Exams

The next two weeks will be pretty boring. I'm spending most of my time revising for my exams or having the exam. So the next two weeks the messages will be really short. Wednesday spend some time invigilating an exam. Which had an exciting bit where someone sneaked in some paper. Not very nice especially because they are really strict here. If it is their second offense then they can be expelled. Thursday I had my own exam where I forgot some important bits. So I'm hoping for the best and spend some time cursing myself on how I could be this stupid. Friday first slept in a bit. Breakfast became lunch instead. Great fun. After lunch I spend some time writing a report. Saturday spend most of my time baking a cake. It was literally blood, sweat and tears. Cut myself between two fingers when I tried to pierce an orange. Something fun during in the rest of the week because the wound didn't heal that quickly. Had a Christmas party in the evening. Great fun. Sunday went to Roslin for the Christmas carols there. Great atmosphere and I would certainly recommend going here. Monday spend most of my time writing a report and making a presentation. Tuesday I had to present something and wanted to listen to the presentations of my classmates. Mine went ok but still I think there is more to the topic. I'll learn most of it over the course of the next year. In the evening went out for dinner to a nice Italian place. Thursday I had my final exam. Was difficult but that was expected. In the evening went to the Christmas carol of HW. The band was really good but the choir of UoE was better. Friday spend most of my time relaxing and finding Christmas presents. If you're going home for Christmas you can't arrive empty handed so I bought fudge and a hat. The whiskey was already bought in advance :). In the evening went out for dinner again. Saturday spend my time cleaning a flat and in the evening went to a ceilidh. At night celebrated the birthday of my girlfriend. Had to get up again early morning the next day to fly home. In the end I was too early at the airport. Really interesting. I was this early that I had to wait until the baggage drop off opened.  That all for these weeks.

Kilt and last lecture week

Yes this was the week in which I got to wear my first kilt. The annoying thing is that I'm writing this message halfway through the next week and the week after that :). But anyway. Most of my lectures have finished by now. Which means that I can spend time in the library to revise stuff.

Monday. In the morning I tried to get a robot to work but the only thing it said was: "computer says no". After sending the parcel home I spend most of my time in the library revising stuff. The thing was that I forgot about the system they have to place the books. Which meant that I spend the first half hour running around trying to find a particular book and than running to a computer to find that book. Only to figure out that I was on the wrong floor. Anyway this happens every once in a while.

Tuesday. Given that most of the lectures have been finished by now so this one only produced stuff that might come in the exam a.k.a. pay attention because this will be in the exam. In the evening spend some time to make a nice and simple bolognese saus. Could do better it was a bit too runny for my liking. Anyway it tasted nice and it was food so I'm not complaining :).

Wednesday. I was trying to get some code running because I wanted to show some results to my mentor on Thursday. Only I found that the code wasn't running and this I saw on Thursday because the code took longer than I expected.

Thursday. After my lecture I saw that the code wasn't running and also I saw that my mentor was in the same room. So whilst he was speaking with someone else I was frantically trying to get my code to work. Resulted in another computer says no and my mumbling about what I did find. No dancing in the evening. There was something else going on so we met in the pub.

Friday. First I had to pickup my kilt. Quickly tried it on and cycled to HW. Where I had a presentation/meeting about building a robot ourselves. It sounds cool and I definitely want to do it. But not now not just before the exams. After this meeting I finally found a way to get the code running and got some interesting results as well. First going out for dinner and then going dancing again. One has to make up for the loss of last night :).

Saturday. Quickly filled my backpack and fixed some stuff to it (with shoelaces :) ). Placed my sleeping bag on my kilt and went to St. Andrews. This time for SUSCDF (Scottish Universities Scottish Country Dance Festival). Met a crazy amount of new people in one weekend and saw an awful lot of dancing. We (as in me and a couple of friends) could stay the night at a mutual friend of theirs. With staying I mean sleeping on the ground hence the sleeping bag and mat :). Ah well it's just for the night and when your tiered of dancing you can sleep almost anywhere. First time a kilt and I think it is really nice. A bit cold a first but liberating. Also the freedom you have is a bit weird at first but anyway you'll get used to it.

