Archive for August, 2007

Week ten

Friday, August 31st, 2007

Well, well.

I got through my birthday bbq and an assignment which was due today… Time to relax? Maybe a little. Next deadline in one week.

Yesterday I tested my new climbing shoes — they are awesome! Just a bit tight ;-)

The climbing trip will take me five days to the west coast of NZ. First stop: Bouldering at Castle Hill. We will stay in Greymouth that night and boulder on the beach the next morning. We will then head to Charleston Seacliffs — Whooho!

Thats basically how my two week midterm break looks like…

Cheers, week seven/eight/nine

Friday, August 24th, 2007

Today was the last day at University for this term (half of this semester). We have two weeks holiday now. Wait, the Uni is eating up my entire time at the moment. A presentation today, a report next week, next report on the 10th of September, two projects and my term-project-report in the middle of October + three exams… guess how much I will enjoy my holidays! I really do enjoy the area of my studies, but…
I finally managed to get the recreation thing going. This week I joined the climbing club — nice people. In two weeks I’ll go on a climbing-trip with them. Lets rock!

Mail

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

This Saturday I’ll celebrate with a BBQ — you better send me some mail — lots of mail! (c/o Mailing Address). Until Friday I have to fix a report and a presentation… But I’ve bought some postcards, so I can actually give you a reply! :)

At this weekend there are also the Undie 500. So at the moment you see all kind of tweaked cars driving around in Christchurch.
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Internet usage

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Well you know, here at the UoC they charge students for research on the Internet. Here is a little statistic. The first month I was short on money, so I only used the Internet very little.

1st month:
Internet charge: $3.79
Fixed fee: $23.00
Sums up to: $26.79

1st week of 2nd month:
Internet charge: $3.18
Fixed fee: $15.00
Sums up to: $18.18

So, for having Internet at my flat, I have to pay the IT-Department a monthly fee to have my Ethernet-box connected. I chose the 100MB connection, because I wasn’t aware that it is more expensive than the 10MB connection. Additionally I had to pay an administration fee in the first month. This money goes to the IT-Department of the University of Canterbury.
But the Halls of Residence charged me another Telephone and Data Connection fee of $120! — for their side of the connection…
…and no operating system updates in this time :-/

Grab a pizza!

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

I know I am a bit laggy… buuut today we received some pizza! In one of our courses the students are doing 10 min presentations at the moment. Last week our lecturer came late 20 min. So he decided to get us all some pizza this week. This is great! And lecturers (in Germany) should adapt this.

Week five/six

Saturday, August 4th, 2007

Well, one month ago I arrived here in Christchurch. Time for a small review.

The administration at the University is… is.. well, I don’t know. Different? Bureaucratic.

The lectures are also a lot different. There is hardly any team work. Many assignments. Much writing.

I finally got settled on a project topic. I was going to do something about secure communication in a business environment. But I wasn’t successful finding a company which uses open source software… so I will do some research at the University of Canterbury.

The people. Friendly and helpful. You can have a chat with everyone. Although most of my friends here are not from New Zealand them self. But that might change if I move out of Ilam Village next semester.

Christchurch… well, sad to say: But I haven’t seen very much of it. And i haven’t made it out of Christchurch yet…

Well… I’ve played some Volleyball at a Interhall-Championship and… we didn’t loose all games :) Our girls did very well and won every game — so far — with only four players.

Tonight I had a nice dinner with friendly Kiwis and learned some Maori. Kia ora and the basic stick game.