Don't get me wrong, it was really cool to prepare for it and to be on stage for a solo! But afterwards, I was exhausted for days.
The good thing is that my dancing group and I got super feedback and everybody was impressed by us - just as we intended! :oD

I got home after 2 weeks of absence and it's a really good feeling. It reminds me that there is a world outside the university campus and that life in the big city does have its perks.
Not that campus life is boring but I, having grown up in Vienna, Austria's capital, sometimes really miss the hustle and bustle of a large city.
Life never comes to a standstill there and there's always something to do and to see, while in the villages and small towns in the countryside, everything closes down after 6 o'clock in the evening.

When I was in the train headed for Vienna yesterday, I got this really nice inspiration for a new drawing. I hope I can get it done this week so that I can scan it and post it to my website.
I know, I know, I was supposed to study Quality Management for the upcoming written exam on Thursday and some Japanese for tomorrow's lesson, but in the end, I coulnd't concentrate and shortly after St. Pölten, I fell asleep.
Well, I've got another train ride ahead of me tomorrow when I return to Hagenberg to face another week of university and lessons from morning till late. *groan* I guess I know what I'll do then.

Huh, it's already 0.30 a.m.! I oughta lay my head down in order to be able to rise in time for my errands and the train. See ya soon!

Long Weekend, Doctor and Network Failure at the Dorm

2005-04-12T13:52:00.000+02:00

Phew, what a long weekend! Since there is university ball in a few days, it was really busy!

I went home on Friday. The journey in itself was a little adventure because the guy who took me with him to the train let me get off at Ybbs! Geez, that meant going to St. Pölten by train and then contínuing by IC train to Vienna.
On Friday afternoon I went to the optician (www.fielmann.at, they're really okay) at the Donauzentrum shopping mall to fetch my new contacts and to buy some makeup and 2 mangas (Inuyasha 19 and Subaru 1).

On Saturday morning I was at my mum's office to have some stuff proofread by her and her colleague Judith. In the afternoon, I was with a friend at her mother's place to have my hair cut and re-coloured. My mom got a fit b/c I came home really late. *gg*

Sunday was relatively peaceful. I slept until 12 a.m. *lol* In the afternoon, my family and I went to see my cousin, his wife and his adopted son.

Yesterday, I was at the Donauzentrum once again and in the afternoon, I went to an excursion to IBM. Well, it was interesting but the room was so hot and the air was so dry! My eyes itched horribly.
My classmates and I returned by train to Upper Austria. Most of them got off at St. Valentin, while two others and I got off at Linz. I was picked up by my cousin Lisi, who - by the way - is my favourite cousin. *gg*

Today I went to the ophtalmologist to check on my eyes and whether I need new glasses or not. Result: my pink eyes are healed, I may use my contacts again and a tip how to combat dry eyes without eye drops. I'll scan the sheet of paper asap.
But you know, I really do like that doctor. He's competent and very nice. (look for "Augenarzt" in the Pregarten area at www.otb.at)

My dorm's LAN went down in house 6 (where I live) yesterday night and now I can only access the internet from university. *sigh* I am not required to understand the ways of that system, am I? I just hope they'll repair it soon, I need to do some stuff tonight for which I require an Internet connection.

Luckily I was able to postpone my Cisco CCNA 3 examination. I simply don't have the time to study for it now. Besides, our teacher told me that we have to do a case study on how to wire a building. *groan* Don't ask me when and how I'm gonna fit THAT into my schedule, but heck.

Yesterday, I got the first DVD of Wolf's Rain (eps, 1-4, German and Japanese), an animé set in a grim and dark future. I don't know much yet, but I'll keep you posted on it.

Well, that's it for now. I hope our dorm's LAN will be up now that the tutorial is almost finished.

stress!!!

2005-04-06T09:30:00.000+02:00

Sorry for not having written an entry into my blog for a few days. University keeps me fairly busy at present and if I don't have anything to do for it I'm just plain dead. Then my mental capacity only suffices to read a book, a fanfic (a tip: http://www.fanfiction.net) or to watch TV.

BTW, did you watch the news about the pope's death during the weekend? At least on the German TV stations they mainly had retrospecives about his life and his points of view, etc. Or they showed documentaries about his oh-so-sad childhood. I mean, it's okay to enlighten the viewer about the background Karol Wojtyla had, but that was a bit too much for my taste. *ugh*
It simply made me depressed.