Sunday, we went out and about in St. Andrews. Seeing some great views like the castle and a big tower. After this it was time to head back to Edinburgh for the first carol service. This is something I'm not used to because we don't have such a thing in the Netherlands. At least not that I know of. Great fun to see and you get a lot more singing than we used to get when I went to church. Only the people that dragged me along where complaining that there wasn't enough singing involved and too much talking.

Monday. Yes you're getting now two weeks in on message. Spend most of my day in the library revising. In the evening I went to ceilidh dem. Great fun to do and the last time I could where my kilt. So made great use of it. This time it was us (me and some others) demonstrating for a group of Asians. Still great fun to do.

Tuesday. My last lecture for this semester. Again revising stuff that might be in the exam. So paying extra attention to this. Went back in the afternoon to bring back my kilt. It was rented so I had to say goodbye to it.

The rest of the week was more on revising stuff for exams and not doing anything special. Apart from figuring out how programma's and algorithms work.

Friday night went out to the pub to see some people I met last weekend and to have some drinks with them.

Saturday. The trip to Gullane of a couple of weeks ago was nice so I decided to do it again. This happend in the morning. Spend the afternoon fixing the bike of a friend. The bike decided that it was old and I couldn't fix everything. Somethings had to be done in the bike shop to my regret.

Sunday morning went up one of Edinburgh hills. Had a great view from there. It was a bit windy and chilly but still a great view. Spend most of my afternoon fixing another bike. The shifter got stuck but it wasn't anything a bit of WD40 couldn't solve. In the evening went to a carol service of UoE. This one was better than the one from last week. More singing and a lot busier. It was in the same place as a ceilidh a couple of weeks ago. So a great hall which was full. So full of people that some stood during the whole service.

Sorry the days are getting shorter and so are these messages :)

Cheesethief

Again the title needs some explanation but to do I first need to tell you something about this week.As you know by what I wrote last week I went back home to celebrate my birthday. It was nice it is always good to see your family and friends again. On Saturday I went out and about to buy new trousers. I thought I can pay this with my Scottish bankaccount only to find that the pin machine said in English try swiping your card and in Dutch please push the card in the bottom of the device. Ah well then use the Dutch again. The rest of the day consisted of eating cake a lot of cake and meeting friends and family. Sunday. The idea was to go mountain biking only the weather didn't agree. It was raining the whole morning and it didn't seem to stop. Given that I was home for only three days I didn't feel like spending half a day on cleaning my bike. The afternoon was spend celebrating the birthday of one of my cousins. Which meant eating even more cake. Monday. Of course on Saturday you're forgetting to buy things so I had to go out and about again to buy some other stuff. Like sportsshoes, cheese (Dutch cheese) and a bag of those tiny biscuits that we can only buy from September to December. That was actually the whole Monday the rest of the time was spend relaxing and doing as little as possible. Tuesday. The day of leaving again. It is weird staying at home and knowing that you need to leave again in a couple of day. Anyway. I had a lunch appointment with my boss. So my parents dropped me off at the company and then after lunch my boss dropped me off at the airport. Everything went well. The suitcase wasn't too heavy so I had time to spare when I arrived at the gate :). Thankfully I didn't have to cook in the evening so when I got back dinner was almost served. After dinner went for a quick shower and to pick up my bike. Wednesday. Had to go to uni in the early morning for classes. In the afternoon I went to an inaugural lecture. Which was about geology and energy consumption. Really interesting. About how our energy sources changed over the years and to get to the hard to reach places where there's oil or gas. Like I said really interesting. Thursday. Finally the lab was finished early so I had plenty of time to get home do some cooking and go to dancing. Friday. When I thought about getting a piece of my cheese this morning I found that someone had stole a bit. So I asked my flatmates who it was and if they liked. Also kindly proposed that they replaced it with another piece. In the evening there was a launch event from the postgrad society. We had a good turn out and it was great fun to do. One of the questions I remembered was about what wasn't invented in Scotland: haggis, the Australian national anthem, piano keys or insuline. I was going for either piano keys or insuline. It turned out that it was haggis. Saturday. First went to the Farmer's market to buy some roe deer and some haggis discs. Together with a partridge pie it made a great lunch. The roe deer is for a bit later. In the afternoon went out and about to arrange stuff for the evening. In the end I forgot to post a parcel anyway that needs to wait till Monday then. In the evening went out with Jess and some other friends for birthday drinks. It was the birthday of me (last Monday) and Hannah's flatmate. So asked politely if I could make use of that fact. Sunday. Went to Gullane for a hike towards North Berwick. Nice views and a nice guide.
The cheesethief hasn't come forward but I suspect we have large two legged mice. At least I hope they enjoy the cheese.

