where our rocket was dropped from...
the rocket!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
happy weekend.
woot. so it is friday, and i am tired from a long but exciting week... since monday i have been busy with classes but have also had a bit of fun!
today, i had a very interesting lecture about the topological reconstruction of architecture using algorithmic methods... the lecturer was an eccentric genious of a man who simplified this concept down into a fairly understandable lecture. it is crazy to think about designing whole buildings with named geometric patterns + trial and error scripts of specific parameters... if you imagine the work of zaha hadid you kind of get the image in your head of what this looks like. he showed us some slides of frank gehry´s work and explained how really it was kind of a false reality because he uses steel for the structure and then merely covers it with sweet surfaces... then he went on to show us some of his models of experiments which use structures from nature (a bird´s nest for example) which can exist structurally independent from something like steel. i think this is really fascinating and confusing and i would like to imagine a world someday with the materials and methods to make this possible...
i am looking forward to another exciting weekend...tonight, i am going to the 11TH ANNUAL MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL where 12 films are shown 295 times in 115 cities in one week... i am glad oulu is one of them! it should be pretty sweet. tomorrow, i have my nature adventure and then sunday i am meeting my kummi family (a 34 yr. old couple without kids) to go for a walk along the sea! they sound very friendly on the phone, so i look forward to meeting them.
in other news, i sent in my ballot today to vote! very exciting!! they will also send me another official ballot so i cast my vote twice, but it will be only counted once, darn....hopefully, i can watch the debate online! go obama!!!
let me know what you are all up to at home. i really appreciate any feedback and comments!
hauskaa viikonloppua! ....................(have a good weekend)
yesterday, the highlight of my day was helping two of my friends (christian and jorge) in the redbull gravity challenge... which was to drop an egg 50m and have it land safetly, not broken on a target! we came up with a "rocket" like design that was made out of a 1.5 liter water bottle upsidedown with sand in the bottom, then cotton balls filling it up. the egg was placed near the top of the bottle with two doors cut in the side of the bottle equipped with cardboard ramps so after the rocket landed the egg could nicely roll out the door and down the ramp safely on the target. we added a sparkly party hat as the nose of the rocket to make it look more rockin and aerodynamic! (i will post pics of this soon)
the contest was pretty hilarious and some of the other 15 teams had spent considerably more time, money and energy on their inventions.. but amazingly, our egg landed safetly (by burying into the cotton) without breaking, however it failed to roll onto the target. so we ended up with a mere 7 points with the winner getting 10! the winning team won a lot of redbull (no loss there) and a free jump out of a plane (with guide and parachute), yikes! i was happy to just be outside and enjoy the sunshine!
the contest was pretty hilarious and some of the other 15 teams had spent considerably more time, money and energy on their inventions.. but amazingly, our egg landed safetly (by burying into the cotton) without breaking, however it failed to roll onto the target. so we ended up with a mere 7 points with the winner getting 10! the winning team won a lot of redbull (no loss there) and a free jump out of a plane (with guide and parachute), yikes! i was happy to just be outside and enjoy the sunshine!
today, i had a very interesting lecture about the topological reconstruction of architecture using algorithmic methods... the lecturer was an eccentric genious of a man who simplified this concept down into a fairly understandable lecture. it is crazy to think about designing whole buildings with named geometric patterns + trial and error scripts of specific parameters... if you imagine the work of zaha hadid you kind of get the image in your head of what this looks like. he showed us some slides of frank gehry´s work and explained how really it was kind of a false reality because he uses steel for the structure and then merely covers it with sweet surfaces... then he went on to show us some of his models of experiments which use structures from nature (a bird´s nest for example) which can exist structurally independent from something like steel. i think this is really fascinating and confusing and i would like to imagine a world someday with the materials and methods to make this possible...
i am looking forward to another exciting weekend...tonight, i am going to the 11TH ANNUAL MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL where 12 films are shown 295 times in 115 cities in one week... i am glad oulu is one of them! it should be pretty sweet. tomorrow, i have my nature adventure and then sunday i am meeting my kummi family (a 34 yr. old couple without kids) to go for a walk along the sea! they sound very friendly on the phone, so i look forward to meeting them.
