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First thoughts

Byrichard

You know you’re a final year student when the last thing you think about before going to sleep is your dissertation. It’s also the first thing you wake up thinking of and to make matters worse you notice that a friend has joined a group called “my dissertation is driving me crazy, just to make you feel that much better.

It’s not that I’m doing particularly badly, after all, I’ve done all the research I wanted to do in relation to the topic I’m writing about and I am progressing. I just wish it wasn’t so important in relation to all the other work I’ve done. It’s over in a month. That’s when I can finally relax and enjoy the real world again.

How many university students a year write dissertations? At least thirty to fourty thousand I’d guess. How many enjoy it, probably quite a few. I enjoy it but it would be nicer if the purpose was to create more content for a website than to be assessed by a lecturer. I’m going to work on adding at least another 2000 words today, get it to five thousand words today. That’d mean I’m halfway to completion and it will be a really nice feeling.

Now it’s time to stop procrastinating and do something more productive. No holidays for anyone so close to the dissertation deadline.

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On living in a rural setting

Byrichard

Switzerland is a land of mountains, rivers, and lakes. it’s a great place for skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, walking, and sailing. Those are all sports I’ve done. When I was several years younger we had a day’s racketing: Racketting is walking with rackets attached to your feet across the trees up in the mountains. It’s fun, although occasionally tiring sport.

At one point we took a break for lunch. During this time a few of us were jumping over a young tree and someone was taking photographs. Within a period of weeks, one of those photographs was blown up to poster format and used in several shopping centres. it was also used for the cover of a local tourism magazine.

The picture was of a younger me in a ski suit with rackets attached to my feet. Many people have seen that photograph and I was a cover boy for at least one issue of the local magazine. Recently that picture was in a shopping center much closer to where I live and we recuperated it. It’s now sitting on my desk at home.

I’m thinking about going raquetting if there’s enough snow for it to be worthwhile. I haven’t done that sport for many years and I think it’d be interesting. It’s simple. No need to drive to where the snow is good, Thirty minutes and I’d be where I may be able to raquet.

If there’s snow that’s what I may spend a few hours doing.

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On an amusing conversation in Denmark

Byrichard

We had been walking around various parts of Demnark with a friend when he said that we should go to a bar. In some countries the name would not be allowed but in this part it is. It’s spunk bar. It’s located on one end of Westbork in Copenhaguen.

We were having a drink when a person with a chinese tattoo walked past and told us “this is snake”, a strange statement. He went and sat down for a bit, then came back and asked if we knew goose eye. Nope, first I’d heard of it. He went back to his seat.

Are you American? was his next question. No I live in London.

He went away again.

Hey, do you know how an ash tray flies. Both my friend and I were perplexed, wondering what he meant by that. “well I do”, back to his seat.

Do you know scientology, nope. Ok, yet again to his seat.

Where in London…

Do you know churchill park? nope, it’s a nice place. They bury people there.

This is probably the best example of surrealism I have seen in a long time. Those fragments are so random that we couldn’t help but burst out laughing. How often do you hear this type of statement?

After that he went away and the episode was finished.

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Looking forward to Sweden

Byrichard

In about 23 hours I’m going to be ready both physically and mentally for a trip to the city of Malmo in Sweden. There I expect to find a city I have already been to twice in the past. It is there that I may find a cold wind, blankets in the piccolina Piazza… Lilla Torg and enjoy pear cider.

I take the tube towards central London and the bus from there to Stansted. I board a plane that will fly for around 1hr and 20 minutes, land in Copenhague, get to the train station, catch the Oresund train across to the city of Malmo and look at the big waves in the sea below the tracks. It’s a short enough trip.

I haven’t spent more than five weeks at a time in the same place since the beginning of the academic year. I love traveling and seeing other countries and their cultures. It may be the last time I drop by for cheap since the friend will be moving from Sweden within a short amount of time.

Three nights in Sverige

It may be time for me to learn some Swedish other than “what are you doing” or “you are cute” and learn more relevant sentences.

Thursday will make these decisions for me.

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I’m dropping by Sweden for the weekend

Byrichard

You should always visit friends in their country of origin because it’s fun. Within a week I’ll be in Sweden enjoying Swedish hospitality. I booked the flights today so within a few days I’ll be flying off once more. It’s not that being in a country for too long bothers me but simply that this opportunity won’t last very long.

I liked Sweden the previous two times I’ve been there so I’m going again.

It’s a bit of a misnomer because although I’m a full-time student I only have 2hrs a week of tuition with the rest of the time left for dissertation work, work experiences, and of course the technology module.

I’ve been listening to this week in media, power user tv, Net at Night, and This week in tech for several months by now, therefore, it’s part of my culture to think about tech.

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unseasonal heat

Byrichard

In Austria, there’s a pollen warning. Apparently the lack of frost has encouraged the trees and other plants to begin releasing pollen. That’s quite amusing. We have the same temperatures in central Europe as you’d expect to have down in the south

Israel has seen snow but the resorts can’t open because of the lack.

Where is winter? Is it hiding in the south? Should people go on skiing holidays with their bikes and hiking boots rather than snowboards and skies?

On the Porte du Soleil ski pass you’ll see that they advertise their summer time activities like downhill mountain biking.

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Television Series

Byrichard

I love watching television series on DVD and straight from the hard disk. You never understand the complexity of the storyline until you spend 12 hours or more watching entire seasons of series like Scrubs or House.

If you look at the series scrubs you’ll get to know the characters very well and they’ll become far more interesting than if you were to watch only an episode a week. That’s probably why they have channels where you run a series every day for a number of days before going back to the beginning again. The best example of that is the Simpsons and Mash. How many times have you seen certain episodes?

Recently I enjoyed watching the series House because it’s analytical nature. You’ve got a patient and you run tests, and lot’s of lumbar punctures. For some reason that seems to be one of the favourites… probably because it’s the most interesting.

When I finished watching a few episodes I saw how greatly I enjoyed the series but more than that how diagnostic you think you become. I don’t mind that you can cure diseases or anything of the sort. I mean that the series is exploring how reason and empirical knowledge can accumulate so that when you see something out of the ordinary you try to understand it. You start to notice smaller things. It’s great for students, It’ll encourage you to diagnose various situations and find solutions.

The most recent series I’ve been watching is Dexter. After I came back from New York I was curious about the program. The adverts had peaked my curiosity therefore I had to find a way by which to access the series. I’ve been watching the series and I’m enjoying it. I watched the first episode on my video iPod, to see just how watchable series were on an i-pod. It’s not that bad. I watched the next two or three episodes on my laptop since that’s more comfortable.

The beauty of holidays is staying in a quiet place and doing what you want, driving around and more. It’s just over a week until I go back to England and the fun starts again.

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200 1990 to 2000 hits on my i-pod

Byrichard

I’ve spent the whole day working on a report which is due on Monday but since I have to send it by post I decided to complete it a few days earlier in order to send it off. I’m in the process of printing it off now and then I can have fun with other subjects.

There’s fresh powder snow on the slopes so snowboarding could be quite a bit of fun, especially with all those unmarked runs which may have enough snow for the fun to continue.

I downloaded a lot of the hits which were popular whilst I was riding on the bus to school when I was younger. there are quite a lot of memories in these songs. they’re the songs from my generation, and I am old enough to say that. Those 25yrs old are part of a different generation than those pre 25 years old. Over the next year, many of the people I know will join my generation 😉