Banks

Banks suck.
I know, it's better to have my money in a bank, accessible via my debit card, than it lining my mattress (who am I kidding. Do you know how much money you need to fill one of those?), BUT, what I can't understand is how the HELL it can take them a week to get a money transfer done.
24 hours I can accept. What with doing batch jobs at night, and practical reasons, but when the money disappears from one account, and does not IMMEDIATELY show up on the destination account, I start to get worried.
When it's still not there 5 days later, I get even more worried.
The university felt it prudent to deduct the cost of tuition from an empty account, so now I have a letter from the bank here, wanting me to call them. It might have to do with the fact that I'm several hundred euros overdrawn, but if they have a problem with that, then a) why the hell did they allow the transfer to take place, and b) why the hell haven't they just cleared my transfer, which would put me well into the black again.
Leeches is what they are. Can't live with them, can't live without them.

The service they provide is needed, but the way they provide it in leaves a lot to be desired.
I have a feeling that I'm going to go over and talk to Rabobank as soon as I get my money. ABN AMRO certainly hasn't been performing to my expectations...

Time

If I have too much to do, what the hell am I blogging for?
That's a valid question. Maybe I have to vent, maybe I need a pause from all the stuff.
I am thouroughly convinced that not only are there not enough hours in each day, but our internet connection is too goddamn slow for it to be healthy.

I emailed my landlord today about use of the garage. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Now, back to work...

Sneak Peak

So I just went to something called a Sneak Peak they have in cinemas around here.
It's where they show upcoming material to people, but wihtout telling them what it is. It's a different movie every week, or so I'm told.

Tonight they played An Inconvenient Truth, starring Al Gore. It's about global warming, and what we can do to combat it. It had alot of interesting things in it, but it wasn't anything new.

As I understand it, it won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, and probably in other places as well.
If you are interested in the environment, in a non green-peace-never-shower-tree-hugger-save-the-whales kind of way, they you should definately head on over to the theatre to see it. You should anyway, I'm just saying...

Why?

Every. Freaking. Time!

(I won't lie. I still like you. A lot...)
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is about as mushy as I'm planning to let this thing become.
Sorry for the inconvenience...

SMIT

I am part of the Activity commission for an organization here in Enschede called SMIT (Student Mobility In Twente). SMIT handles all the international students, both going from and coming to Twente (as far as I understand it). They are mainly an organization for the Erasmus students, but they kindly help us poor MSc. students as well.

Each month, we have a party. Last night was the traffic light party. People are given bracelets of different color, the color arm band you wear signals your "marital status". Green for single, red for together with someone, and yellow/orange for something in between.

It was good fun, except that I was coughing the entire evening. I left around 2 am to check out a Goa party I know was going on. I spent about 45 minutes at the Goa party. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. The venue, Atak, leaves a lot to be desired. Hearing random conversations over the music isn't generally a good thing.

I've been putting some pictures from various things in twente online. The pictures from the party is online. The SMIT website will also have some pictures on it a little bit later.

Samsung problems

Why the HELL did they make it so that the only way to download java applications into the phone is to do it via WAP push?
Is it too much to ask that I, with my usb cable AND bluetooth connection, should be able to modify the files on my telephone. Why the hell didn't they make this stuff accessible?
If I could, I'd make a java app that loaded the games from the memory card. That would be the only java app I would ever have to download.
Piece of shit.

Apart from that, it's not a bad phone. The gui has nothing on Nokia, but hey, who does, right...
I'm signed up for two years. Who knows, maybe I'll become a convert ere the end, but I doubt it.
Nokia has to shape up. You have two years Nokia, two years!

New Phone

I finally got my Dutch debit card, and with it, I went out and got myself a new phone.
I say "finally", because I've been paying insane amounts of money to call and send messages, and so have my friends (to me, that is), so I'm happy that I can cut down a bit on my spending.

The phone I got is a Samsung d900. I know, I know, it's not a Nokia. I wanted a Nokia, but they just don't make a phone that's small enough for what I need. Maybe when this subscription runs out, they will have gotten their act together. In the mean time, I'm now a Samsung man!

Btw, I just LOVE this rich edit window that blogger has. Fabulous!

Dorm Rooms

Hello, my name is Oliver and I'm going to tell you a story,
It's about a young girl...

She's only fifteen years old and has blonde hair and blue eyes,
She lives with her parents in New Jersey and they love her very much.
And one night, she and her friends decided,
They were going to come to New York City.
"My parents are away and I'll take their car,
They will never know. We're gonna have a great time!" she said.

And they drove over the George Washington Bridge,
And drove downtown to the Limelight.
"Wow, look at the line." "Don't worry,
I know the guy at the door, we'll get in."
And they did. "So many people,
Look at that guy's shoes...they must be a mile high."
And she turned around and bumped into a really cute guy.

They had a good time, they danced for hours and hours,
And she had a few drinks too.
"Hey," he said, "My roommate's not home, And, well,
I was wondering if you wanna, you know...
Come to my place? I just don't wanna, I just don't wanna be alone."
And she said "Yes."

So they got into a taxi and went to 3rd Avenue and 11th Street,
To the NYU dorm rooms and went upstairs and sat on his bed.
And he said, "Take this pill..." and she did.
And then she said, "What did you just give me?"
"Ecstasy." he said.

And then...he fucked her all night....

Headway

I've been sitting here reading and modeling (software, not myself) these last two days, and I'm beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm beginning to grasp some of the concepts that my teacher is talking about, but I still have a bit more to read.
I'm going to start working on my other projects today as well. A lot of stuff that has to be done for a lot of classes, but it's not looking so dark anymore, now that I've actually gotten around to reading the stuff.

