frutti.gummi

For the first time in my life, I did not get much sleep for one consecutive week. My supervisor only managed to give me feedback on the first quarter of my paper a week before the submission deadline. Over the next few days, while I revised the introduction and background chapters, I also received the feedback on other parts of the paper. By the end of the week, I managed to make most of the major revisions. I wasn't sure how long it would take to make the printed copies so I tried to finish everything by Saturday morning. Then I went to the printers and it turned out that it would take 2-3 hours for the printed copies to be ready. So, I decided to print them the following Monday. I spent the weekend fixing small mistakes and grammatical errors. I'm very thankful for friends who helped me to proof read parts of my paper. Well, I'm glad I managed to finish everything in time but I'm not satisfied with the quality of the paper. It's really a pity that my supervisor didn't have the time to read my second draft earlier when it was ready more than a month ago. Anyway, I've learnt a lot from the experience of writing this thesis. I was so surprised to find out that my writing has become so sloppy.

And with the thesis submitted, I'm unofficially graduated from the master's programme. It's kinda strange that I didn't feel anything special. No joy, no relief, just as if another work has been completed. Perhaps I was already focused on the next task of moving out of my room. I initially planned to have one big box but it didn't work out. I needed two more medium boxes. At last, I packed everything and shipped the boxes to Trento and carried my luggages home to KL. So, goodbye Aachen!

I was reading my old entries and I realised that I had pretty much stopped updating this blog since I started on my thesis. Anyway, my thesis has been progressing well. I just finished writing the first draft. 70+ pages! I've never written so much in my entire life :D I just hope that it's of the acceptable standard. I'll find out when I meet with my supervisor next week. Pretty much done with the development work. Just a bit of fix here and there when bugs are found. And I have a conference paper to write as well. I hope I could get started on that tomorrow.
This weekend has been rather nice in the sense that I didn't do any work. I just watched a couple of movies, coincidenly both have the word 'sunshine' in the title, and cooked myself some nice meals. It's a nice change considering that I had 2-3 meals of instant noodles in the past week. Plus, I have been staying put here for almost 2 months now and it's a record! Haha.. I did shop once in a while and ended up with quite a significant damage. I definately will have trouble moving all my stuff out when I leave. Aahh I shall worry about that later. Hehe

I haven't been posting lately simply because I didn't feel like writing. Well, I've also been busy but that's just an excuse. So in the past two months or so, I have traveled to Rome, Prague and Amsterdam at different times. Also made a long day trip to Koblenz that consists of a short hike, castle visit and boat ride. In between traveling, I worked on my thesis and about two weeks ago, I presented my work proposal. I'm currently starting to do the development work; learning .NET 3.x Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). After playing around with it for a while now, I have a better understanding of the major concepts. I'm starting to think of a GUI design that is most user friendly but what can be done is also limited to my newly acquired WPF knowledge. Anyway, I don't have travel plans for this month yet and I plan to get as much done as possible before I go away again. :D

Yael Naim - New Soul

I just love the sight of snowfall. I can just keep staring out the window. It has been snowing every day for the past week. :D There weren't much accumulation though coz it didn't snow continuously. It's more like heavy snow for 20 minutes followed by light snow and then the sky cleared. After a while, it starts to snow again and then clear again. I think it's due to the strong wind we have here. Still, it's nice that I get to see beautiful snowfall everyday and it feels magical walking under it. This has been the best winter experience I had in Europe. There's no ugly side to this kind of snowfall as there are no dirty snow piled up by the street, no water puddles everywhere and no icy walkway.

Just feels so nice to shop here. Groceries are a lot cheaper than Trento especially the fruits and vegetables. I finally managed to buy seedless grapes here and chinese pears! There are also a lot more variety of candies, chocolates, chips as well as drinks. In the few supermakets that I've been, I've only seen soft drinks sold in bottle form. I'm looking for them in can form so that I can limit the amount I drink. Surprisingly, pasta and pasta sauce is very limited. Even fewer variety than what I can get in KL. No wonder there are so many food joints selling pasta. People here don't cook them at home I guess. Retail stores here are a much bigger too and with more well known brands like Mango, Zara, H&M, etc. After being in Trento, I don't find that clothes here are that expensive anymore. There are plenty of home decor stores and a variety of dollar stores that I scoured for cheap kitchen utencils and stuff for the bathroom. I found quite a few handicraft stores too selling beads, ribbons, paper, etc. Kinda reminds me of the times I made presents for family and friends. Oh, I did manage to go to IKEA in Heerlen, Netherlands. It's an hour away by bus from town. I bought a few things including a reading lamp. Some of the stuff are really cheap and I shouldn't have bought the kitchen utensils earlier in the other shops in town. Oh well, now I know where to go for cheap stuff.

The student residence I live in is in the suburb of Haaren, 5km from Aachen town. It's the only place available with a single room with attached kicthen and bathroom. My room is quite spacious and the furniture seems new. It's on the second floor so not much of a view from the window. I expected a blanket and pillow to be provided like in Bonn or Trento but these aren't provided here. I'm so glad I found a really cheap blanket at the discount store around the corner. I had to use it for a night without cover since my shipped luggage only arrived the next day. When the house master told me that I'm getting a new bed since the previous bed was broken, I really thought it's going to be a new bed. However, it turned out to be just another bed taken from another room. The bed is too soft. I wonder if there's any way to make it harder. Add a mattress pad? The room is also dimly lit; not suitable for doing anything productive like reading or cooking. There are plenty of power points so I guess they are for additional lamps. Gonna find out how to get to IKEA to buy some lamps and other stuff. The small fridge does not have a freezer compartment like the one in Bonn so I won't be able to enjoy the convenience of frozen food.

Besides being far, it's also expensive. I was thinking of looking for something cheaper and closer to town but now I got quite comfortable with my room. Even though I have not unpack most of my stuff, I just don't feel like moving again. The main street is just around the corner so everything is near by; supermarket, pharmacy, bank, bakery, diners, and cafes. Just one bus stop away, about 5+ minutes walk, there are bigger supermarkets and a McD that opens 24 hours a day! Hehe. So, I quite like it here. Once the internet is activated in a week's time, I should be home often.

It was pretty warm in Trento when I boarded the train. Spring seemed to have been skipped and staright to summer. When I sleep, at first I didn't need to use the blanket provided. As the train was going through Switzerland, I could feel the temperature was dropping. After the train passed the German border for a while, I started to feel cold and got up to cover myself with the blanket. When I woke up in the morning and head outside my compartment, I was greeted with a white scene. Snow everywhere! And it was still snowing heavily. It only lasted for a short while towns had lesser and lesser snow as the train head towards Cologne. I saw Bonn also had some snow and it was already melting. When I switched train to Aachen, I was looking forward to see some snow and I was glad that there were still snow when I arrived. :D I like the sunny and cold weather here although the wind makes it a lot colder and it's quite breezy here.