A weekend @ home

So the dutch message was written yesterday in the bus to the airport. This message is written today at home. What a difference a day makes. Anyway the week so far.

Monday. The robot we made has stage fright, when it had to preform it didn't want to. So we couldn't get the marks for one of our final performances. Anyway tough luck then and trying to fix everything for the competition.

Tuesday. I was cooking again. My idea of making goulash. I had two issues. One I didn't have to correct pan for the dish so I grabbed the biggest cooking pan that we had to make it in. The other was that I had bought two different types of meat. One was veal, the other beef. The difference in meats meant that the taste was even better.

Wednesday. A bit in a hurry. The plan was to go to a play called the kite runner. We (me and a friend) both read the book and loved it. Given that the play started at Wednesday and there was a possibility of doing the matinee one with a generous discount. We thought of doing that one instead of the evening one. So rushing back from HW to the city to be in time for buying the tickets. After a quick shower we went to the the play. And what a play it was. It made me remember most of the book and the actors were great. After the play we walked to a nice Italian restaurant for some really good pasta.

Thursday. Just a normal Thursday nothing special happened this time.

Friday. The day of my flight. After lunch I rushed back to my apartment got wet on the way and delivered my bike to the bikeshop for save keeping. Ran back to my apartment for a quick shower and change and on to the bus. The funny thing was that my suitcase only weighted 10 kg this time. That happens when you have nothing to carry only a backpack and some change of clothes. The flight went ok and the trip home was coming to an end after 3.5 hours of travel.

A nice week.

Okay so I won't bore you with everything that happened this week but just the more interesting part. So the message will be shorter and will contain most of the weekend stuff where I've got more time I guess. Tuesday I was time for me to cook again. Also you might expect this message to appear next week as well. Me and Jess traded for a week because I'm flying back to Edinburgh the 18th and don't have time to buy stuff then. So next week will also be on me. This week it was Spaghetti Carbonara. Nice dish only that I put in a bit too much cream. Making the sauce a bit too creamy for my liking. That is just my opinion. Wednesday I had another videoconference with UoE. This time I was the only one at HW making it a nice but lonely conversation. Also after exactly one hour the connection was stopped even though we were still in the middle of our conversation. Great fun staring at a blank screen for a couple of seconds.

