frutti.gummi

The past few days had been tough. I could't decide what to pack and what to keep and what to throw. Since I only have 20kg, I couldn't bring much with me. Then, I don't really know how heavy 20kg is so I ended up putting in and removing stuff and trying to lift it to get the right 'feel'. Haha. I still feel it's over 20kg, hopefully I'm wrong coz excess baggage costs 7€ per kg. With the remaining stuff, I stuffed as much as I could into my hand luggage which I will leave with a friend and come back to get it. I didn't really wanna leave too much stuff with her coz our room doesn't have much space to start with but I ended up having two extra shopping bags for her. One filled with sweaters (they take up too much space!) and the other a ski jacket and other small items. Also had a hard time throwing out all the rest of stuff especially the bunch of candies I collected from Karneval Rosenmontag last week. I already ate quite a lot and still left with a container full. Well, I'm pretty much packed and ready to fly tomorrow morning :)

I think I spent more than 6 hours on the train today. First it was 2+ hours ride from Bonn to Frankurt. I went to collect my Italy visa. The guy was late so I had to take a later train back. Since I still had some time till the next train, I went back to the japanese store I saw last time. It's not a fancy store though. More like one of those ugly chinese stores in chinatown staffed with japanese. And they make fresh sushi there so I bought some to eat in the train. They are really delicious, especially the salmon. The texture is like the fatty tuna. Yummy! It's so good to have sushi again after four long months. Anyway, the train from Frankfurt departed 10 minutes late due to some technical problems. It kinda managed to catch up to the scheduled time when it reached Bonn so I didn't get off. I thought I could still manage to catch the train to Aachen in Cologne. But from Bonn to Cologne, the train stopped in the middle for some time. So by the time I get to Cologne, I missed the train. Then, I thought I might still make it to the german exam on time if I catch the next train. I waited for a while until it was announced that that train would be about 5 minutes late. I will definately be late then so I decided not to go. I got on to the next train back to Bonn. The train only left the station 20 minutes later than the scheduled time. Seemed like there was some problems with the tracks. Again, the train stopped half way, this time a lot longer. I wasted about one and a half hour betwen Colgone and Bonn.

About the exam, I just wanted to see how the exam is like and what is the level. I know the chance for me to pass is very slim because I didn't have enough hours yet and I also didn't put much effort on my own either. But since we get 3 chances, why not try it?

Had a Spanish night last weekend. I never thought cooking can be quite a social event. It actually takes about 5 hours to cook paella. I guess it wouldn't take so long if it's seafood because instead of the usual seafood, we had chicken and rabbit meat. After preparing all the ingredients, chopped and washed, and waiting for the meat to cook, we started to make Sangria. Earlier during shopping, we came across wines in big 1.5L bottles, so we bought a couple of those for the Sangria. Jose also brought Jamon (Spanish ham) from his hometown. I've never seen ham like that before and it tastes really good! They say huge blocks of meat are hung on top of tapas bars in Spain; very interesting. And so we chat, drink and eat tapas while we wait for the food to cook. As the sun set, more and more friends came and more Sangria and tapas were served. Finally at 9pm, the main course was served and the wait was very worthwhile :D

Had my first exam this evening and it was an oral exam. I never had this kind of exam before so was a bit nervous. Oral exam is usually given when there are about 15 or less students in the class. It's like an interview session where the professor asks question and you answer and it lasts for 20 minutes. I guess it's a good style to see whether certain concepts are understood and it's definately easier to explain by talking rather than writing. After the session, you wait outside while they discuss your performance and then you're called back into the room where they'll roughly go through the questions and comment on how you did on each one. Finally, they'll tell you your score. I did quite well partially coz the professor asked the same questions that I asked him to explain to me the week before :) Glad I took the effort (45 minutes bus ride) to visit his office last week.

Oh, before the exam, I went to McD for lunch and they have curly fries! Hehe. I thought I wasn't going to have any this year. There's no prosperity burger but they have special edition burger called Best Pork this week. It looks really good. I might just go try it.

It's the last week of class and despite having final exams starting Monday, I still went to Aachen for german class this morning. I survived this long long commute throughout the semester! :D It's special today because it really snowed in Aachen. I finally get to see the place covered with snow and it was just magnificent. Plus on the train journey home, I get to see the little houses, plains, forests, mountains all in white.

Tomorrow is my last day of class. We presented our group project yesterday and the only thing left to do is to spruce up the website detailing our project progess. I have started reviewing the materials for some of the classes and I still feel quite nervous about sitting for exams. I'm not sure if I can remember all the materials covered in the semester. One of the reasons why I don't like system with only one final exam. I guess I just need to do what I can.

I was late for almost all my classes last week. It's not because I woke up late though. I was awake and went through my morning routine with extra time to spare. Then, I started to do other stuff and lost track of time. Or I would be thinking I could get out at a certain time, say 7 but since I need at least 5 minutes to put on my coat and wait for the elevator before I get to the outside of the building, I'm already late for the bus. Also, I realised that my computer clock is again running a minute slower. It didn't matter how many days or weeks that I kept my laptop running, eventually it'll be a minute slower; sometimes sooner sometimes later. Today, I reset it again just after 2 days of last reset.

This project is for UI design class and there are four members including myself. We're working on the flash prototype of our application and we split our tasks such that the only person who knows Flash in our group does the Flash. The rest of us do the user inteviews, testing, documentation, etc. My group members are all fresh from undergrad and coming from a technical background, it's really tough for them to come up with good design. We did the initial layout and all on paper before the first flash prototype. When I first ran through the initial flash prototype last week, I immediately noticed all the little inconsistencies in the UI; font type, font size, color, alignment, etc. I guess work habit kicked in. The overall design and layout is just like the design on paper but I'm not able to just overlook these little stuff. Well, I tried not be too picky because then it would seem like I'm criticizing his work. But alas, I succumbed. Our task this week is to evaluate the prototype with the design rules and I ended up giving him a long list. He didn't understand why the labels for input need to look the same (even though there are in different section like search and login) or why the title of a subsection on the right need to be aligned with the left, etc. Sigh! Well, at first he was using funky fonts, different fonts with different sizes for all the different sections too. At least that I could explain that we should use font types that people are familiar with looking at so that it's easier for them to read. I also feel a bit frustrated that my suggestions are being "challenged" with no substanstial backing; because at work, I usually get the last say. Furthermore, as we only need to implement the UI and not the engine, we can just assume the application can work wonders. As such, most of my ideas for this application are novel and they just don't "see" it because it was not implemented elsewhere so it's hard time for me to explain and convince to them it's a good idea. We have a website to document our project progress and the flash guy chose to do it in flash and it has horrible UI but none of the other two members have problem with it. Sigh! I guess I need to confront him soon. Well, it's difficult when they don't see anything wrong with it. Plus, final exams starts in about a week. And flash isn't exactly easy to change. I should've offered to do the website earlier.