new paths

now after returning home, my life is not exactly the same as before. actually, there are quite some differences in the places and company i am currently enjoying. today i went to the cinema and found myself in the middle of about 200 teachers and roughly 5 kids... it had something about the world being upside down, with this ratio inverted.. and also the director of the movie somehow seemed like a nervous student, speaking in front of all these people. they just had this examinish air :)
another curiosity are my new dining companions. somehow i used to have lunch or dinner with a whole horde of students about my age. now, at least once a week, the age difference to my neighbours is roughly around 50 - 60 years, but they are not the least less entertaining. in fact it is a rather enjoyable pastime to eat with all these 'oldtimers' and they definitely enjoy us at their table. in terms of craziness we are surely equals :)
now as the beginning of my studies is approaching i am curious to see what comes next. somehow i'm quite optimistic, as even from lemons one can prepare amazing drinks!

Getting ready to fly

Time was rushing by very quickly, so now I find myself already checking the timetables of the trains to go to the airport. Somehow on my return to it this time Munich showed me a friendly face and when meandering around it yesterday, some sense of 'home' came to me which I did not expect after these few days. (I also realised that I dearly need to brush up on my historical knowledge of my town, on my way from elementary school to university I managed to forget nearly everything..) Now I wish you a nice time, maybe I will write something from Lithuania, maybe not..
best wishes :)

There was a twist...

... and opposing the usual expectations things turned very bizarre very quickly. Would anyone volunteer some opinions about the why? (especially of why so many things are happening which involve me but I dont even know about them...)

(In theory this blogpost should have been about my first try of snowboarding, which I survived miraculously. The bottomline is the following: wonderful snow and sun, burned face despite sunblocker, hungry, bruised, but having a lot of fun rolling around with a board attached to my feet. Also nice: the occasional actual boarding :)

Application fun, part 2

Sometimes life rewards your work in rather obscure ways. To me hours of desperate internet browsing for the perfect masters degree did not lead to the desired succes, however they treated me with the following pearl: 'please do not include leaves with double print!' ...

Hmm.. but if I have leaves with single print, do I have to send the tree as well?? Sometimes these application requirements really leave you 'nothing to hope for'.

Ironically, the beautiful phrase could be found on the application page of a so-called bavarian 'elite graduate program' where some 5 lines afterwards very good english knowledge was a crucial feature of the successful applicant... (maybe for correcting the web pages? sometimes I'm tempted to write an email but then - I still make enough mistakes myself :)

closing with Bastian Sick commenting on the bavarian homepage www.bayern-international.de, (spoken bayern minus international): what will remain of bavaria if you subtract international?

Cut off from the world

that is how I feel today...

Imagine looking out of the window, it is perfect sun outside, blue sky...

Imagine, how perfect this weather would be for going on the mountains, racing down the slopes, feeling the crisp air in your face, getting adrenalin shocks from jumping little hurdles...

and NOW imagine having a bloody horrible cold and having to stay at home all day when everybody enjoys what you have been wishing for the whole week when tied to the office!!!!!
It kinda sucks.. and then, apart from that, I'm about to loose faith in my mobile phone provider.. Because either my messages are not delivered, or in the last 2 days people silently agreed to not reply to me anymore :S or there are all out having a very busy and very good time whilst for me time passes veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly... ok, I'm done with complaining :P will go for another hot water bottle, tea, and then my bed again.

Carneval...

so... now i have the honor to officially contradict myself.. in fact, computer scientists are probably the people that can party best.. the trick is just to get them out of the office first.... ;) then they even will come to carneval dressed as fencing pro, mafioso, gigolo, red light customer, star trek commander (who could have guessed :) , or even as really prudish geek.. to summarize, we had a looot of fun and fotos can be found on olga's picasa, or you can ask me for them :D

i just have to say, i enjoyed the evening very very much and i'm happy to have such friends to go out with! hugs to all of you :)

Masters wanted

As some of you probably already know, I'm searching for nice master or phd programs (only the combined ones though, as I'm only holding a bsc so far...)
If you have heard of an interesting course, please please please let me know as soon as possible, as most application deadlines for start in september are quite soon...
Thanks a lot, have a good one :)

on diet...

in case someone of you has wondered why there is not much -> nothing new here..

the solution is: i'm on diet :))
obviously not as you would understand this normally (I like eating and don't believe in rumbling stomachs ;)
rather than fasting, I'm merrily feasting but at the same time cutting down on my cyber-time to give my poor eyes a rest. and in fact there are so many nice things to be done here. just today i went figure skating on a lake nearby, in the sun... very nice and for a change i didnt even break anything :) also music is back in my live, havent been singing so much in the whole year as i do now with the support of my family.. (nearly amounts to the size of a choir, so it's great fun) so, in total, i'm virtually gone, catching up with the good things in life. hope you're doing the same!
cheers!
:)

Breathe in...