in other news, i sent in my ballot today to vote! very exciting!! they will also send me another official ballot so i cast my vote twice, but it will be only counted once, darn....hopefully, i can watch the debate online! go obama!!!
let me know what you are all up to at home. i really appreciate any feedback and comments!
hauskaa viikonloppua! ....................(have a good weekend)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
a sunny fall day
hyvää päivää! (good day)
finally, we see the sun in oulu! after a week of overcast skies i have now seen the sun and blue sky for two days in a row! here fall is in full bloom with all of the trees bursting with orange, yellows and reds. yesterday, i took a relaxing walk with some friends to a lake only a few minutes from where i live.... it was perfectly calm and reflected the changing season in the blue water refreshing my spirit and delighting my senses. i felt like a true finn hiking through the forest. we ended up wandering through the university botanical gardens (very beautifully kept, and they had a whole hill of plants from north america making me feel right at home)...
this week has just flown by and i see now that it has been a whole week since my last update.... i will try to do better!
the highlights of my week this week are many, but the first was a welcome banquet reception on wednesday that the city of oulu held for all the exchange students! held in the city hall, we were greeted by the mayor of oulu and treated to champagne, wine and a full plate of tasty dishes. it was a very generous and friendly way to welcome me to oulu and i got to meet a city businessman who has lived here for the last 25 years but is originally from minnesota! kind of crazy. i will put a picture up of the hall sometime soon...
on thursday afternoon, i got the chance to play some finnish baseball with a whole mess of other exchange students through ESN (erasmus student network, a really sweet program that sponsors events each week and trips around... i am going to russia with them at some point!). as most of you know i do not have a great amount of hand, eye, bat coordination (think p+w softball) so finnish baseball is the perfect solution! instead of having a ball pitched to you the pitcher stands an arm length away and just tosses the ball up into the air for the batter to swing at... you get three chances and you have the choice to run on any of your hits, or just take off running without even hitting (usually what i did) then you run to first which is off to the left, second to the front and right and then third even farther away to the left again.. the bases are kind of in a zigzag and then you have to run back to home. you also can steal bases at any time which makes the running a bit easier. it was really fun to play a new game, and astonishingly enough, i wasn´t even the worst player out there! hahaha.
it was great because after the game we asked a finnish guy to take our picture and being the typical finn he just stood there silently taking our photo without a smile or even a 1, 2, 3! the finns are typically quite reserved and from what i have seen so far it has been true (except when they get some drink in them), at least that is what they keep telling us. they also told us at orientation that it is hard to make friends with a finn, but once you do, you are friends for life!
speaking of friends, i just found out that i am going to have a kummi family, which means that i get a finnish family to be friends with and do typical finnish activities! i get their contact info today and look forward to meeting them soon.
my other exciting event of the week was experiencing the finnish sauna! there is actually a sauna in the building next to my dorm and so a group of friends and i all went together to try it out. it was very hot inside, no surprise, and it hit about 80* C, or 176*F.... we stayed in for about 5-10 min. and then went directly outside the sauna to very cold showers and then back and forth several times... afterwards, i felt like a puddle all relaxed and warm! it was delightful and i know i will be there a lot this winter.
not much else is new, just settling into school and classwork...i have my third finnish lesson today and have much to master... the double consonents and vowels are really difficult to hear but i am working on it. it makes a huge difference, with one missing a word could mean fire or custom´s office...
i have really been enjoying myself so far and one of my favorite things is all of the different languages around me. i am constantly learning words in french, spanish, german and finnish while explain english to everyone. sometimes we are all lost in translation, but luckily usually end up having a good laugh about it. for example, in my studio lecture my professor was explaining that "to really understand the architect, you need to get in his pants" i laughed out loud, but looking around me everyone else kept furiously scribbling down notes... later i explained to my friends that it is a much better idea to just "walk in his shoes."
well, i am off to a lecture on modern nordic architecture! i am so thankful for all of your notes and comments! it is great to hear from so many of you. i will try to put up pictures soon. what is going on back at home? any big news i should be aware of?
