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mind in motion

I’m in Leipzig right now, seeing a friend and with the tests in the past I’m enjoying the weather and the lakes. Last week was a lot of stress but it had it’s good times too. I had a good time at the birthday party on Monday which featured an interesting discussion about life, relationships, men and women, in the past, nowadays and in the future. I visited the cinema twice this week. For the sneak preview night on Wednesday and later for StepUp 3D. The film made it again very clear to me, that I miss dancing a lot. That’ll change with the new semester in October though. I’m still waiting for my monitor, which is kind of odd. It should be here by now. Next week I’ll be visiting my grandfather and my parents. and it seems my brother wants to stay at my place for the weekend. That’s gonna be a lot of fun. I think I need a haircut.

I’m in the middle of the hardest two weeks this year had to offer up until now. Three tests in seven days don’t leave much time for recreation and are far from optimal with respect to the resulting grades. At least the first went quite well. Unfortunately I can already tell that there is too little time left for the next two.

In other news a friend of mine has his birthday today so we’ll have a nice party tomorrow evening. My t-shirts did arrive at last! yeah! They are just beautiful! :) I managed to win an auction for a 24″ monitor/tv which should be on it’s way to me right now. I spent the Wednesday evening with a few friends at a cafe and later in the cinema. It was quite nice so I think we’ll do it again soon.

The next week will bring another two tests and lot’s of learning but after that I have week of holiday. Or rather a week of doing all the things I didn’t manage these two weeks. At least I won’t be learning for any tests.

Last week I started learning for the upcoming exams and I managed to watch both the last airbender and salt. I didn’t like the last airbender much, the dialogs were tiresome and had some horrible plot holes and logical gaps. Salt on the other hand was an action film with an interesting twist. I quite enjoyed watching it. I think I will look out for a director’s cut of the last airbender. Hopefully that will be better.

On the shopping front nothing changed. My t-shirts are still on the way and there’s no progress with the tv or ipod business. I was at my parents this weekend and brought some stuff, namely a coffee table I built a few years ago and my desktop pc. Now the pc sits on the table. I’ve gotten so used to my laptop that I still don’t have any inclination to turn the pc on though.

Next week will bring a lot of learning and the next test with it. On the upside my t-shirts should finally arrive. Let’s see what enfolds.

Sitting here with a nice cup of tea, thinking about last week and getting ready to start typing. It stopped raining and the air tastes wonderfully clean. But let’s get going. Our little project ended great. We got all the 100 points plus even some extra points. Yeah! I went to the library and collected a book I had reserved a couple of weeks ago. Now I’m all set to start learning for the upcoming exams.

We had a few nice and warm days in the last week. I spent them mostly in the city and in the park, drinking coffee with friends and learning. Now it started raining again. At least it’s still warm. I have a feeling there are a few nice days of summer left.

It looks like there are a few movies coming out this week, namely “Salt” and “The last airbender”. I’m gonna try to watch both on Monday and Tuesday when the local cinema has special ticket prices for students. Another thing I’ll try is to drive to my parent’s home and get some of my HiFi equipment. That is if I can get my car to start. The battery is pretty much drained. I’m really looking forward to hearing music through real loudspeakers again.

No news on the shopping side, my T-Shirts didn’t arrive yet, and I still had no luck winning an eBay auction for the iPod or a TV. Thought about getting some trousers and shoes but didn’t yet get around looking for some. Perhaps there will be some time next week.

Just came back from Leipzig and set the post to publish on Sunday when in fact it’s Monday. It’s hard to keep a deadline when on the road. The weather in Leipzig was – well it was shit. A never changing grey sky accompanied by a lot of old and dirty houses. That city really has the potential to be beautiful if only it’s occupants would care about the outside of their houses as much as they care about the inside. There are a lot of nice places though. Clubs, bars, cafes. The city is full of them. And the locations are themselves full of people. A really nice place to live I’m sure.

