Another blog

April 10th, 2007 by Niki

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New invasion of Aussies

January 13th, 2007 by Niki

Boy, what happened here, we first get rid of the damn Aussies, we get a new invasion, it’s like the landing in Normandy it also happened in multiple waves! That explains as well the flood of new Germans I guess. Oh the joy we already had, only went out with a couple of the new exchange students once, but we have party tonight.

So we have a bunch (4 and still counting I guess) of Melbourne, I could recognize one immediately because he was wearing a Saints shirt, go the Saints! Beat another in Poker yesterday with the old “I can’t play poker” tactic, I thought you guys were more clever than that Heids, than again the guy does political studies . We have a couple new ones from Stevens uni, Brisbane that is. Haven’t met any Tassies or other convicts. The ones here congratulate you guys on my expertise knowledge both about the Aussie slang as the culture. After answering the question “What do you do on the 26th of January” with “I play cricket with you guys I guess” I was immediately one of the Aussie gang again Still some people have to arrive I’ve heard so yeah we will see

Talking ’bout Cricket: congrats on your 5 nil win over the pohms and yeah yeah congrats for your T20 smackdown and the ODI! Ben (the Saints men) has a bat with him, he already regretted not taking his sherrin instead, what a luck that Lauren supplied me with one I said! So yeah lots of fun going on, and this evening we have the first party so yeah I might update you guys later somewhere next week.

Yeah we off course have bunch of other nationalities! Like said a bunch of Germans again, didn’t spoke with any yet, I leave that over for the people that speak the language. Than we 4 South African guys, quite funny because they all speak South-African and yeah Peter and I understand them half half. And to conclude what I found already in the bunch of new guys are some Dutchies. One is very nice, the perfect replacement for Floor, naaah Floor is not replaceable, she is actually quite different than Floor, but she’s nice like you Floor. Met very briefly another two Dutchies, but they just left, anyway: Things are going good

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The Big Update!

December 28th, 2006 by Niki

I should apologize not updating my blog… But I won’t do that. I finished in the last month my three courses for school and had a wonderful Christmas dinner with the remaining exchange students.

So first of all: Yes I am still breathing and doing fine. Apart from a small knee injury (already over) while playing cricket I have nothing to report about my health except that I quit running somewhere a month ago because of my to busy working scheme. Still I feel that I could run the 5 km without problems.

Alright let’s do this chronologically. First there was the deadline for OOP5, that programming for non-aware. Peter and I created some of the flash programming needed for my PC2 project. Everything was done C-MD style with a kick-ass website that was requested. And a presentation that wasn’t hindered by my inability to speak decent Dutch . We blew the audience when we showed the coding. And kicked even more ass when I was explaining how motion detection works in Flash. For that damn project I was working the whole night long because we had also an individual task, but the damn Henrik (the teacher) smiles and says that was only due on Christmas… Anyway that project sucked, it was about how to make more than one character with the same main abilities but some special abilities with the aid of inheritance… And I stop my geek talk here

Than we had my research project, a proper presentation was made, and we felt good, had some descent critique. A couple of days ago I got a mail with what we were supposed to do for the final delivery and that was just add numbers in our paper that corresponded to our references. Only thing we had that was that our paper was written a little bit to much into the perspective of modders, and he had rather seen it being written out of perspective that it always happens that artists (be it modders or interaction designers) have marketing problems.

And than the big one, pc2, Physical Computing 2. Presentation day was hell getting up to the top of the building because we had some issues like minutes before the presentation (Our camera, beamer and pc where installed there). I even watched the first presentation from up the ladder. Anyway I was a bit scared I felt we didn’t had a very good project and saw the external people bashing away with questions I never expected. At the end everything went pretty okay. They loved the concept, but didn’t buy our story (where and what for it was being used) that much, but at the end we said that we had dozens of other opportunities where we could use it like in schools, discussion groups, trade fairs, big squares,… And than they started believing it a little .