peace-
ps: good news with my computer... dell is sending a new motherboard to finland and will contact me when it arrives to fix me up! they said it will take from 2-4 weeks! yay!
finally, we see the sun in oulu! after a week of overcast skies i have now seen the sun and blue sky for two days in a row! here fall is in full bloom with all of the trees bursting with orange, yellows and reds. yesterday, i took a relaxing walk with some friends to a lake only a few minutes from where i live.... it was perfectly calm and reflected the changing season in the blue water refreshing my spirit and delighting my senses. i felt like a true finn hiking through the forest. we ended up wandering through the university botanical gardens (very beautifully kept, and they had a whole hill of plants from north america making me feel right at home)...
this week has just flown by and i see now that it has been a whole week since my last update.... i will try to do better!
the highlights of my week this week are many, but the first was a welcome banquet reception on wednesday that the city of oulu held for all the exchange students! held in the city hall, we were greeted by the mayor of oulu and treated to champagne, wine and a full plate of tasty dishes. it was a very generous and friendly way to welcome me to oulu and i got to meet a city businessman who has lived here for the last 25 years but is originally from minnesota! kind of crazy. i will put a picture up of the hall sometime soon...
on thursday afternoon, i got the chance to play some finnish baseball with a whole mess of other exchange students through ESN (erasmus student network, a really sweet program that sponsors events each week and trips around... i am going to russia with them at some point!). as most of you know i do not have a great amount of hand, eye, bat coordination (think p+w softball) so finnish baseball is the perfect solution! instead of having a ball pitched to you the pitcher stands an arm length away and just tosses the ball up into the air for the batter to swing at... you get three chances and you have the choice to run on any of your hits, or just take off running without even hitting (usually what i did) then you run to first which is off to the left, second to the front and right and then third even farther away to the left again.. the bases are kind of in a zigzag and then you have to run back to home. you also can steal bases at any time which makes the running a bit easier. it was really fun to play a new game, and astonishingly enough, i wasn´t even the worst player out there! hahaha.
it was great because after the game we asked a finnish guy to take our picture and being the typical finn he just stood there silently taking our photo without a smile or even a 1, 2, 3! the finns are typically quite reserved and from what i have seen so far it has been true (except when they get some drink in them), at least that is what they keep telling us. they also told us at orientation that it is hard to make friends with a finn, but once you do, you are friends for life!
speaking of friends, i just found out that i am going to have a kummi family, which means that i get a finnish family to be friends with and do typical finnish activities! i get their contact info today and look forward to meeting them soon.
my other exciting event of the week was experiencing the finnish sauna! there is actually a sauna in the building next to my dorm and so a group of friends and i all went together to try it out. it was very hot inside, no surprise, and it hit about 80* C, or 176*F.... we stayed in for about 5-10 min. and then went directly outside the sauna to very cold showers and then back and forth several times... afterwards, i felt like a puddle all relaxed and warm! it was delightful and i know i will be there a lot this winter.
not much else is new, just settling into school and classwork...i have my third finnish lesson today and have much to master... the double consonents and vowels are really difficult to hear but i am working on it. it makes a huge difference, with one missing a word could mean fire or custom´s office...
i have really been enjoying myself so far and one of my favorite things is all of the different languages around me. i am constantly learning words in french, spanish, german and finnish while explain english to everyone. sometimes we are all lost in translation, but luckily usually end up having a good laugh about it. for example, in my studio lecture my professor was explaining that "to really understand the architect, you need to get in his pants" i laughed out loud, but looking around me everyone else kept furiously scribbling down notes... later i explained to my friends that it is a much better idea to just "walk in his shoes."
well, i am off to a lecture on modern nordic architecture! i am so thankful for all of your notes and comments! it is great to hear from so many of you. i will try to put up pictures soon. what is going on back at home? any big news i should be aware of?
