...en de zunne, dij moakt mie zo blied!



...and the sun, it makes me to happy!

Mien schoul bliekt in t schiere weer zo aibels mooi te wezen! Mien instituut is dat blaauwe gebaauw dat aan d'stroat Blaauwbörgje ligt. Dat is dus woar ik studaair! =)



My school looks really beautiful in the nice weather! My institute is the blue building that is located on Blauwborgje street. That is where I study! =)

Dij zunne is weer te zuggen!

What a wonderful day! Not that I did a lot, but I woke up feeling so great! The sun shined through my windows and I had these nice thoughts of me and my girlfriend on my mind. Before I went to bed I looked at all photos that we have made the time we have been together and it is so beautiful to see our love that it made tears run from my eyes. Maybe this is the reason - together with summer coming - that I felt so good this very morning!

I went to school in order to work on my Advanced Computer Graphics and Virtual Environments project with Martijn. We got a good piece further!

We are working on implementing a proof-of-concept of the imposers idea. Imposers is a widely used technique in 3D games for minimizing the amount of polygons to render for each frame. The idea is based on the fact that if something (an object) is far away and you don't change the view angle looking at the object too much, well, then the object will look basically the same. The idea is then not to re-render the object (which can consist of many polygons), but instead render the object to a texture and then show this texture instead (on a billboard). Only when the view angle (and similar things) change too much we re-render the object. This makes us save a lot of computing power, which means that we can render more complex scenes real-time! Anyway, we will see how far we get tomorrow!

Now I just got home from my lecture about Groningen Low Saxon... I have an exam next week so tonight I will try studying a bit further. The course is of course a bit more difficult for me than the other students as I am no native Dutchmen nor Groninger! and thus have none of the languages as my mother tongue... Taking that into account I think I am doing well ... Lets hope I will do the exam well as well :) At least I asked the teacher a question and he answered and told me that he wouldn't elaborate any further as it was actually one of his exam questions! Yes, 1 point in the house :P

The teacher was quite nice. When I entered the lecture room he greated me in Danish =D and later he gave me a book that he wrote! Cool! Thanks a lot!

Dij zunne is weer te zuggen
Doarmit bin k slim blied
Lekker zel k in t gras liggen
Da's ook op hoge tied

k Staai boeten de deur te kieken
k Vuil dij waarme locht rond mie hen
k Kiek noar t woater, noar dieken
t Is weer zummer, zummer as k dij ken

Minsen lopen bie mie laangs
Stevels en regenjassen zugst nait meer
t-shirts en shorts binnen nou /in/
mit daank aan t schiere weer...

Feeling a bit depressed - feeling so alone

This evening is no good evening. I feel so alone. I have been trying to study since this noon and though I have done something, it is not as much as I wanted to. It is awful sitting in my room, all alone studying and knowing that I will study until I go to bed. Well, I can take breaks, make dinner, watch television, surf the net... but none of that gives me pleasure... so I might as well study... also, I am not really hungry...bad sign :S

Right now it feels like I haven't seen Lívia for weeks. She is on my mind most of the time (if not all the time)... and when I realize that she was here yesterday, I kind of wish I had enjoyed the time with her even more than I did, though that is not possible, because I enjoyed it sooo unbelievable much. I guess I just miss her so. I really do... It is so great being with her that I have realized that I can no more be without her... it just hurts sooo much. I wish I could take the phone and call her, or jump on the train as the first thing tomorrow... but that would just be an act of craziness. I don't have the money for that, and I need to save and do things the right way so that I can stay with her permanently. I will be with her soon and I just cannot wait. Things will really change for me... it will be so great! I wondered today how it would be if I knew that she would come to my place around 8 o' clock. I think it would make me a lot more motivated. It will be so much easier studying when I know that in 3 hours she is coming and then I can relax and do things with her, instead of knowing that the evening will be doll...and without her by my side...

I have now lived on my own the last six a half year and so far I have enjoyed a lot of things on my own... it has been no problem cooking, watching tv alone etc, though it of course is nicer doing with others. I know that I am a person that needs contact with other people, but after I have met Lívia I know how nice things can be with her and it sets a whole new standard for my life. I want to enjoy life with her, that is the way I am happy =)

I guess I am rambling... sorry about that. The truth is just that I miss you my Lívia. SOOO REALLY REALLY MUCH!

Mmmm...brunch =) nice nice...

My sweetie cough me with the camera... I still look tired, èh =)

Grille, det skal man da når det er forår!

So spring is finally here! Such lovely weather today. This morning my friend Frank caught me on MSN and invited me to a barbecue at his place around 5 o' clock! Cool...who doesn't like BBQing! I do at least!