I just got back the scorecard of our PC2 project and as far as I can see it I passed! Just need to hand in some papers but we can do that later.

More about Christmas the next blog post somewhere this evening or tomorrow.

UPDATE: the pictures of the PC2 project (they are on my lecturer’s Flickr account)

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New Photos!

November 26th, 2006 by Niki

I don’t know why but the latest photos aren’t showing up anymore on the right hand side. So I would say go straight to Flickr to get our newest photos.

The photos are of my project for Physical Computing. (For the moment untitled) And that how life is here for the moment. No school but being there almost every day to work on projects. Another project is for my OOP5 course, me and Peter, are working in OOP5 actually at some flash stuff that we need for my PC2 project. Than for OOP5 I have to write a tutorial, and mine is going to be how to make a game with classes and mainly the process of making a game in Flash. (Sonic more exactly I’m going to make).

My final thing I’m working on is my Research Paper but that project is going really well. And yeah that is what going on… Apart that I’m now leaving for a boat trip to Oslo! So new pictures somewhere next Monday

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Latest updates from Malmö

November 1st, 2006 by Niki

First of all it already SNOWED!!!!

Oh my god I was so happy this morning it really snowed, heavy wind, aaah the thing I came to Sweden for: a white Christmas. Hope we get snow by the end of December.

Secondly I have an Aussie Rule Footy. So the kicking and bouncing skills are from now practiced every day. You should see me kicking the ball in the park and just running after it and kicking it back, I probably look like a retard . Anyway the ball is hard to handle, especially the bounce but practice makes perfect and now I’m already able to bounce it and catch it back while running (sometimes )

Thirdly Robert is in Sweden! Robert the guy that was here last year representing C-MD (together with Koen) in the interaction design classes. We already kicked a party and yeah there are photos only thing is that I forgot my camera at Adam’s place. Also thanks to Robert for bringing over some Jupiler and Blonde Leffes.

Fourthly It was Claire’s birthday, Happy Birthday Girl! We all made some cake, but we Belgians wouldn’t be Belgians to make some Chocolate Mouse. Again the photos are coming but we can already tell you our Chocolate Mouse kicked ass.

Fifthly an lastly, Peter’s parents came over, and my parents gave a package with them for me. Thanks to my parent for the stuff they send over, it mostly consisted of chocolates and sweets but also some extra clothes and foodstuff that I don’t find in Sweden

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It was called a weekend

October 16th, 2006 by Niki

Alright already had complaints you don’t hear lot’s about my big adventures here in Malmö. Well here we go. The weekend started good with a party on Saturday. It was a babies theme party if I remember well, only I don’t remember seeing babies. It was the idea from the Spanish people, so I didn’t ask more when I heard about it and took Amy’s good advice not to dress up.

Yeah it was again such a typical party that didn’t get started because people didn’t know jack shit about it. But as always if there is something going on in Rönnen (the dormitory building across the street) there are heaps of people.

There was however some food prepared, don’t ask me what it was, but it was something strange it was like a leaf with rice in it. Sorry Dimitria but this was absolutely NOT my thing. She also provided us with some Ouzo, luckily I didn’t had to taste that to know it’s not my thing the Ouzo. So I could actually start with my Wodka I brought myself.

And from now on ladies and gentlemen I can tell you whatever I want, because it’s now only vaguely in my head. I still know the Wodka part, that was OK, drank Wodka against some people and I was still going strong, strong enough to dink Kendell on her bike to the Tango Palace where we went to afterwards.

And it wasn’t Tango they played that night, if you ask me, but on the other hand don’t ask me what they played that night.

Anyway I know I only had two drinks there, or at least I think so, but I know the most of us were totally pissed by the time we had to leave. And absolutely don’t ask me anymore if I left deliberately or I had to because I was drunk or if it was just because it was closing time. The only strange and funny thing was that I hadn’t forgotten my jumper that I left in the lobby, a thing I mostly forget when I’m sober. Strange how your body can save you by going in automatic when you are drunk.

