Balance of life

It is already in the middle of July and sooner than I can imagine, the studies is going to start again. And once again it is time to think what I am going to study… And once again I decide that this autumn is going to be different from earlier ones, this time I will study more and better…
Expect this time this autumn is really going to be totally different. In the end of last year I started to think about my studies and in the spring I really started to think what I would like to do, or better, what would be nice to do… So, how all that thinking ended? Well, I decided to apply for Computer Science in Tampere University of Technology and Scandinavian Languages in University of Tampere. I was accepted directly to Tampere University of Technology based on my success on matriculation exam and in the end of May I was taking apart of exams for Scandinavian Languages.
The results for TUT came already in the May (for paper selections) and I was accepted. But I was still waiting for my expected failure on UTA and last Friday I got results from there also. No, I wasn’t accepted, which was very expected, with that reading and with my luck (the whole exam was just multiple-choices…).
So, after all this I am going to start study on TUT in about a month I will still study interesting courses on UTA also, so this autumn is going to be, well interesting and quite full of studying.
Good question is why I applied for Scandinavian Languages? Well, to told the truth, I am not quite sure myself. I had that mandatory Swedish course in the spring and that was very interesting so I thought that it would be nice to read some more. And… Why not? Well, I don’t have that problem anymore, expect I am still going to try to have rights to read Scandinavian Languages as my secondary subject but there is again an exam that I should pass… And I think that this time I should maybe read a little bit better…

Tags: autumn, tut, uta
Posted in Studying | 2 Comments »

It is again almost summer and like always, it means that again one academic year is behind, at least for studying. And it is time again to think about what I have managed to achieve this year.
Well, not much. In the autumn I had big plans, I decided to concentrate studies more and really try to push my studies a little bit further than so many previous years. But like always it seems to be with my plans, not everything went like I planned.
Like I wrote in November I got a job from our departments and started to work in nice project which was also a base of my master’s thesis. Well, that job was a full-time job and in the end it took pretty much of my time and my studies, once again, was delayed a little bit. And now when that job ended in the end of April I still haven’t my master’s thesis finished, my studies are only a little bit further that they were in the begin of academic year and currently I have no idea what I am going to do in the summer.
I really don’t know what happened to my motivation during this year, honestly I had quite a good motivation in the autumn but I just lost it in the way. Well, I have to admit that our departments courses are not so interesting that they can be and lectures are quite boring but still… Well, I just guess that I have to try better and harder in the next year. Maybe…

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This spring I have been studying swedish. I finally took that mandatory swedish course in the begin of this semester and yesterday I had my last session with the course and swedish (at least for now).
Last time I have been studying swedish was in the high school which was in spring 2003. After that, nothing, I haven’t read, listen or done anything with swedish. So I was a little bit nervous how my course would go. And I was really positively surprised about the course.
I wasn’t interested of swedish in the school, I was always too lazy to work enough to learn the language well enough and therefore I never really liked swedish at that time. But in January, for my big surprise, I noticed that actually liked the language very much now. I have been forget pretty much anything that I ever have learned in high school but after all I think that the course didn’t went so badly after all. It didn’t go well either but what I think was most important, it was a really nice course and for some reason made me interested of swedish as language…

Tags: languages, studies, swedish, university
Posted in Studying | 2 Comments »