Precisely, when the clock turned 5 pm I was there and Frank opened the door for me. There weren't that many people then, but soon after more appeared...and I think we ended up being around 10 people or so. Unfortunately it started raining :( Well, we still really wanted to BBQ, so we just stayed outside in the rain and it turned out to be quite cozy...well, who cannot stand a little rain? after all it wasn't really cold, at least not by the grill! It was a weird evening... suddenly it became dark and we was sitting in the light of the fire... Quite nice, but we all had the idea that the clock was around 1 am or so, but when we looked at the watch it turned out to be 21:00 :| How is that possible?! Anyway, around 23:00 I went home and the rest went to the city... I hope they will enjoy it!

At least, I will enjoy tomorrow a lot! =)

23:00

Puh, it is already 23:00 and I am still busy with my school work :( No wonder why I get stressed out at times. The last 14 hours I have been busy doing school related work, with exception of 1.5 hour spend on lunch / dinner / shopping / biking to and back from home :( Sometimes, like for instance sunday I work long into the night ...

I always went to bed late because of homework, but it was more because I was kind of lazy and first really started working seriously after 21:00 'o clock. Luckily, this semester will soon be over ... the summer is coming and soon I will be working instead. Then, at least, I can work hard at work and relax and not worry about homework when my official working day is over. Plus, I will be with my love... wauw...it will be so lovely =)

I really, really dislike scientific papers...

Often I have the feeling that I am wasting my time, or at least not using it fully. I do all what I can do plan my week so that I will work serious most of the time and then be able to relax at other times, like for instance when my girlfriend is coming here. Unfortunately, often I spend a lot of time actually doing nothing. For instance, I need to write a final paper in my Software Architecture class. This is almost standard here; before every course ends you will have to complete a project and write a paper or at least write a paper. I find this kind of annoying as it means that the last couple of weeks of each block, you suddently need to write 3 papers. Well, I try starting a bit earlier, but I seldom succeed as I have too many other projects to complete during the block / semester. In my Software Architecture class we are currently working very hard on a huge project, where we need to design and document a design of a distributed multimedia (movies) service. This project requires so much of my time that I kind it kind of unacceptable that I also need to write some kind of research paper... Anyway, I writing a paper is not so straight forward and I don't have much more than a weekend to do so... even if I am so lucky to have that much time. Well, we did get an extension, but I need to finish this before I start doing my internship, because when I do that I will have no time at all :(

Anyway, I spend the last many hours thinking about a subject, figuring out what the requirements are, plus scanning though a bounch of articles. So far I came up with the following abstract which I hope will be accepted by the teachers:

Frameworks: When to use and what to keep in mind

Abstract:
Some of the main objectives of software engineering are to improve software quality, reduce costs, as well as facilitate easy maintainance and evolution of the product in mind. Code re-use is a way to fullfill these objectives. Code re-use reduces costs as less new code have to be developed, it improves software quality as the code will be used more and more widely tested. It also helps with maintainability and product evolution, as writing re-usable code requires the developer to code more modular. In this essay we will introduce the concept of object-oriented frameworks and look into when it might be advantageous to design and use such a framework. We will also look into the problems associated with developing such a framework. As a real life example, we will look into the experiences gained when developing the open-source toolkit GTK+, a framework for developing graphical user interfaces for the Linux desktop in particular. We will look at the problem encountered while designing GTK+, plus what solutions that have been used to overcome these.

Another week successfully completed

So, I managed to get through last week! I was really doubting it at times...Well, not that the week would pass, but more whether I would burn out or actually finish the work that I needed to complete. That workload was so enormous. I did get to finish most of the things on my list, but I was first finished 3 am Monday morning :S

Well, this week seems to bring a huge workload as well, but it started out quite good, so I think I will be able to finish most before Friday! Yah! Because of Easter the whole Monday is free for me and my girlfriend to enjoy =) Maybe we should do some thing Easter related ... We'll see...

Saturday, Jelle came by in order to cook dinner for me. Well, actually we were supposed to do it together, but my sweetie was online at a Internet café (just in order to talk to me; really sweet!!!) and I really really wanted to talk to her as well. I did warn Jelle about it on forehand, so it was no problem at all :) Now I just have to cook for him next week or so... hehe.. Anyway, my complements for the cook! The dinner was delicious!

Later I went to his house to drink a couple of beers, eat some chips and frikandellen with his cousin (I think it was) and one of his friends. We also played a card game, and all in all it was a nice cozy evening =)

Eski-Jens! The way we know him all too well!

Yes, I just suck at playing cards... but what the heck - there were beers on the table :) surely helps on my mood

Ahhh...getting the warmth again!

Yes, I know I am heavy, but you ain't gotta get me!

Yes, Danes never give up...must be the viking spirit...

Fight!!! Me and Jens are very "close" friends =)

Danskere, ak og ve...

