Yahoo friends, Christmas came early this year. As some of you might have already noticed, I’ve finally set up a gallery. Yep, it took me a while, but now its there which also means that I’ll be finally posting pictures. To access the gallery, click the image located in the right column, sit back and enjoy the ride. And make sure you let me know how you like (or dislike, for that matter) the images. Currently there is only one set of pictures, but don’t worry, I’ll upload more soon.

I’ve begun this week with a very important meeting. On Monday morning I have met the Digital Culture program director Raine Koskimaa and we have discussed what I will be working on in the next two years. Of course we haven’t discussed the details but have nevertheless roughly outlined my study path at the university. The discussion included my wishes regarding my minor studies and possible general topics for my master’s thesis. To make a long story short: it looks like my minor will after all be information technology. To those of you who know what I’ve been up to in the last ten years or so, this decision probably isn’t surprising at all. So, I will most likely be taking some programming, software business, user psychology, HCI (for non-nerds, that’s human-computer interaction) and the like. So far this idea about getting a minor in IT sounds quite interesting.

As far as my master’s thesis is concerned I will be working on relations between art, science and technology. Which again isn’t anything new for me, but I will be taking my previous studies and research in this field a few steps further. I have to say that for me this is a very special and exciting moment because it seems like I finally get to do in school what I enjoy doing. I’ll keep you updated on details as they develop. For now it looks like I’ll mostly focus on my classes and other school work and will begin with further development of thesis ideas next spring and maybe even begin working on early drafts then too. Then in autumn 2006 I’ll almost for sure begin writing the thesis and I should have ample time to get it done by the end of May 2007.

When I think about it, this is another unusual moment in my life as I have never really planned my life more than a few months ahead, quite often picking up projects and other opportunities as they came and went rather then definitely setting with one specific topic or job. So it does seem weird to know what has to be done two years from now.

Other exciting moments this week included the first few classes of Suomi yksi. Finnish has already been seeping into my brain by just trying to figure how society and culture around me function and it looks like this course will speed the process up a few notches. So far, I cannot really say that I have learned much more then just a few new words, but the way course is set, it looks like I’ll be able puhua suomea pian. Which means that I won’t have to look like an idiot during numerous simple everyday encounters with the locals. But on the other hand, I’m sure that this knowledge will open a whole new avenue in my life here as well. The fun part is actually just about to begin for me.

Since the weather got kind of nippy around here (during the day it’s no more than 10°C and nights are around 0°C), I’ve temporally switched from lakes to the university indoor swimming pool. I have to say that all facilities here are absolutely amazing and this includes the sports facilities as well. OK, as far as pools are concerned they have an olympic pool, a 25 meter pool used as a diving pool too, and three other smaller pools … and that’s all indoors. Of course, this wouldn’t be Finland if the changing rooms didn’t have saunas which I happily visit after every swimming session. And all this for 1.70 Euros. Great stuff, I’m telling you.

Another interesting tidbit is that at the university language center they have a program called Each One Teach One. It is a loosely structured language learning program that primarily relies on one’s own initiative to learn another language. Here’s how it works: you look for a (preferably) native speaker of the language you want to learn, once you find the right person you both set your learning goals, meet as many times as you want during one term and you both receive official credits for doing so. It really is a good way to learn a language since there are at almost any time hundreds of international students who teach languages ranging from French to Swahili. And why am I writing about this in the first place? Well, I could not believe myself, but there’s a Finnish girl who wants to learn Slovene. I was flabbergasted when I learned about her very unusual wish, but was not surprised anymore when she mentioned that she has a Slovene boyfriend who is not interested in teaching her the language. Weird, to say the least, but we’ll see how it goes.

Well, in short that’s it for now.

Mladen

PS: Hey Bajo, tnx for the space weather information. It has already been quite helpful … if only I could say the same for the terrestrial weather.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 16th, 2005 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Culture, Education, Finland, Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.