Weekend in Vilnius

Unknown2:25 AM0 Comment

Quite a long read as I decided to consolidate the entire trip into one entry. Buckle up. Saturday My trip to Lithuania initiated when Sarah, Ariail and I left the dorm at 1:40ish and headed over to the bus station. The bus arrived on time at 2:10 and we were off to Riga in Latvia, our first stop. The bus itself was fairly nice, the seats were comfortable. There was free coffee, free WiFi and multimedia screens on the back of every seat (movies, music etc). When we first got on the bus, the man checked our ticket...

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500 Internal Server Error

Unknown11:41 PM0 Comment

First class of the day: cloud computing lab. (Lab: for those that are interested.) During this lab there were server errors a-plenty. It was rather irritating to have these issues, as the lab itself was quite simple and could've been completed much faster if the schools severs were working properly. They were simply not equipped to handle the amount of people trying to create instances, create snapshots, create security groups etc. The lab teacher actually had to go in and terminate a few of them to create room for the rest of the class. Regardless of the roadblocks, I...

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Oh Look, Snow

Unknown8:05 PM1 Comment

Well for all the praise I gave the weather yesterday, I woke up this morning and lo and behold, the forecast weather for the day: snow. On the way to class this morning it was cold, but not snowing yet. However, on my way back around 12 it had started snowing. It was actually my first time walking outside while it was snowing, it's a somewhat interesting sensation. For the most part it didn't bother me, but the one irritating thing is snowflakes in the eyes. It's not a fun feeling. My first class of the day was...

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Sun Again

Unknown7:45 PM1 Comment

Praise be, the sun was out again today! It's basically the start of spring in Estonia at this point. It's been predicted that the snow will end with February and we'll get into spring unseasonably early. (Typically the last snow is well into April). This is definitely okay with me, as the cold isn't too bad. It's just the ice that I dislike. Anyway, today I went to the migration office! I met my tutor and Ariail at the town center and off we went. The office was a good distance away, so we took the bus. This...

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Melting

Unknown11:08 PM1 Comment

I may have gotten a little to used to sleeping in. Getting up at 9am was pretty brutal for me. At least it doesn't take that long for me to eat breakfast and get ready. The weather honestly wasn't too bad today. There's still no sign of the sun, but at least it wasn't foggy or rainy. Yes, it's still cold to me, but high 30s is easily tolerated (and I'd certainly prefer that over 20 degree weather). In fact, it's so unseasonably warm here that the ice on the river is melting. While it seems a natural...

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I Miss The Sun

Unknown10:15 PM0 Comment

Weekend I had a glorious weekend filled with nothing to do. I mostly slept late and played video games. The short list of things I accomplished: I made a pen holder out of a water bottle, cleaned up my desk and managed to get some homework done. Monday Was a pretty good day overall, despite the outside world looking gloomy and rainy. I got up around 11 to start working on notes and readings for Religion and Politics. I confess myself rather excited for the course, as I always enjoy subjects such as these that force you to...

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Valentines

Unknown3:53 AM0 Comment

Happy Valentines day. While I don't particularly subscribe to this holiday, I do wish that I had the company of a certain someone today. Alas, it's not possible and I've classes to attend and things to learn. Regardless, I hope everyone that reads this has a very wonderful Valentines day! And on an interesting semi-related note there is nowhere near the nauseating amount of valentines day goods in the stores here. In fact I haven't seen any giant displays of animals, balloons or chocolates. The most I've seen was this morning: a single sign outside a cake shop...

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Cake

Unknown11:44 PM1 Comment

Wednesday Slept in until around 12, it was glorious. Took my time getting ready for class and lazed about for a while. The couple of hours before class I reviewed the first chapter of the book again to ensure that I understood as much as I could on my own. This later proved to be a futile exercise. After I once again did my uphill climb, I ascended 5 flights of stairs (why I didn't take the elevator I'll never know, I must have a death wish). I was the first to arrive at the classroom, so I...

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Graph Paper

Unknown1:21 AM1 Comment

I decided that graph paper is magical and makes my notes obscenely neat. I might actually convert to graph paper for all my note taking. We shall see. On a more related note, I forgot how awful getting up early was! Regardless I managed to drag myself off to bed and get ready for my first class of the day: Introduction to Coding Theory. Once again I had to hike up that awful hill and go up several flights of stairs, if nothing else at least I'm getting a good workout from studying here. This class was in...

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It's Rainin'

Unknown8:54 PM0 Comment

Woke up around 11 today. It was nice to have a relaxing morning and take my time getting ready. Once it hit 12 I headed outside to take care of some errands. My first stop was the dean's office of my faculty. This is also the building where all of my classes would be, so I wanted to scope it out anyway. There are a few ways to get there, but the quickest is to walk up Lossi street. Unfortunately, this street is a rather steep uphill climb, and also happens to be quite icy. I'm sure it's...

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Grass Does Exist

Unknown5:20 PM0 Comment

Saturday Everything went as planned on Saturday. I slept in until 2 and didn't go outside at all. I did however spend most of the afternoon looking at my class syllabi and materials. Some of them are pretty intimidating. Randomness in Computer Science is a class I decided to take last minute after I discovered that Data Mining was in conflict with another class I was taking. Like most of my other classes, it is master's level, so that is a challenge in and of itself. The teacher stated on the course page that "we will not repeat...

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A Foggy Day

Unknown1:08 AM1 Comment

In a stark contrast to waking up to sunshine previously: this morning, I woke up to a dismal foggy sky and a rather fat cat wandering across the parking lot. After getting dressed and having a quick breakfast I went downstairs with my roommate to meet with the usual group for orientation. Went to the same room as yesterday and grabbed our seats. The first talk was about Estonia, places to visit and methods of transportation. Apparently there are brand new trains and tickets from Tartu to Tallinn are around 10 euros. This is remarkably cheap compared to...

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