Introduction to Studying Multimedia Authoring Systems

This course is introduction to MULTIMA study program. I expected something more complex, but the course is quite easy. You can acquire 3 ECTS credits for some work with Moodle and Blogger. Truly I'm enjoying it.

For passing I must do:

• to be present on 3 classes (see my timetable);
• to write an opinion to Information Networks Usage Policy at the University of Vaasa;
• to find out and to discuss about some blog about studies (I chose this one);
• to create blog about studies here in Vaasa.

As you suspect, this is that blog. I can't let you here links to discussion about usage policy or founded blogs, because there are on Moodle and you need university account.

Bed Betatesting

I finally buy my new bed! It's because we want to share one of our (mine) room with Arthuro (exchange student from Mexico). He will pay for my room and I with Slado will share the other one. It's because of prices. Lot of people do it that way here in Tekla. I hope that's not such a big secret.

I buy inflatable model. It is very big like you can see on the pictures and it have even built-in electric air pump. Price for all that fun was 60€. Plus 15€ for that stylish cover with dog. PIMP my bed is not cheap thing. But it is still cheaper like paying for whole room.

Introduction to Multimedia and Hypertext

This course is about history and technologies concerning to multimedia. Everything important is on lecturer's page. But if you want to read the notes you need password. I don't understand why this documents aren't on Moodle like stuff related to Introduction to Studying Multimedia Authoring Systems. Whatever it is...

This course is for 3 ECTS credits and we must pass through 2 writen assigments and exam.

This is main topics of this course:

• basic terminology, history and fundamentals of hypertext;
• GUI, www;
• Hyperfiction.

Finally snow

After all catastrophic visions of global warming, after tangible sad of Finns, after cold darkness in the north... finally it's here. The Snow! It came with promis of light and fun.

Today weather was even ideal for taking pictures. Sun was shining and red sky maked Finland prettier. Most nearly to my imaginations before this stay. So let's enjoy the short seizures of beauty.

Finnish course

Today we had first lecture of Finnish. This course is only for 2 ECTS credits, but it serve for survive in Finnish. (Like it's name says - Survival Language Course for Exchange Students.) It shall learn basics of Finnish language needed in everyday life. The benefit of this course is that we have to only active participate in lectures. But we decided to write final exam for grades. As you can see in my timetable Finnish course will be every day in the morning (but finnish mornings are really like nights) for two weeks. We might choose with two variants: this intensive 2-weeks program or longer (and not so full-range) alternative. I chose the first one.

The rising was surprisingly quite easy, but this was only for the first time... Course was in Tervahovi and it takes 2 hours. Interestingly, lessons here starts 15 minutes later. Next time I will sleep longer :). Our lector - Anne Ahlqvist is accurate a very kind. She have experiences with teaching of exchange students, but Finnish language isn't easy. It deffers from Indo-European languages a lot. Finnish belongs to Finno-Ugric language family. Finnish is a synthetic and an agglutinative language. This means that words in Finnish have many parts inside them that make up meaning. In Finnish there are 15 cases. A case is an ending added to a word that helps describe its purpose in the sentence.

And this is some text written in Finnish:

Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.

And it means:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

It's a fragment from Declaration of Humans Rights. As you see, the text looks difficult. And I don't even mention that Finnish language have different spoken form.

Sunday surfeit

Today was right time for another kind of sin. We decided to celebrate this Sunday by cooking and feeding our uncared-for stomaches. Today menu is garlic soup and grilled broiler with potatoes croquets.

And this is Slaďo's recipe of garlic soup:

Ingredients (for two people)

• 1/2 garlic (peeled or cutted into small pieces)
• 1 beef-tea (we used Euro Shopper Chicken Stock Cubes)
• 1 litre water
• 2 middle sized potatoes (cutted into cubes)
• Sunflower oil
• Salt

Preparation

Warm up oil in a pot. Add smashed garlic and fry for very short moment. Then add water, beef-tea and bit of a salt. Wait for boiling and then add potatoes cutted to cubes. Simmer slowly until potatoes will be tender. Serve with slices of bread eventually with cheese.

Another dish was even easier. Everybody knows how to do chips, but only for sure.

Ingredients (for two people)

• 1/2 kg potatoes (cutted into croquets)
• Sunflower oil

Preparation

Warm up oil in a frying pan. Add potatoes and fry with rotating until they will be little coloured. You can use same oil more than once.

And what about chicken? Go to mal and buy it :). We bought it in Minimani because it's closest to Teklas. This grilled broilers are pretty cheap and you don't need to warm it up because there are selled in thermopackages.