Afterwards I saw the pictures and those were strange too, not in the way that they revealed myself as being totally drunk, but in a way that you see me as normally on parties, OK a little bit more enjoyous, yes, but not in way that you see me totally stretched out, what happens more when I’m drunk

Random facts that I remember:

Phoning Floor because I thought we lost her, while se was riding behind me (and by typing this I got a flash back) (Still I ask myself how we got back, the phone call made us deduct the day after that it took us almost a full hour, while it only is like less than 10 minutes away with a bike)
Going to buy kebab and ending up giving my kebab away when we were eating it back in Rönnen
Getting lost on the stairs in the Tango Palace trying to find my way back from the bathroom
Trying to deny that I knew Floor and Kendell in the Kebab place because they were shouting in the place to everybody
Falling over pipes on the way back from Rönnen to my Dorm
…

It was a pity that nobody was with me the day after, because that was actually the most fun part. I woke up and went to the bathroom, headed for the kitchen to eat breakfast, made myself some serials. Halfway my bowl of flakes I was suddenly asking myself: “Hey, but didn’t I went out yesterday? What the fuck happened? The above story is the only thing I remember and so the little I know about it, you know now too!

Cheers!

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Changes

October 10th, 2006 by Niki

Yeah like I already mentioned we don’t have a very tight school schedule. In fact this week I only have two days of the week lessons, than four weeks of three days a week and than a full 5 weeks project work. Now a person starts thinking what he could do in his spare time.

So yesterday I decided that I wanted to join the Brussels Saints (a Belgian Aussie Rules team) or at least try… Now as you might know, if you know me, I have spirit but I don’t have physics so I decided to start with a radical change in my life. So hold on to your garters boys and girls because from this day on this guy here decided to start with running and eating as healthy as I can.

So to start as good as I can, I have downloaded the Belgian start to run program. A program that lets you train from zero to hero, or at least I hope . Also went to Willy’s the local shop here and bought me shitloads of stuff I never bought before in my life: Muesli, Special Healthy Serials, Yoghurt, Milk,… (well yeah I already bought milk before in my life but you get the point)

Anyway in other news: I downloaded recently a game, yeah yeah it’s AFL. (I know I’m starting to sound obsessed) But I hoped the game could give me some more inside view on the game. Anyway enough blathering about the stupid AFL. So I started this download, it was a torrent so you know the system . I took me three bloody days to download the shizle because people don’t share like they should: damn you torrent leachers! You unrar the thing, everything OK. You mount it to Deamon Tools, everything OK. You install it and crack it, everything OK. You start it up and the intro movie starts playing, everything OK. The real game commences, BANG an error from windows. I can assure you I was walking pissed around for 3 hours because the damn game didn’t work and had waisted so much bandwidth for nothing.

I’m now downloading Fifa 2007, it better works now, at least I won’t have to download for a full three days, which is my only comfort downloading this game for the moment. Let’s hope it works. Oh yeah I had a pirate party when peter did his rowing, there will soon be images available on our Flickr account.

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Busy busy busy

October 5th, 2006 by Peter

Hej hej! (sound funny when swedish people say ‘hello’)

First of all: check out the new pictures !

Let’s see were I ended with my last post, the ‘introduction program’, which ended at the beginning of the Swedish schoolyear. I decided to rearrange my classes (it is so easy here, you got to love the Swedish schoolsystem). That involved a really busy start, were I combined two classes at the same time, but which created some extra time off in january, to come home earlier or take an extra class here. (That way I don’t have any class in Belgium this year, perfect, because I cancelled my loaning contract)

My re-arranged schedule (for the ones who care)

Introduction Program (Swedish language course) – august (see previous post)

Interaction Design 1 – September

Though it’s together with the first years (well most of them are the same age as me, but have worked a year or two, something very usual in Sweden), its really interesting because of the different approach of learning things, the high level and the teachers, some of them are really famous in the field of Interactiondesign all over the world.
I’m currently working on the final assignment.