... is the album of Lucie Silvas I really got hooked on. To recommend if you search for something calming.

through my eyes

Your results for the "What instrument are you?" quiz

Violin

You've been around since 1555 and you're not going anywhere. After all, what's cooler than an instrument that can break glass? Keep expanding to new genres and you'll live forever.

There you go... my personality is glass breaking :) Who could have guessed..

Default procedure

currentSituation('How are you?'){

tmpStat := getContext();
if(tmpStat != brilliantSituation || tmpStat != hellOnEarth)
return tmpStat;
else{
relativeStat := couldIFeelWorseInThisSituation(tmpStat);
if(relativeStat)
return 'alright';
else
return 'ok';
}

}


(this is the simplified version.. for simplicity reasons the parameter 'voice tone' has not been included)

I will be back...

for some of you, I was - yesterday...
for some of you, I will be tomorrow.
for some of you, it will take me more than that.
but when it is time, I will be back.

Harry Potter in 13 hours....

I made it! :) Now, one week after my thesis defense I was able to spend a day that finally made me feel I am on holiday! After restraining myself for months on starting the last Harry Potter I wasted a day, took the book, did not leave my room all day (not even to eat, as my brother was agreeing on me deserving a lazy day and passing me a banana ;) and took the whole thing in in one go. (ok, I had one break, fell asleep at some point cause I started reading at 2am after getting home from going out but I neatlessly resumed after waking up at one :P) Now I'm feeling fresh and reborn, starting to get hungry again and getting ready for some of my tasks again.
I hope the ones of you that have to work dont take this post badly, I'm thinking of you and I will join you again very soon.. Have a good night ;)

Graduation Pictures :)

presentation ...








and freshly graduated!! :)

Too much to do

It seems a strange thing, but since I finished my thesis with presentation and all, I feel that I'm even busier than before... I just realised that I havent even been to my kitchen since Tuesday evening and I cant at all remember what is in my fridge.. Also my laundry is absolutely piling up and my Todo list is exploding... seriously wonder if that is normal...
Now I'm preparing to leave Bolzano for a month, spend two weeks at home with my family before jetting off to Good Ol' England ;)
Hope to see you all before leaving this Sunday, but if we dont manage to meet, please dont be angry, ok? Will be back soon anyway.
Have a good night :)

Chiamatemi Dottoressa :)

Jippiee, I still cant believe it, but I'm so happy that I now finished my studies! The presentation apparently went really well and I was really amazed how many of you took their time to support me for my presentation! It really did me well and I'm grateful for it, especially as my family couldnt make it today. Big hugs for you all, now I will go and sleep in the sunshine ;)

Isochrones made easy!

Hello dear guys, on tuesday morning at 9 I will star in the final stage of my study theater...
THE FINAL THESIS DEFENSE
This spectacular event will (hopefully) only be performed one single time (so to say world premier and final performance at the same) so make sure you don't miss it!!
I would be really pleased and delighted to see many of you to support me. Also, if possible try to keep your evening free, as I'm still hoping to organise some celebration. Will keep you updated here and also trying to on messenger and skype as well as email... :)

Family? Friends? Whatever :)

When I was writing the post before, I just thought of my evening yesterday, cooking and eating with five computer guys.. :) In case you read this, I want to tell you that it was one of the most pleasant evenings I spent in quite a while and I really felt like at home.
Big hugs and thank you.

Ridiculous

Today I was asked by one of my collegues if I wouldnt occasionally be fed up with my nearly exclusively male coursemates.. I have to admit that this happens occasionally, and usually I will escape to my all girls hall to relax from it...
However, there is this new tendency of non computer science people to absolutely ridicule everything that has to do with the matter (and it seems to happen especially if they have asked a question and dont understand the answer. Instead of making them feel bad about it, I am idiotic enough to try to explain in a simple way what it is about). So I seriously wonder why people will be so disrespectful towards their emergency 'angels' whom they wont let go to bed or even let eat in peace once their computer has the slightest flaw (let alone a complete disaster).
To be honest, these situations nearly make me feel homesick to my fellow 'weirdos' and the faculty, a place where next to hard work and desperation also understanding and respect for ones work can be found...
If any of you reading this post is a non computer scientist, spend a second thinking if you tend to bash the people that are employed in this sort of job that to you might seem absolutely counter intuitive and weird.. and if yes, think if it might be the case that you do them seriously wrong. Oh, and maybe also think whom you're calling at midnight if your computer has something funny...
Have a nice evening.