Why are Danes always so pre-judging, especially when they have no reason to? Well, why am I asking this you probably wonder. Well, I arrived in München and wanted to buy a ticked for Passau when I realized that it costed euro 26 :| and waiting two hours would let me travel the same distance for euro 4.80 with a Bayern Ticket!

Well... of course I waited, but since it was quite cold I went to buy a cup of coffee... that is until I realized that they wanted euro 2.5 :| Oh well, no coffee then. I looked a bit around to see if it was cheaper elsewhere and I saw a group of people who seemed Danish to me.

Curious as I am, I placed myself close to them in order to listen if they spoke Danish or not. They indeed did, and the first I heard was 'Oh that guy there is so typical German! (The guy then pointed at me) You see? Long hair in the neck blah blah blah blah etc.'

Well, it is true that it was popular to have that in Germany 15 years ago or so (something which we called tysker hår) as well as in Sweden (where we called it svensker garn, a bit more negative sounding as most Danes hate the Swedes for no obvious reason), but I hate when people generalize and talk negatively about people from other countries - and the person indeed said what he said with a negative voice. I kind of regret not saying something back, like 'Hey, don't talk behind people's back - at least when you don't know whether they understand what you say', but unfortunately I didn't feel like doing that in the situation.

On my way back to Groningen I had to wait 40 minutes at München Hbf. As friendly as he is, Christian Meyer came to visit me and guide me a bit around in the city... quite nice of him. I really enjoyed it! Danke sehr meine Freund!

Today I am quite tired. I had to do a lecture today for 1-1.5 hours (a so-called hoorcollege) and I spend most of yesterday preparing the missing parts of my presentation. It has been quite hard work as I had to read and understand lots of stuff that I never worked with before and I didn't really have the time to do so. Luckily, I pulled myself together and made some quite good slides ... around 40 I think. The actual lecture went quite okayish. The subject was Global Illumination, and I think that most people got an idea what it is all about!

It tasted very nice :D :D :D

There were also cute ducks!

Passau is really beautiful

My first evening/night in Passau I crossed this bridge =) and then we got lost :P

Feeling better...

This morning I was so tired... I barely could walk... mostly walking like a zombie - kept falling asleep... Anyway, I went to school and had one hour to finish my assignment that had to be shown to the instructor today. Amazingly, everything I did just worked immediately! How is that possible... that never happens for me! When the clock was 11 I was almost finished with the assignment, and the instructor sad down with me to look at what I had done. The next quarter I demonstrated my accomplishments and at the same time implemented the last missing pieces! Soo cool =D I didn't really sleep and it turned out that my brain was working extremely well...heh..weird :) but cool! Now I can relax more when I go to Passau today!

GNOME 2.10 is released!

Get it while it is hot! =) There are release notes in various languages as Thai, Danish, Portuguese (not fully finished), German, Japanese, Panjabi, Chinese, and many more :)

A short update

So I haven't been writing for some days... actually I wanted to, but I haven't had the energy. I seem to be taking too much work on my shoulder. I want to pass all my courses and I am a perfectionist to some degree... unfortunately this means that my work keep stacking up and I have no idea how I can finish it all on time. My strategy has been going to bed at 3:00 am and getting up at 7:00am - I used to be able to do this with few problems, but since I am mostly working when I am awake (as well as missing my girlfriend) this is just getting too much for me, and I might be experiencing a kind of burnout. It is also like, everytime I do a shitload of work, then my partners doesn't do anything (not all of them, I have been really happy with some), or they do a shitty job which means that I suddently get even more work to do. When this is not the case the teachers simply don't publish their assignments on time or the systems we have to use doesn't work :S

To something else...GNOME 2.10 is released!!! Congratulations people! I just read the Danish press annoucement and noticed that they thanked me :) I hope to work more on GNOME again, but it will probably be work related due to the problems stated above :)

It's so hard waitin'. I need you by my side,
not just now and then
You're the best that ever happened to me;
soon you'll be in my arms again
If I have to climb the highest mountain,
that is what I'll do for you
I really, truly love you, and you know
that my words are true

There are so many things
I want to do with you; us together
Everything feels so great;
I really hope this will last for ever
There are so many things
I want to do with you and only with you

Lívia, my love, you're my dream come true.

Back at the main land at last, though I have no clue what this place is called. Only 45 minutes more with the bus and 45 minutes with the train and we were back in Groningen!

Behind these dunes/dikes you will find the ocean

Greenland?...nah, Ameland :) Yes, it is true.

Binne dancing in the snow! Yes, he loves being back in Frisia :P His homeland.

Hmm, maybe we walked this path?!

Jens hiding for me behind a palm :P

Jens and Binne...yes, Jens is living the Viking spirit... it is not cold, no no.... but it is!

Walking on the ocean :) The real advantage of the Wadden Sea!

I don't know why, but I really liked this gate.

...and very cold too...