peace-
ps: good news with my computer... dell is sending a new motherboard to finland and will contact me when it arrives to fix me up! they said it will take from 2-4 weeks! yay!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
day 10
so today is my 10th day here in oulu... it is crazy how much can happen in 10 days. i still feel in a bit of a daze with all of the running around trying to get everything figured out! (i had to sign up for internet on campus, then pay for it downtown, get a bank account but first get a paper from an office on campus, sign up for a student id card, but pick it up downtown, buy a cell phone, buy a bus pass, buy a sports hall pass, sign up for classes etc.etc.) hopefully, my routine will start to kick in soon and things will be more normal....
but i can't complain, oulu is a great place to be! my kummi student is maiju (kummi means godparent) she has been most helpful showing me around the campus and the town... she is so exhuberent and sweet, i think i have the best one! it is perfect because there are about 8 of us in her group so we immediately can start here with a group of friends... on one of my first days she was showing us the city library and theatre and stopped in the street to show us a traditional finnish dance that looks a lot like the bunny hop!
so the campus is set up outside the city about 6km and i live on the campus on yliopistokatu (university street)... my building is 8 stories and i live on the 5th floor with 3 other official roommates (julia from germany, dawn from france, and violet from china) and then 2 extra french girls juliette and anais (who sleeps on my floor) until they move into their flat downtown on oct. 1st. they are already fast friends. it is crazy that all of these people from paris and madrid and bavaria and all over can all come together and understand eachother so well. we all really do have so much in common it is hilarious..we sang sing star karaoke at my place sat. night after going to the most amazing opera (orpheus and eurydike) at the city theatre and everyone could sing along to the same stupid pop songs..we all grew up with a lot of the same popular culture and yet we have so much to learn from eachother at the same time... we spend hours just talking, laughing, translating and looking up eachother's houses on google earth.
i feel good here, minus the fact that my computer is broken. also, today in the wood shop i was lowering the planer sander table with the automatic control and all of a sudden i heard a big snap! and one of the internal bearings broke because the back of the table got caught on a piece of wood that i couldn't see! so we had to finish our sculpture by with a hand sander, but it ended up looking ok... but still it was a bit stressful.
well i need to make some dinner and do some homework! i will write more when i can.
but i can't complain, oulu is a great place to be! my kummi student is maiju (kummi means godparent) she has been most helpful showing me around the campus and the town... she is so exhuberent and sweet, i think i have the best one! it is perfect because there are about 8 of us in her group so we immediately can start here with a group of friends... on one of my first days she was showing us the city library and theatre and stopped in the street to show us a traditional finnish dance that looks a lot like the bunny hop!
so the campus is set up outside the city about 6km and i live on the campus on yliopistokatu (university street)... my building is 8 stories and i live on the 5th floor with 3 other official roommates (julia from germany, dawn from france, and violet from china) and then 2 extra french girls juliette and anais (who sleeps on my floor) until they move into their flat downtown on oct. 1st. they are already fast friends. it is crazy that all of these people from paris and madrid and bavaria and all over can all come together and understand eachother so well. we all really do have so much in common it is hilarious..we sang sing star karaoke at my place sat. night after going to the most amazing opera (orpheus and eurydike) at the city theatre and everyone could sing along to the same stupid pop songs..we all grew up with a lot of the same popular culture and yet we have so much to learn from eachother at the same time... we spend hours just talking, laughing, translating and looking up eachother's houses on google earth.
i feel good here, minus the fact that my computer is broken. also, today in the wood shop i was lowering the planer sander table with the automatic control and all of a sudden i heard a big snap! and one of the internal bearings broke because the back of the table got caught on a piece of wood that i couldn't see! so we had to finish our sculpture by with a hand sander, but it ended up looking ok... but still it was a bit stressful.
well i need to make some dinner and do some homework! i will write more when i can.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
suomi (finland)
so i made it to oulu! it is a beautiful city and the air is so crisp and fresh. everything seems cleaner in finland from the smell of the air to the minimal nordic aesthetic. i couldn't be happier!
