A Journey to the East

After more than five years in Karlsruhe it is time to say goodbye.

Although I haven't finished my diploma yet and have to go back to Karlsruhe to defend my thesis next year, my time in Karlsruhe is almost over. I moved out my apartment, gave away my furniture and carried all my stuff back to Paderborn.

Time to say thank you:

I want to thank my co-students and friends in university for countless hours of sitting together in lectures and over assignments. I don't think anybody of us would be in where he is today without good team work, mutual support and help.

I want to thank my Squash team and club mates. I found a new Squash home and many new friends there and had the great opportunity in life to play Bundesliga.

I want to thank my friends from my student dormitory HFK. It was a true home away from home during the first two years.

I want to thank my ex-colleagues at the Fraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe. The work experience and training I received there were just as valuable as the best lecture.

Last but not least I also want to thank the university with it's tough, math-intensive curriculum. Although it was a struggle during the first years, on a backward perspective I believe that we benefited a lot from it.

Labels: Karlsruhe, University

I apologize for the delay in my posts, but I have been busy lately. But nevertheless I wanted to put a short summary of the scholarship event in Esslingen last week.

I have to admit that this was only the second time I ever attended a event of my scholarship network. Unfortunately, our Regional Chapter in Karlsruhe seems to be very inactive. I have had ZERO contact with them since I came back from Singapore and I heard the same from another co-student and scholarship fellow.

This is a little sad, especially because the meeting in Esslingen was quite interesting. The meeting started of at the University of Applied Sciences in Esslingen with a welcome by the Pro rector of the university and the other representatives, followed by a presentation of their Mini-Formula 1 car and a tour around their laboratories.
By the way, NUS has a Car of that sort too, wonder if they could beat them ;)


After (free) lunch in the canteen, we split into two groups for the afternoon. One group went for a guided city tour, while the other (including me) had a tour to "Cellar, Crypt, Catacomb" which led us to underground places in Esslingen: A former water reservoir, a wine cellar and the excavation site under the town cathedral.
Esslingen was not destroyed during WWII, so it has a original medieval town center with beautiful old houses.
We ended the day with a visit to the medieval Christmas market.

Labels: Scholarship

I said this before after the year one, math exams, but this time, I am determined to hold on to it: No more math class and exams in my life, ever! Sounds good, doesn't it? :)

Labels: Math, University

Tomorrow is my Algebra exam. Although this is my supplementary subject (and therefor it is my own fault that I chose it and really shouldn't complain) I must admit I have more respect of this exam than any computer science exam. The only exception might be the LA exam in year one.

But even LA seems pretty easy stuff compared to abstract algebra.

Will be happy once it's over ....

Labels: Algebra

I realized today that our university library has a striking similarity to the library on the movie "The Name of the Rose". Only the first three floors are accessible and all the other stories are restricted to staff and host the closed book stocks.
Who knows what is up there ;)

Labels: Fun, Library

Together with a friend and co-student, I visited the Sun Tech Days in Frankfurt on Wednesdays. We received free tickets for the conference, so I thought I wouldn't harm to go. And after getting exposed to Singapore culture for one year, I find it hard and harder to let something FREE pass by ;)

After arriving at the Conference Center in Frankfurt, we found that the parking in "Mainhatten" is ridiculously expensive: one hour was EUR 2,70, one whole day EUR 27. Apparently the banks in Frankfurt pay a good bonus. At least the ticket was free...

The conference was centered around 4 Tracks: Web 2.0 Development, Java Development, Solaris and Hands-on-labs. We focused on the first two tracks, none of us is particularly interested in OS and we didn't bring a laptop to participate in the lab sessions.


We agreed that the talks were of much better quality and much more interesting than on the SYSTEMS business convention in Munich a while ago. Maybe we found this event more interesting because we are just a bit nerdy, but I think the talk were really much better more than just buzzwords.

Food and drinks were decent, bagels and buns for breakfast and lunch and cake in the afternoon.

Bottom line: definitely more worth it then business conventions and an interesting trip.