Foreign attendants

We are social creatures (especially Slaďo), so we does some actions in our apartment. First was small group of alcohol fans on Tuesday - Januray the 9th. It was evening full of little shy conversation (about school systems and another crap). We used vodka, whiskey and beer for courage increasing. In the crew belongs Polish girls Ania and Magda. Then Slovenian girls Lea and Staša, Frank and Florian from France and in the end Ilaria from Italy. And don't forget about handsome boys from Slovakia - Slaďo, Cuni and of course me. As we saw not only Slovak teenagers are identify with positive effects of ethyl alcohol. Everyone was skilled veteran but there was not enough of wonder potions and party ended early.

Enlighted from first try we organized another party on Sabbath - January the 13th. We used our free room to make place for visitors. There was circle from chairs, table with some snacks and music from laptop. Everyone brought also liquid spirit risers. Staff was little bigger. Again Ania and Magda from Poland, Lili from Slovenia, Teresa from Spain, Arturo and Fernanda from Mexico, Nathalie from Belgium and me, Slaďo, Cuni, Michal and Lucka from Slovakia. Our trust obtained the Czech beer Velkopovicky Kozel and some another distilled treasures. We talked mainly about Polish guys. Strange, I know. This experiment again expose on the lack of alcohol. Student's consumption is bigger than expectations. Yes, we are definitelly future leaders of this world.

My courses and timetable

I have 5 courses here in University of Vaasa (beside my courses from my home university):

• KSU5010 Survival Language Course for Exchange Students (Finnish);
• VIES1300 Introduction to Studying Multimedia Authoring Systems;
• VIES1006 Introduction to Multimedia and Hypertext;
• VIES1301 Introduction to Electronic Publishing;
• VIES1303 Project.

And this is may timetable:

		Week
		02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22
M o n d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
T u e s d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
W e d n e s d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
T h u r s d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
F r i d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00

As you see, my timetable is not so exhausting. I will get under control all of courses here and courses at my home university.

Superstereo fever

Today was big party for exchange students in disco club Superstereo. The entrance was for free, but using of cloak-room was for 2€. Main reason for going there was low prices of alcohol. One 4cl beer or longdrink (gin + grapefruit tonic) was costed only 50 cents. Some shots was for 50 cents too.

Longdrinks was good, but they contained only a few tears of gin. Beer was Finnish thus I didn't enjoyed it. But the worst was shots because all of them was mixed from the salmiakki. It's a black vodka cocktail with taste of salt liquorice. It sounds strange but the taste is even worse. This poison named after ammonium chloride becames trendy for teenagers in Finland. It's also very suitable to shocking tourists.

So alcohol wasn't nothing special for Slovaks but music was pretty good. Small dancefloor was full of exchange students and hunting Finnish girls. I even heard pieces like Prodigy or Chemical Brothers. And this kind of music makes me crazy to dance. We spended hours by dancing. It was fair trade for 2€.

My antiracism t-shirt makes little attention. So I had handshake with some people with suchlike opinion. I had to translate Slovak writing from my back. It says in English: Everyone is different but we all are equal. I met really nice people with open mind. Therefore this evening was worth the effort and money.

Computer course & Library visit

Today was the computer course. We met in the morning in one of the computer labs of Fabrikki building. The purpouse of this was to familiarize with computer technoligies using by students and teachers of University of Vaasa. We made the acquaintance of Wompat, which is online courses timetable arranger, WebOodi, that serves for exams booking, Moodle, that is e-learning portal, University webmail, setting up IMAP protocol for e.g. Thunderbird or Outlook mail clients to reading school mailbox and how to subscribe to esn list, which is mailing list for exchange students here in University of Vaasa.

Then we walk to the city library with tutors (it's different from university library). It is big building with lots of publications. But the most interresting thing for me was robot for books sorting, that people are returning. You can see how it works on short videoclip below.

Polish party

From yesterday night until late morning today was held our first international party. It was organized by Polish girls - Ania and Magda (on the picture).

I must say all was prety well-advised. Everything began in girls room. It was decorated by baloons. There was made place for dancing or some games, ready refrigerator (for some alcohol) and snacks.

All of tutors and echange studets (holded in Finland for one semester) was invited to this party. Meeting and knowing each other was evidently the main purpouse of this event.

When we came to party, we obtained the labels with names. Actuallly this is best way how to remember face and name. We have taken some Czech beers - mark Staropramen. Yes, you can buy it also in Finland! Some alcohol games was played and we listened to Finnish music - Metal, of course. Everything is easier with fire water...

Part of visitors decided to continue in Superstereo somewhen about 02:00 PM. Others stayed in room and continued having fun. I stayed too. Party continues and people was getting little drunk. As you can see on the pictures. There was some trying of polish-slovak communication. You know, our languages is quite similar. People leaved stepwise, so I was one of last men. I can say, it was great party with feel of international compendancy.