It will always be an uphill struggle though.

We Won!

Holy shit, we won!
I can't remember the last time Sweden had a blue government, but it's truly a dream come true!
The fat fucker has resigned his seat, and let the real people in.

This is so exciting I'm about to burst!

Overwhelmed

I think that if you get too much on your plate, then there's a big chance that you will just freeze and not do any of it, just because the mountain of work seems way to high. Easing into things gradually might be a better way of doing things, but i don't think I have much of a choice here.

It seems like I'm somehow not in control of my existence anymore, I'm just here for the ride.

Saturday

Normally, I try to not spend my weekends studying, but now I have an insane amount of reading to do to catch up, which is a bit annoying. My guess is this weekend, much like every coming weekend for the next two months, will be spent reading about protocol engineering and management of networked applications.

I got the lecture notes for the previous course form my teacher, so that's going to take up a fair amount of time. Not to mention the exercises I have to do.

Ohh well, this is what I came here for, right?

Time to do some dishes, and then it's hit-the-books time.

--Markus Out

Drunk

Yes, I'm a bit drunk, what of it.
I like doing things when I'm, drunk, or preferably high. Depending on what the rest of the population is getting intoxicated on.

We played spin the bottle, and I didn't kiss a single girl. This was clearly not a Scandinavian game of spin the bottle. We really felt, and behaved, like a bunch of 18-year olds, and it was nice. It was the first time I've gotten properly drunk in this country.

The thing is, I've met this cute little (normally, Dutch girls are TALL) Dutch girl, who I like a lot, so I probably wouldn't do any kissing anyway, except to maybe further the spirit of the game. If I did, however, it probably wouldn't mean anything.
I must say, these eastern Europeans (with one Iranian, lets not forget) are pretty shy when it comes to teenage shenanigans. Only two or three kisses, and nothing racy at all. Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed :P



Still a bit drunk, so I'm probably going to fill myself with water to prevent a hangover, maybe chat a bit, then I'm going to bed.
Good night world!
--Markus uit

P.S Ohh, and by the way, ...
I've forgotten what I wanted to say during the spellcheck.
Anywho...

D.S

Stupid

I felt SO stupid today.
I hate feeling stupid. It's one of the worst feelings in the world. Even more so if you're the only stupid person in the room.
I was at a lecture, and my teacher was going on, in a fast pace, about stuff that I feel I should understand, but didn't have a clue about. Everybody else seemed to have no problem with it, which was that much more upsetting.
I know one thing, the so-called education that I got from Uppsala University in NO way prepared me for these masters courses! =(

I'm 27 years old, and of normal intelligence. It's not like I was at a symposium for theoretical physics, I was in a classroom taking part of a course that I'm supposedly qualified for.
I have so much catching up to do. It's going to be painful, for real.

Hopefully, I can catch up. I'm going to have to. I cannot suffer the pain and humiliation of not passing my courses.
The fact that I miserably failed the small test today also brought about more feelings of inadequateness. It was a question about the last lecture, and I had no clue how to answer.
I feel like such a failure.

/me needs a hug...

I wonder...

I was going to write something deep and profound, but I developed writers block in mid-sentence...

"I wonder" is a pretty good title. I wonder about a great deal of things. I wonder if anybody wonders anything about me. If they do, I wish they'd just ask...

Geeks'R'Us

Once you start blogging again, you just want to blog everything in site.
I'm reading this 1000 Clues you've been playing Civilization 3 too much post, and these just made me laugh my ass off: (Actually, they all do, but this is so much weirder for people who have never played)

18 - Napoleon appears out of nowhere when you win an elite fight at the bar.
143 - You refuse to do any worthwhile work and indulge in petty embezzlement on the grounds that you live more than 200 miles from your capital city.

Been a while

As the title suggests, it's been a criminally long time since I last posted something on here.
It's not like I've had too much stuff to do to blog, but I just haven't gotten around to it, like so many other things that just kind of fall by the way-side. (Like my software projects, but atleast other people pester me about those).

What's happened of late, anyways, is that I have moved to Holland. Enschede to be precise, it's the largest city is eastern Netherlands with a population of a staggering 150.000 people. It does, however, have a surprisingly small selection of clothing. This i realized when I went window shopping the other day, and couldn't find more than maybe a shirt and a pair of pants that I liked.
I couldn't even find what I was looking for, namely a new jacket and a new backpack.

Other than that, it's a nice little town. The school seems like a focal point, even though it only entertains roughly 10.000 people in the city. It's a great campus though, and the people I've met are just adorable, so I really like it here. Hell, I've even met a dutch girl that I really like (who likes me back, hah, take that Mr Murphy!). Finding girls who genuinely like me as more than a friend isn't always something I manage to do (read nevar EVAR), so I'm really happy.
(I'm happy for many many reasons down here, but right now, this is a central theme.)

UTwente is one of only three technical university in all of the Netherlands, and it's the only university in the entire country that actually has a campus.

Would you believe that I haven't even set foot in a coffee shop yet? You'd think that someone with my background might stumble head over heals into one, if nothing else just to say that "yeah, I sampled the pinnacle of dutch culture" (according to some people), or to actually have something at home to smoke.

The concept of cigarette (and other) smoke in clubs is something that's still alive and kicking here. Some of you might know that for little over a year, Sweden has been a smoke-free country when it comes to clubs and resturants and cafés and such. I missed coming home smelling like an ashtray :P

In other, more recent news, our landlords came by and ninja-installed a clothes dryer, which is something we really need. 6 people doing laundry with only hangspace isn't a working setup.

I should wrap this thing up, before it becomes a novel.
Final words: find the pictures from introduction week at: http://markus.jevring.net/utwente/

--Markus out