Art, Culture Design - acd-blog – September

Research in Interaction Design - Oktober

Oop5 Advanced Actionscript - Oktober

Workshop 1 - December

Workshop 2 (optional) – December

Home in January (10^th)/or take something extra

Next to that I had my ex-girlfriend coming over from Belgium, with who I visited Copenhagen (m-pics), the rowing club I joined here (I wanted to give it a try, and actually liked it). The intensive 2-hour trainings are in by sunfall on the waters surrounding Malmö, or in the harbour.

I also went on a trip to Smygehuk, the most southern point of Sweden, together with some exchange students. Nice location, but to chilly for a swim though, and played the funniest game in the world there. (with the ultimate goal to become tarzan)

I’ll hope to keep you more up-to-date from now on..

[to be continued..]

Posted in School, Fun | 839 Comments »

The good life

September 30th, 2006 by Niki

Ah alrigthy than another blog report! Reason why me and Peter haven’t been updating as much as we should like is because we wrote another blog for our course. That course is over so it’s maybe a good time to make a resume what we did on that blog here.

Well like I already said the Swedish way of teaching is mostly based on practical hand-on based lessons and it has it’s advantages if you ask me. Our final project of the ACD-courses we could make anything we wanted. If that isn’t fun! Our group choose to work around the theme: “bring high technological features to analog means of communication”. We ended up with several good projects to work out, but we went for the project to look if a city has the ability to explain itself through the means of the patterns a city has. An example could be a brick pattern on a wall that tells us the street name, hours of buss stops,…

Lot’s of fun, if you ask me, only shame is that we couldn’t really work out a real good prototype that was close to our original concept due to time issues. The prototype works with barcodes that can be sprayed or tagged in the city giving you information.

This is my school life…

Offcourse I have a more social life…

Well basically, it’s a bit the same as in Belgium, go to the student pub regularly with friends, be in the common kitchen with other students, go to the park to chill, relax, play some frisbee,… Nowadays I actually also have busy schedule, but that changes from next week on, so more trips and stuff will be planned than.

As you can read in the last post, I’ve been to AFL Grand Finale in a Aussie pub in Copenhagen. And I say it again it was bloody great! What I forgot to mention that It really was worth waking up at 4 AM to arrive on time for the match in Copenhagen.

How’s Peter doing you might ask? Well I will urge him to write down another report. But I can tell you he’s doing great and he joined some kind of a rowing club here in Malmö…

Remember to check the new photos!

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Aussie Rules!

September 30th, 2006 by Niki

I’ve just seen one of the most exciting sport events since years. The Aussie Rules Grand Finale. I was invited by some Aussies to watch the grand finale in an Aussie pub somewhere in Copenhagen, and a passive sportsman that I am, I joined in. Man what a sport, I heard about it and seen it briefly a couple of times but this was astonishing. First of all what an intense sport but most of all what a great game between the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles.

Unluckily the Swans lost, the team we were supporting, but they only lost by one point, in a game declared by the Aussies as on of the best finals ever. The West Coast Eagles really were in the advantage the first half leading with 8.7 (55 points) against 4.6 (30 points). Swans showed some great spirit with starting with a very early goal in second half and really putting everything in it during the last quarter. Bringing the score back to 12.12 (84) against 12.13 (85). The neck to neck race at the end made it wonderful with a brilliant atmosphere in the Aussie pub.

As you might read I actually liked it a lot, a great game and lovely to watch and cheer for every tackle, run, handbal, steel, fumble and most of all the anxiousness you get for every “mark” attempt. We also played some Aussie rules on the street during breaks, what was awesome.

Be sure to check out the photopage for the new catogory: “other“

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