Sorry for lame quality

First cooking

Today we tried to cook here in our apartment for the very first time. We decided for spaghetti. This simple recipe is from my girlfriend:

Ingredients (for two people)

• 5 sausages - about 150 grams (we used Atria Nakki);
• 1 middle-sized onion (better the red kind);
• 1/4 garlic;
• 200 ml tomato ketchup (we used Euro Shopper - the cheaper ones are more suitable);
• Spice mix for pasta (we used Aaria spagettimauste Palermo - mix of oregano, sweet basil, thyme, cayenne and chilli);
• salt;
• sunflower oil;
• 1/2 cup water;
• 200 grams spaghetti pastries (we used Barilla spaghetti n°5);
• 80 grams grated cheese (we used Arla Finello Pasta - mix of Cheddar, Regato and Emmental).

Preparation

Warm up oil in a pot. Add onion cutted into small pieces and fry until onion looks like glass. Add sausages cutted to slices and fry for a while with mixing. Then add water, ketchup, salt and spice. Wait until it boil and add smashed (or cutted into very small pieces) garlic. Simmer, uncovered, for about 30 minutes until sauce get thicken. In another pot make boiled water for pastries. Don't forget add one spoon of salt. When water bubble over add spaghetti. Simmer for about 8 minutes (it depends on manufacturer of pastries). Serve hot and sprinkle with grated cheese.

Vaasa excursion

Today was sight-seeing tour around Vaasa's surroundings by bus. It was free journey organized by University of Vaasa for new exchange students. It was great opportunity to learn something about Vaasa city and it's neighbourhood. We had very jokeful tourist guide that makes fun from boring facts and we were lucky with weather. Because the weather in this time is usually very cold in Finland. That makes finnish people little sad. But I'm glad.

What have I learned about Vaasa?
First notices about Vaasa (or Mustasaari - in Swedish Korsholm, which is fractured archipelago here in Ostrobothnia) is dated to 14th century. The city was founded in 1606 by king Charles IX of Sweden. In 1613 the town was renamed after the Royal House of Vasa.

In 17th century citizens lived upon tar trade and town was growing. But in 1852 breaked out the big town fire and mostly wooden Vaasa was almost destroyed. Then in 1962 started building new town named Nikolainkaupunki (in Sweden Nikolaistad) about seven kilometers from burned town. Nikolainkaupunki was systematically designed to prevent from fire disasters. After overthrowning of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917 was city renamed to Vaasa.

During the Finnish Civil War in 1918 Vaasa was capitol of Finlad for about four months. Now Vaasa is the city of universities and industry.

Vaasa have three universities:

• University of Vaasa - headquarter in Vaasa (naturally);
• Åbo Akademi - headquarter in Turku;
• Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration - headquarter in Helsinki.

Main employers of Vaasa are:

• Asea Brown Boveri - production of industrial and power electronics and automation equipment;
• Wärtsilä - manufacturer of large (diesel) engines and power plants;
• Vacon - electronics company that manufactures AC drives and frequency converters;
• TeliaSonera - dominant telephone company and mobile network operator.

Something about neighbourhood:
During the bus excursion we visited some places near Vaasa in Ostrobothnia. We saw parts of the archipelago belong to the UNESCO World Heritage Site named Kvarken. It was added in 2006. We also visited Finland's longest bridge named Replot bridge. It connects the island of Raippaluoto (in Sweden Replot) to the mainland. We had opportunity to walk around the ruins of Saint Mary's Church from middle of 14th century. It was destroyed by town fire.

University of Vaasa

Today we had interresting information meeting about University of Vaasa for exchange students. I got knowledge about it and I decide to publish it.

The University of Vaasa have four faculties:

• Faculty of Business Studies - they focus on business finance, financial markets, consumer behaviour, leadership, international economics, european integration and so on;
• Faculty of Technology - their area of research is about dynamic mathematical modelling, energy technologies and new information processing methods;
• Faculty of Humanities - taking interest in culture, literature, intercultural communication, language for special purposes, multilingualism, translations, multimedia systems and so forth;
• Faculty of Public Administration - they concetrate on comparative public policy, public management, evaluation and welfare state and profitability of public services.

I offer you some historical informations:
The university was established in 1966 as School of Economics and Business Administration in Vaasa by Council of State. In 1977 the school became a state institution. Then in 1980 started education in Humanities and in 1983 studies in Social Science. Technology studies began in 1990 with cooperation with Helsinki University of Technology. In 1992 the school was organised into four faculties like now. In 1994 the school moved to new place on Palosaari.

Concerning to university campus:
The new campus is in the neighbourhood of Palosaari near by old cotton mill. Each building have own name. Such as main bulding - Tervahovi, academic library - Tritonia, univestity laboratory - Technobotnia or reconstructed old cotton mill - Fabrikki. The campus is near sea an full of park areas.

Map of University of Vaasa (you can use draging to move the map)