so to begin my journey... i left from cedar falls with bjorn on thursday around 2pm and he drove me to minneapolis where i my plane took off at 9pm! i had a great flight over the atlantic, it was really strange because i was sitting in the second to last row in a window seat and this man came and sat down next to me. the whole time he looked really uncomfortable and irritated and i could tell he didn't want to talk, so i figured it might be an awkard 9 hours! so before we take off the man gets up and goes to the back of the plane and then returns about a minute later... then out of nowhere a flight attendent comes up to me and says, "miss, you can move to the front where you can have a window seat and more space." so i followed her all the way to the second row behind first class and had my very own two whole seats! it was a great flight with a good hot dinner and breakfast.the 9 hours flew by as i watched the sex and the city movie (pretty good, although i was a bit disappointed), drank 2 glasses of wine and proceeded to sleep pretty much the last 5 hours!
In amsterdam i had a short 2 hour layover and then i was on my way to helsinki! in helsinki i immediately got all my baggage and went to the domestic flights where i waited for 4 hours to catch my cheap blue1 flight to oulu! by this time i was very exhausted, yet so excited to be near my destination! as we flew out of helsinki i could only keep my eyes open long enough to see fireworks exploding in the distance as if welcoming me to my finnish adventure.
after landing in oulu we walked in the cold finnish air into the airport to baggage claim! waiting for my bags i met a dozen other exchange students and we all became fast friends as we took taxis into town. after dropping off my bags into my room (it is great all white, yellow and blue and very cheery) i went with my new french friend, anais (she is also sharing my room until oct. 1st when her flat is ready!) to a close building where a number of the other design and architecture students were having a party! ildika (from hungary) had made hungarian food and eleanora (from roma) made pasta, so it was great to eat a warm meal. everyone is super friendly and seems to be here for the same reasons as myself! it is so great.
now i have been here for 5 days and it feels like i already have many good friends. i am getting my barings aorund the city and am finally figuring out what my schedule will be for the semester. i am looking forward to tomorrow when we start our first class in the woodshop!
more news and pictures later... i now have to get ready for the vulcanalia (a big party for all oulu students sponsored by the university!)
so to begin my journey... i left from cedar falls with bjorn on thursday around 2pm and he drove me to minneapolis where i my plane took off at 9pm! i had a great flight over the atlantic, it was really strange because i was sitting in the second to last row in a window seat and this man came and sat down next to me. the whole time he looked really uncomfortable and irritated and i could tell he didn't want to talk, so i figured it might be an awkard 9 hours! so before we take off the man gets up and goes to the back of the plane and then returns about a minute later... then out of nowhere a flight attendent comes up to me and says, "miss, you can move to the front where you can have a window seat and more space." so i followed her all the way to the second row behind first class and had my very own two whole seats! it was a great flight with a good hot dinner and breakfast.the 9 hours flew by as i watched the sex and the city movie (pretty good, although i was a bit disappointed), drank 2 glasses of wine and proceeded to sleep pretty much the last 5 hours!
In amsterdam i had a short 2 hour layover and then i was on my way to helsinki! in helsinki i immediately got all my baggage and went to the domestic flights where i waited for 4 hours to catch my cheap blue1 flight to oulu! by this time i was very exhausted, yet so excited to be near my destination! as we flew out of helsinki i could only keep my eyes open long enough to see fireworks exploding in the distance as if welcoming me to my finnish adventure.
after landing in oulu we walked in the cold finnish air into the airport to baggage claim! waiting for my bags i met a dozen other exchange students and we all became fast friends as we took taxis into town. after dropping off my bags into my room (it is great all white, yellow and blue and very cheery) i went with my new french friend, anais (she is also sharing my room until oct. 1st when her flat is ready!) to a close building where a number of the other design and architecture students were having a party! ildika (from hungary) had made hungarian food and eleanora (from roma) made pasta, so it was great to eat a warm meal. everyone is super friendly and seems to be here for the same reasons as myself! it is so great.
now i have been here for 5 days and it feels like i already have many good friends. i am getting my barings aorund the city and am finally figuring out what my schedule will be for the semester. i am looking forward to tomorrow when we start our first class in the woodshop!
more news and pictures later... i now have to get ready for the vulcanalia (a big party for all oulu students sponsored by the university!)
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