Balance of life. Balancing time between studies and work.
Yeah, those are my blog’s headlines, and now I would really need all those. This spring is going to be busy, busy and more busy than I ever thought. My work is currently about writing my Pro Gradu which is nice that I get paid for writing but it isn’t always so nice. I have noticed that writing my gradu isnät going so well at the moment. It is difficult to just get started, to get anything cleaver and smart text out of my mind to the document. I know that it is mostly just the lack of starting but it is that starting the process that is difficult. For some reason I just haven’t managed to get myself to correct state of mind.
And the funny part is that the actual writing process is going to be quite easy for me because I have quite clear image of what I should write in what chapter. I’ve got all chapters already planned and now all I just need to do is write and write some more. If I just managed to get myself to write and write well.
Trying to study some missing courses at the same time is not going to make writing process any easier. It is really annoying when you need to go to classes all the time. Why all lectures has to be in the middle of the day always? Just to make sure that no-one is able to work and study at the same time? Make sure that if you try to work with something you just get interrupted all the time when you need to go to classes?
Well, this spring is really going to be a tough lesson how to balance time properly between studies, work, photography, relaxing and free-time. I hate to admit but I haven’t had time for a photography for a long long time. Last week I finally bought a new tripod and now I can finally take some more macro photos, at least it is easier but if I just had more time to do all what I want or need to do.
And what I do now? Instead of writing my gradu, reading for exams, thinking of logic programs or being outside and take photos of snowy city I just sit in my office and writing to my blog…

Tags: Life, time
Posted in General, Studying, Work | 2 Comments »

It is quite funny how you can do anything else than the task you are supposed to do. And how you suddenly get a really motivated to update your blog, tweaking page layout. And this all comes of course when you should be reading for an exam. I have a few photos that are waiting for keywording but haven’t found enough time or creative mind to do that yet, but now I feel like I have motivation to do that, when I should be reading.
Well, back to reading…

Tags: exam
Posted in Studying | 1 Comment »

Today The Process finally has been started. I had a meeting with my master’s thesis supervisor and as the result, I have now a skeleton for my thesis. It starts to be a quite clear what I am going to write, what are chapters and what I should write in what chapter. Which is a really good thing, now I can start that easy part, writing. Or maybe not so easy.
In the future is expected a lots of misspelled words, long nights, tiredness and anything else what is typical for thesis writing process. And adding all my other activities, studies and everything with this writing process, I will have a very interesting spring coming. One thing is quite sure, I won’t have a problem with my free-time…

Tags: master's thesis, studies
Posted in Studying | No Comments »

Yesterday was the the first day in my new job. After a couple month of being full-time student, I am back in the work life now.

I currently work in Departments of Computer Sciences, University of Tampere and I work in XML-related research project.

Posted in Studying, Work | No Comments »

I have been getting ready for studying and one thing that I have been thinking about is my laptop. Since last time I have been sitting on a lecture room, my laptop has grown few extra inches bigger. I don’t think that I would use my laptop much during lectres, and its battery doesn’t even last as long as did my Powerbook’s. But what to do I need to check something from the Internet, waiting for an important email or just getting through boring lectures? Well that’s why I boughted Nokia N800 Internet Tablet.
I have been playing with this for a while and this is just better than I expected.

Technorati Tags: N800, internet tablet

Posted in Computers, Studying | 3 Comments »

I made today something that I have been thinking about for a some time for now. I resigned my job.
For a while I have been thinking that my current job doesn’t give much for me. No new challenges, no education, it is just same day after day. And when my duties has been slowly changed from systems administration to almost full-time PHP coding, I just decided that it is better for me and my future if I resign and take year off to study.
I guess my decision means that I really need to study in this academic year…

Technorati Tags: work

Tags: Life, Work
Posted in General, Studying, Work | 4 Comments »

University studies are starting soon, in the begin of September. I have been already looking for interesting and mandatory courses. And like every other year, I still cannot understand, why almost all courses seems to be lectured between 10:00 and 14:00.
This year I have decided to put more my effort to studies, trying to get as much of my bachelor’s degree ready as possible. I have been too lazy for couple past years and now I have to do a little catchup.
This year I try also get my secondary subject’s quite done, I tried to start reading biotechnology last year, but I ran out of time then and was never able to finish course. Maybe this year is a different…
It seems that this autumn is not going to quite easy. Although I am planning to reduce my working to minimal, I still have probably too many courses to involve and photographing.
And of course, keeping this blog up-to-date would also need some of my time.

Technorati Tags: university, study

Posted in Studying, Work | 2 Comments »