This brings us to Friday. Given that in the rest of the week nothing special happened. Okay so Friday I went with my cohorts to dinner. We plan to have dinner at least once a week just to talk some rubbish and relax a bit. Also to get to know each other better. So dinner it was and it is always nice not to cook once a week :). Afterwards I went to a friend for some drinks and watching a movie as I had promised.
Saturday. Got out of bed a bit too late then had to walk back because I forgot my PIN. So all in all a pretty interesting start of the day. Went to the market to buy some stuff and on the way back walked into to the barbers the have my hair shortened a bit. Not as short as back home given that it is a bit colder here. After that I had some food and went out again. Had to make an appointment for checking my bike. I was given a notice for a six week check up for my bike so why not make an appointment for next Saturday. I'm not here then so I won't need the bike. I'll bring it in on Friday and get it back on Tuesday. I guess it's a good deal. After that was arraigned went back into town to buy a towel and to rent a kilt. I guess it is a bit weird for a foreigner to rent such a thing because we are not used to it. Thankfully the shop was a bit more man friendly. It was better than the time I went out to buy some dancing shoes and found myself in a ballet shop. So a kilt rented I went back to make dinner and cake. In the evening went out with friends for some drinks. It was a bit chilly and of course all my warm stuff is miles away. So in the end I was happy to warm up inside again.
Sunday. Went for a hike with a friend. We followed the water of Leith for the best part. A really nice route to do and I would certainly do it again only this time with some other shoes. I made the wrong decision of not grabbing my running shoes but grabbing my normal shoes. To be short not a good idea but still a great walk.

The week of seconds and angry people

I'm not sure how I managed to do this again. I really don't know but let's start at the beginning.

Monday. Just classes so nothing special happend.

Tuesday. Mainly classes. On the way back some pedestrian was mumbling that the speed limit 6 mph (around 10 km/h) was. No way that I'm cycling 10 km/h. It would take me a full hour to go to HW. So I cycled further paying no attention what so ever to what the man said. I didn't had to cook this evening so it was nice and relaxing. Instead I had to book a restaurant for Friday. Given that it's Halloween then it will be busy in restaurants but I was lucky. When I got back I saw that Jess got an Arduino kit. So trying to learn her programming by connecting a LED and explaining what I was doing. Took me a while to figure everything out. Luckily I had a programme that showed me exactly what I wanted.

Wednesday. Classes in the morning. I promised to fix the brakes of a friend's bike. In return I would get dinner. Only I'd taken out some chicken on Tuesday. So no dinner for me apart from my own cooking of course. Only my dinner was finish quicker than I expected so I went to my friend's house to have a second dinner and to have some dessert. Af the dessert I finally got round to fixing the brakes and adjusting to ones from last time. Two of the brakepads weren't correctly aligned with the wheel so I had to redo them.

Thursday. Classes the whole day. When cycling towards HW some pedestrian didn't notice me and shouted at me that I had to slow down. Yep I will whenever there is a bridge, a bit I can't see clearly or someone walking but when no one is around I'll just speed up. A few meters later there were two groups of walkers standing at both sides of the path trying to slow down cyclists. One of them made some kicking gesture with a leg for which I wanted to slow down. So we cyclists need to pay more attention when cycling here. Just had time to dance in the evening which wasn't much because they had a general meeting. So we skipped out of the general meeting and went home.

Friday. One of the hottest days of the week. Because I had my jacket on I was slowly cycling towards HW. After lunch I dumped my jacket in my backpack and made two new personal records. One for cycling to home in 25 minutes and one for being late 15 minutes. I could have gone faster but that would mean not slowing down for bridges and pedestrians. After classes we had pizza because of the gateway event and talked a bit about how stuff was going. The only thing was that I also booked a restaurant for the evening so for the second time this week I had two dinners and for the third time this week I had two meals. I'm also counting the second lunch I had on Sunday. Great fun but I don't want to do this every time. It is rather filling.

Saturday. Finally some time to clean my room, do some laundry and bake some cake (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/693646/banana-and-pecan-loaf). The latter could do with some extra time in the oven but tasted really nice so will be repeated at some point. The rest of the time spend doing some homework and trying to figure out where the errors were in some homework. During my dinner I tried signing up for the Sallandtrail. A run that's held near my hometown. Great thing to do it only took me 21 minutes to sign up. In the evening I went over to a friend's place for watching a movie. Settled in the end for Blues Brothers still a great movie.

Sunday. First went to the other farmers market to nose around a bit. This one is in stockbridge. I think I prefer how this one is set up. Nice and small. Being able to walk in a circle instead of a straight line. It is however a bit more expensive. So ended up buying nothing and running for a bus again. Went with a friend back to the Pentlands to walk some hills. Nice weather but a bit winding. Saw some black grouse :). It was however a great walk and I definitely want to do some more exploring in the Pentlands but need my hiking boots first. Later on went to a pub for some food and meeting new people.