Today I'll have to spend the whole day at university. I've been here since 8 in the morning and won't get outta here before 17.10 in the afternoon. To be honest, today's lessons are not exactly motivating, but well, I shouldn't complain, at least there's no exam waiting for me.
In the evening, I have dance training for the university ball on the 16th. Although I do love dancing, it is hard to motivate myself after such a day.

Yesterday, I had a really funny chat on Miranda(an open source instant messenger that supports multiple protocols like ICQ, MSN,...; www.miranda.org) with a friend of mine and I couldn't stop giggling. :o) She has such a sarcastic and ironic manner to express things! Yet, she always keeps wondering just why I always get laughing fits when talking to her.
It's only a pity that the original text is in German, else I'd have given you an example of it. *gg*

In July I might go and visit a friend of mine in the Czech Republic. She's living in a small town called Zlín (http://zlin.cz/) 200 km east of Vienna. On July 15th, there is a Rock festival (Masters of Rock, http://www.mastersofrock.cz/home.php)at her town where one of my favourite bands, Nightwish (www.nightwish.com), will play. If things work out - that means if she gets to buy our tickets, I'll only have to pay 700 CKr (~ 25 Euro) for the ticket instad of 34 Euros. That does make a difference, doesn't it?
But the main advantage is that I get to see her again after more than 2 years and if everything goes fine, we'll also meet up in Vienna in May and celebrate her passing her final exams successfully. *ggg*

Well....gotta go again...see ya soon! :oD

sneak preview: the trouble with Japanese language and writing, ball preparation, etc.

Funny April 1st, Dying Pope And Other Things...

2005-04-01T16:54:00.000+02:00

Today I got a funny mail from a friend. It said that the Irish wanted to abolish St. Patrick's Day beacuse they had lost a bet with cobolds. :o) It sounded so believable until I read about this funny bet! *lol*

Did you hear that the Pope is dying? I thought it might be his end when they announced in February that he was hospitalized for breathing problems. I feel sorry that his death should be like this, esp. when I think of the huge responsability he bears. The likes of us can just "let go" but those like him can't. I remember reading about his public appearances at his flat's window just past week in spite of his grave illness - and now we will soon have a new pope.

Combined with the case of Terri Schiavo, this makes me think a lot about human dignity while being severely ill and maybe even a nursing case. At least for me it would be horrible to know that my illness or suffering is made public because I think this is a private affair.
Additionally, I think I would simply release any responsabilities I consider as an unnecessary burden if I were that ill.
Another issue is the question whether one is only physically impaired or both physically and mentally. Maybe, if one is really severely mentally handicapped, the person doesn't know anymore what happens around him/her. But if you're imprisoned in a body that doesn't obey you anymore, this must be like a living hell, isn't it? I do wonder...

But now to a less dark topic: Tomorrow's weather forecast is really good. They say the temperature will rise up to 16-19°C! Cool! I had enough of freezing cold weather.
Now, it's hard to imagine that hardly more than 2 weeks ago, there was still snow around here. Everywhere, grass is growing and the trees also start to grow leaves.
A pity that I will have to spend to whole day at university tomorrow because of a blocked course in learning psychology. *groan* But, heck, what can one do. Things are as they are.

Well, I must be off again! Read you soon!

Let's try it out...

2005-03-30T17:40:00.000+02:00

Today I found this nice place and figured I might as well give blogging a try. I write in English as not to get rusty and so that my ramblings might be legible for anyone. So, there we are: my little blog @ hgb. For those not familiar with this shortcut - hgb stands for Hagenberg, the town I study at.
My major is Engineering for Computer-Based Learning, CBL for short. On campus, it's a kind of etiqette to ask any new acquaintance for his/her major and the class. This usually leads to responses like, "Well, I'm SE02" or "I'm HSSE03" Sounds cryptic, right? But it isn't: SE or HSSE stands for the person's major and the numbers stand for the year he/she started here.

I am right now in my room at the student dorm and relaxing a bit between lectures, tutorials and dance practice for the upcoming ball during which we will be the 10 o'clock event.There is still a lot to do for me today but I think if I only work and work, I'll go mad. *g*

In the future I'm going to write about this and that, keeping a kind of diary about things that happen. Maybe it helps you guys stay in touch with me, eh? *fg* At least I'd be very pleased if it were so. *wink* The most ideal thing would be if people would drop in often and leave comments for me!

Well, that's all for now...gotta practise dancing a bit, else my colleague will rip my head off. Lazy me, I haven't moved a limb during the Easter holidays! Jeez! I'm off!