After getting home from Brussels there were at least one good thing waiting for me at home, a delivery slip saying that my DSL-modem had arrived! Finally I could start really using the net again, as opposed to just doing the most basic things over my 3G cellphone-connection. And then on Tuesday some guys showed up to install a wall-mounted oven in my bathroom as the floor-heating was broken when I moved in. About time I say, as winter is just around the corner and a ground-level apartment without gets really chilly along the floors, so now I've gotten everything in the apartment in order, just in time for the Wednesday arrival of Øystein and Carina from Gründerskolen, who will be staying at my place over the weekend during the Gründerskolen Fall Seminar, the completion of my days as a student!
Entries in category: Study all Day
With our final examination and the delivery of our business plan due this Tuesday, and after prioritizing most of last week to new experiences and parties, it was really about time to put in some serious work on the plan so we could get it ready in time. So Sunday morning at 10a.m, just after a short detour to drop of mine and Øysteins rented diving equipment, the Automaton Industries team met up in the offices of PeerMe to finish up the plan that we have been working on all summer.
While still keeping the focus on our studies, outside of the working hours Arthur and I have also spent quite a few hours in front of the TV. We have just been lazy while watching Arthurs newly bought DVD's with full seasons of The Sopranos and Allò Allò. However to get some variety we did go to the San Jose IMAX theater today to catch Superman Returns since it was closed last time around, and it was a totally awesome way to see a movie! The really large screen lets you get into the movie in a whole new way, despite some annoying blurring along the edges of the screen caused by the conversion to the larger format (which you don't get with real IMAX movies btw). I was a bit disappointed however that there was no 3D equipment in this theater, but since less than 20 minutes of the movie would have been in 3D it didn't change the experience which I can totally recommend! It's just too bad that the IMAX theater in Oslo has been shut down...
Until now we have mostly been spending the summer going on various trips and events in smaller groups, but that changed this week with a Wine&Cheese party first, and then a Tapas-night tool Then in between this and the pressure from our work and studies which is really building up now, we also found the time to see some movies, visit Gloria and to go clubbing in San Francisco!
Since we got back from Vegas the realities of everyday life has really caught up with us, so we've had to put in quite a few hours with the books lest we'd fall too far behind on the study materials. Besides this and the internship work we have not done much lately deserving of mention, other than catching the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest up in the Century Cinema multiplex at Shoreline on friday night. It was a good movie, but it didn't even close to the first one in any aspects, but it is one of those that you just have to see.
Then the weekend was mostly spent recouperating the lost sleep from last weekend and reading study-materials by the pool, as well as talking to my Carina at home on Skype. Arthur and I also dropped by a party at Ida's place on saturday night as she had bought lots of fruits and liquor and was mixing fancy tropical drinks for everyone! Around midnight everyone went down to the Buddah Lounge to check out the nightlife, but we didn't stay long and returned to Park Place for a nachspiel instead. A couple of the guys then brought guitars as well, so we were all having a great time singing and drinking.
Come monday this week turned into a deja vù of last week, with nothing happening but working long hours, studying and reading by the pool, only interchanged with business plan meetings, lectures on tuesday, and watching the Discovery channel. This made for a very boring week, but at least we are going on a great trip this weekend! In just a few hours we are leaving for Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks to stay in a real american trailer :-)
And without warning our third week in Silicon Valley were upon us, and now we are starting to feel the combined pressure of work and classes mounting. After work on monday this meant that we had to get together our group and start working on our business plan, which again means that we had to get our act together and clean up the apartment as well since our group consists of Carina and Marthe in addition to Øystein, Arthur and myself who are sharing an apartment, and they were coming over to start working on the business plan for Øysteins idea, which I naturally can't discuss due to patent issues.
And suddenly a second busy week in San Francisco has come and gone. By now we are starting to get settled in at work, but we found that the preparations required for the classes with Nesheim was quite extensive so we asked and got to have tuesdays off from work to study and prepare. Also we've been trying out a range of different lunch-places in the San Mateo area and have been trying to socialize a bit in the evenings as well.
As the story goes, everything is bigger in the United States. Of course this includes both driving distances, the size of stores and the amounts contained in a pack of food. A direct result of this is that shopping takes us a large amount of time, simply due to the fact that the shops take so long to get to and walk through!
Also it appears that the days here in California won't consist of nearly as much relaxation by the pool as it was in Australia. There's something going on literally *all* the time so I barely even have time to blog!
Wow. The past weeks I have just been crazy busy! After turning in my master's thesis and completing my degree on monday the 22nd its all been about packing all my stuff, both what I will bring with me to California and everything else that had to be stashed in a garage in Trondheim over the summer. In addition we had to pack Carina's stuff and also clean out the entire apartment, meet up with my friends to say goodbye and get all of my other stuff in order before leaving.
All of May has been a complete continious blur for me. I've been writing days and nights to finish up my Master's thesis, and in addition there has been lots of little details to prepare for my trip to the states. However it's currently looking very good for me and I'm on schedule to finish and hand it in next friday!
That at least is a weight of my shoulders because as usual everything else hasen't been going as smoothly as I had hoped. I've ordered both the Nokia N80 cellphone and a Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox N560 pda, and since both are brand new products just shipping for the first time this month I'm getting woried that everything won't be delivered in time for my departure on June 1st, and that would cause me a lot of hassle to get them forwarded to me in California.
And then of course there has been issues with travel insurance, health-care coverage, scholarship payments, tax refunds, getting an international drivers license, doing the paperwork required for housing, internship employment and car rentals, handling sponsorship applications, organizing weekend-trips and last but not least preparing to pack what I need and move out of this apartment!
So it's no wonder it's been a blur! Neither Carina or I even had the time to socialize or go downtown on Norways constitution day, the 17th of May, but we'll have to make up for that by throwing a goodbye-party just before we leave. Perhaps we'll get to try out the new BBQ-area thats been built just outside here if the weather allows! :-)