We aren't going home! At least not yet.

When writing this it is either Saturday or Sunday. Given that the message gets published on Sunday I would say: happy new week!!

Monday. I finally got some extra sleep. After the courses in the morning I had to edit my report for another course, which was due on Monday. The feedback I got on Friday was that my idea was to broad. So let me tell a bit about the idea I had. Last week the acoustic camera arrived and I thought it would be a good idea to put the thing to use and to try how it would work with some machine learning algorithms. As I said this was to broad and I have to concentrate on the machine learning instead of the use of the camera. Well I'm pretty stubborn so I'll figure out a way to use the camera for the same project not sure how but I'll figure it out.

Tuesday. A pretty standard day of cycling to uni having some courses and going back again. In the evening it was my time to cook so I made some chili with as special ingredients chocolate, cinnamon and peanut butter. The latter added some nice twist to the dish. I thought about going to sleep early but ended up going to sleep pretty late. One of my housemates locked herself out and texted me to notify me about that.

Wednesday. Now it gets more interesting. Normal classes in the morning but around lunch time we had a video conference with UoE. This because we didn't want to cycle back and forth between two unis. In my case it would mean that it cycled twice between home and uni. So this was pretty interesting to see and do. We could control the camera on their end and they could control ours. So time to play :). Later in the afternoon was my real reason why I didn't want to cycle back and forth. I was going to an inaugural lecture by a professor who does something with squirrels. Given that one of my friends is one of his PhDs it was a bit difficult to mis this if you know what I mean. I new a bit about the subject the friend explained it very well to me but the professor clarified some additional things and was able to show the results of some of my friend's models.

Thursday. One lab got cancelled so that meant going home earlier than normal. Which is nice when you have to cook and allow yourself more time to do this. That's why I heated up the chili from Tuesday :). After which I still had to run to dancing because I found myself in an animated conversation with Jess. For the first time in two weeks I was in time for the start of Ceilidh class.

Friday. Asked Jess if she wanted to go out in the evening. We ended up having dinner in some pizza place nice pizzas though but still not the real deal. After this we went to a pub called Brauhaus. Nice small pub with a lot of international beers. My own rule is when in doubt go for the Belgian beers. And they were pretty nice.

Saturday. Time for another hike. This time the Pentlands, a really nice hilly forest near HW. I first went by a close friend for some lovely soup. Made me think of a dutch dish called snert. Then we literally had to sprint to the busstop. Where we saw the bus just leave. Talking about annoying. Fortunately we were still in time for the hike. The next bus came literally 10 minutes later. The hike was really nice. Saw some great bits of the Pentlands and it made me want to go back. After the hike my friend asked me if I wanted some cake. The cake made me realize that I have a lot to learn when it comes to baking. Rushed home around six because we were supposed to meet some people at seven. Had a quick shower and shave and went out again for dinner and drinks.

Sunday. Need to do a lot of homework. So in the morning I did a large part of it. Given that at least half of it was already finish but just needed finalizing. I thought that it would be a good idea of me going to UoE to try my code. It was a really short visit; the building was still closed. So went back home to work some more and in the afternoon went to a close friend for lunch. Only I forgot that it was for lunch so I made some myself when I got fed up with coding. (I'll probably be better of with baking stuff :) ). Walking towards her place I thought I might only stay for an hour. Just have a quick chat carve some pumpkins and go back again. This single hour lasted for 5 hours and involved eating pumpkin soup, trying to help with making marmelade and of course carving the pumpkins. Ahh and now I'm forgetting the cake. To my close friend I can only say thanks for the great time, cake, pumpkin soup and I'll make it up to you at some point. Okay so now I need to make dinner, try and eat some and make soup myself otherwise my veggies will go off. Afterwards I'll probably get back to homework again.