…..Just a few minutes ago I paused writing this entry to order another batch of T-Shirts from Threadless. It’ll take some time before they arrive but the $10 shipping price is worth the waiting. Threadless sale rocks! Every shirt just $10. Since I’m writing about shopping. I’m also in the market for a 5th generation iPod classic (80GB) and a 22″-24″ Samsung HD monitor with a minimum contrast of 1:50,000. Wanna sell yours? I’m sick of not having all my music on my portable media player and I’m sick of watching videos on my tiny 12″ laptop screen.

Now it’s only two days to the deadline for our university project. Not much time left but the remaining work is limited as well. I think we’ll get it done in time. Right after that, I’ll have to start studying for another upcoming test though. Another busy week ahead.

Another Sunday, another note. My aluminum box arrived and is standing now stuffed with my photography gear beside my bed, doubling as a stand for a lamp and some magazines and still with  lot’s of space left to fill. I’m not sure what will move into the box next. What did arrive as well was a set of picks and a shubb plectrum for my guitar (yeah!) as well as my car which was at the garage for a couple of days.

The test on Friday was no surprise. 26 pages stuffed with questions. Writing the test was a bit like playing Sonic the Hedgehog or Super Mario Cart, pacing through the level against the clock chasing rings or gold coins while never getting them all.

The the  raspberry syrup shortage at the local supermarket was paused by a mush too small  shipment of said stuff. I used the opportunity to stock up. It’s gonna take them a while to restock. Hell, it took 3 weeks this time. That’s a long time without raspberry syrup. On Monday I went to see Inception. That film is awesome! If you haven’t seen it, go watch it. It’ll be worth the time. The weather was pretty rough so visiting the park wasn’t an option. I spent the time learning and playing the guitar instead - and I watched the Alien movies. It was an effective method to kill all thoughts on Human Computer Systems in the evenings.

The next week will be filled with work on a university project. There are only eleven days left now and our goal is still far. I hope the weather gets warmer again. I’m sick of staying indoors. On a totally different note I decided to wear a stubble from now on. And with no immediate test coming up for the next two weeks at least I’m going to visit the gym again.

Last week was a bit of a mixed bag. I actually did visit my parents and got the guitar cable among some other stuff, and subsequently played quite often. I came across a nice cover of the Train song Hey Soul Sister and decided to play the song as well. Turns out, after a search for the right strumming the song isn’t as hard to play as it initially seemed to be… of course I’m just an amateur so “hard to play” really means it’s probably a walk in the park for anyone with just a year of practice playing the guitar. Spent an evening over some coffee with a friend. We talked a lot about this ‘n’ that.

I didn’t get around to decorating the apartment but I shot a nice aluminum box at ebay. I’m looking forward to stuffing it with my photography gear. It might serve as a side table for the bed as well after it got some polishing.

I finished the paper as planned, although I didn’t spend as much time on it as I should have. The future will show what will come of that. I started late to learn for my exam on friday but at least I now have a list of the stuff they probably want to know. I compiled it from old tests and the script which should be enough, although with this test the range of stuff to learn is just so vast that it’s really hard to get near all of it right.

The next week will probably bring some other stuff I got on eBay, most of it for the guitar. The weather is getting better again. Which means it’s warmer and drier, so I’ll probably spend some time in the park, learning. Tomorrow night I’m gonna watch Inception. Looking forward to that. I’m not really sure if text-only-no-lists is the best format for the weekly notes. Haven’t decided about that yet. Or rather, I didn’t even think about it. I have a feeling finding the right format will be an evolutionary process.

Things to do:

• find a better format for weekly notes
• visit my parents and get a cable to connect the guitar to the amp
• get some other stuff while being there
• finish a paper about the principles of object oriented programming
• start and keep learning for the upcoming exam on Human Computer Systems
• keep an eye out for paintings, photos, a table, a couch and other stuff to fill the apartment

Last week was quite nice and exciting. I had a visitor for a couple of days and we spent lot’s of time in the park. Wednesday I had dinner with a couple of friends at an australian restaurant. I tasted antelope meat and Foster’s beer for the first time. We went to the cinema later that evening and watched a german movie called “Renn, wenn du kannst” (go watch it if you understand the language!). My consumption of music went up again. I wonder how long it will stay that way. Ah and I shot an amp for my guitar on eBay. Hope the next week won’t be too quiet..