Yes, really beautiful

Ameland was really beautiful in the white snow

I don't think this ice is hard enough to go skating ;) At least Jens didn't dare running to the other side

Bikin' in this weather was really an experience!

This is the place where we stayed during our weekend trip to Ameland

Close to the actual sea

Japanese oisters...you don't expect that in the Netherlands

The sun desided to rise after we went walking through the wadden sea

At some points this water was deaper than my rubber boots and I had to walk around in wet trouses (to my knees) for the whole day :(

A proof that I were there

Ameland in the morning

The beach was looking very nice today...sand on top of the snow and snow on top of the sand.

Pim, our fearless leader who worked hard to make all this possible!

On the way back from Ameland...soooo tired...and Jens is as well

Ameland, here we come!!! =)

Time to leave. Take care everyone! If you are wondering what Ameland is, please take a look at these links: Official Website, Ameland at Wikipedia.



Check out the webcam on the first page... that is exactly where we are staying (Buren). Looks cooooold :S

Waarom ben ik nu zo lui...?

Oh oh...I am home, and actually I am kind of busy as I need to pack and take care of various things before I leave to Ameland in less than 2 hours :S but still I feel so lazy and am just sitting here... :(

I heard rumours that Cleanlook might become the new default GNOME theme. That theme is just looking lovely!

Lovely, oh that word makes me think about my sweetie...now I cannot talk to her for 2-3 days :S ... oh, lets hope that I have fun on Ameland and that the time will go quickly... which means that before I know it I will be by her side again! I wish you a good weekend my love! I will surely miss u...actually I am already =) Muaaaah!!!

Kann ich eine Gummistiefel kaufen, bitte...

Puh, what a day...I feel so tired. Actually, I didn't get home that late, but unfortunately lots of work was waiting for me at home. The last couple of hours I have been working on Chapter 2 in our System Architecture document... puh, that drained me for energy. I also went ouy buying some rubber boots :) and they turned out to not be so expensive... just 7 euros :) Luckely!



Now I just opened a packet, that I had received today... or maybe yesterday. I didn't really have time to look in the mail yet, but the sender gave me a hint by email! Yay, cool, I got all the song texts to all the Skik songs as well as a CD with some band from the Achterhoek. Cool! Thanks a lot Ingmar! I really appreciate it, but will have to examine it closer on monday!

Vamos a la playa ...uhhmm, øh, Ameland I mean =)

I felt so unbelievable tired this morning that I didn't get up early as planned :( which means that I will have a lot to do this evening. The instructor liked my bouncing ball in room simulation and I moved on to the second assignment... I got quite far but I guess I will have to use another day to finish it.



It also seems that I need to buy myself a pair of real rubber boots for my trip to Ameland this weekend...hmm, lets hope they are not too expensive, because this will probably be the first and last time I will use them =) Actually, I am really looking forward to the trip! I will be on Ameland the whole weekend... and I will surely report about it when I get home.

Tonight it didn't snow, at least not so much, which meant that it was no problem getting to school today. There is still a lot of snow laying around and I must say that Groningen is beautiful when covered with a layer of snow!

Neve, nieve, ...og jeg fryser stadigt...

Tja, nou kin k ok nait meer noar schoul goan zonder nat van snij te wodden. Daank joe veur dizze foto, Martijn!

Hmm, now it is also not possible to go to school anymore without getting soaked by snow(balls). Thanks for this photo, Martijn!

Translation especially made for Débora =)

Firefox + Marriam Webster

If you are not surfing the web or everything technically scares you, then please skip this post...

For many reasons, that I won't discuss here, I use Mozilla Firefox as my preferred browser instead of Internet Explorer. Firefox is really taking the web with storm! and today I read that Marriam-Webster - my favorite online English dictionary - have made 5 extensions for Firefox that makes it even easier to look up words! Cool! You can find them here.

Oh ohh ohhh...I really really miss my Danish food... Frikadeller and Madisterpølse... I like that so much!!!! =)

Sometimes my lectures are just toooo boring.... and I end up entertaining myself with the most crazy things... =)

Sneeuw...Schnee...sne...snø... ih hvor er det koldt

This morning when I woke up Groningen was covered with 15 to 20 cm of snow...actually it was up to 30 cm some places :| I thought about taking to bus to school, but the busses weren't driving so I had to bike. Staying at home was not an option as I had to finish one of my practicals for tomorrow.



Biking in snow is apparently quite dangerous...I felt two times and hurted myself quite badly...I guess my leg got a bit blue. As a nice side-effect :S, my gloves got soaked and it was colder biking with them on that without using gloves at all :S

When I arrived at school I was immediately attacked by snowballs. Andre threw one that landed right in my neck...well, soon Monique and Thomas followed and I had to join :) so we had a little snow fight just in front of the school :P

Maybe I will add some pictures of it later =)