I finally found some time to upload the pictures of the rest of the F1 GP.  I can only say it has been the best race I’ve ever attended.

Saturday, the free trainings were quite promising for Alonso, as he was still the fastest driver in the track. But the qualification rounds were quite full of emotions: Alonso broke during the 2º round, unable to finish a lap.. he was going to start the race in the 15th position, nearly killing all the possibilities for being in the top3 during the race, as Singaporean track has very few overtaking zones… Hamilton had a little stress too, as he passed the 2º qualification round on the 10th position. Even if I was quite sad because of Alonso’’s qualification, I enjoyed the Saturday, as i really like the sound of this amazing cars. We were not able to do the same thing than Friday (going around the circuit and seating nearly where we wanted), as the police control was more important.

Sunday we went to the circuit quite early, in order to visit it a little more, Jukka also wanted to find a Finnish flag (with no luck!).We were finally able to find some cold beer without a 3h queue, so we enjoyed it while looking the Porsche race. Then we managed to see the driver’s parade in the front row (we sneaked in the front and acted as it was our seats lol) but we had to go back to our place for the F1 race… and what race! full of emotions, action, safety car! We really had good seats, as wee were able to see Piquet’s accident in front of us, and the weather was also good (there had been some rain at the beginning of the day). As you all know, Alonso got very lucky, as he did a Pit stop just before the safety car went in after Piquet’s accident. This, combined with his amazing skills made him win the race (in desperation of Jukka, as Kimi was favorite, and crashed 5laps to the end…). After the race, we went to some nightclubs stands inside the race (partied until midnight). In the way, we were able to see some Brazilian girls doing a show (see the pics, they were really.. nice!). Israel and me came back home together, took some pictures inside the circuit, and had some photos with the fireman.

Conclusion of the week end: best experience EVER!

Saturday Pics

Sunday Pics

Misc Pics

Yesterday took place the first free training sessions of the F1 in Singapore. When I woke up it was rainning as hell (see photos) and i thought it was gonna be quite a wet race. But the weather was nice for this first GP in singapore, and we had good weather during the afternoon / night. I’m just so exited about this GP, yesterday I really had a lot of fun, I was there with Jukka, first we stayed at our place in the Grandstand, and then we moved along the circuit, stoping here and there. After the second free training session, Alonso finished first. Even if if doesnt mean anything, it just says that he can be able to have a good race on sunday. Apparently all the pilots are very happy with the circuit, not noticing the “night” part of the GP, just saying that the circuit is really physical.

The photos (just a little selection of them, did nearly 400 yesterday!):

PS: The philippines trip detail will come next week sorry!

Yes, they are finally here. The mid-semester break (also called recess-week) is starting today, and last one week. It seems difficult to think that i only have 2 month left of studies… even less, as the last month is dedicated to… exams! So the next trip is going to be the last one before the exams (have loads of stuff to do).  I’m leaving on Monday for Boracay, Philippines, to spend 4 days of paradise relaxing on the beach. Will go there with Thomas, Ellen and Andreas. Will be leaving them early, Thursday night, as I want to attend the F1 GP race.

About that, I’m so exited been able to be in this historical GP, as it’s the first time in the history of F1 that a race takes place in singapore, and therefore by night. I’ve been able to change my tickets. At the beginning I had the basic ones (walkabout) but as a friend of Jukka was unable to attend the race, I bought his tickets (double the price of the walkabout..) as they were on the Bay grandstand lower…. very good places were i should appreciate much better the race, we will even have big flat screens tv to see the hole race. The more the date approach, the more i get exited about it, as Singapore government is promoting it everywhere.. you can see ads all over the city, they even come to the campus to put simulations games.

After recess week, i will have tons of assigments to do, with lots of studyng (doesnt meen i’m not going clubbing of course!), and will still have to search for internship (no real answer yet )

Last Wednesday, I attended to a huge event in Singapore student life: MRT Pub Crawl. Organized by Desmond, a NTU friend, this event is quite popular, with a simple concept. The event is quite simple: loads of people traveling with the same flashy t-shirt from Boon Lay MRT station to Orchard MRT station, stopping 4-5 times in the way to have a drink. As we were a lot (~500 persons) we were divided in groups of 50.
The funny part is that everybody writes something in your t-shirt, to keep a good souvenir of the night. It’s also a great opportunity to meet new people. Once arrived in Orchard, we headed to Thumper, a nightclub especially booked for all Crawlers. Very nice night, had a lot of fun

Photooosss:

As some of you may have seen, i’ve published the page containing the Bangkok trip. There is still some problems with it (photos of the second day unavailable, map not working ~~) but the big thing is there. At the end of the page I’ve linked Thomas’s picasa album, in order for you to see more pictures (as i always hear that there is not enought photos of me!).

This week is gonna be a hard week, a lot to do as we must finish a lot of assigments (they are nomally due for the end of the recess week, but as we go out of the country we must finish them before!). Next week we are going to Philippines, to Boracay, and i will leave Thomas and Ellen earlier because I want to attend the F1 GP race (yehaa!).

I will keep you posted about all this. Everything is ok, the weather is actually quite good!

Last week i had my first archery competition with my new team (Ntu uni team). Was quite exited about it because it was my first competition here, had to show my skills and also was the biggest competition I’ve ever attended (more than 200 archers…). The competition was separated in two days: Saturday we had the individual competitions (12 rounds of  3 arrows @ 50m and then 12 rounds of 3 arrows @ 30m) and Sunday the team competition (@ 50m).
The Sunday initial matches were gonna be determined by the sum of the team’s members score in the individual competition.

Saturday Wake up time: ~ 10 am (nice.. ’cause i went to a birthday party on Friday!)
The day seemed to be very good for archery: no wind and very sunny. We took several cabs to go there, as it was quite fa away from any mrt station. The competition started quite late because the beginners competition took longer. Everything was ok until the weather made fun of us (typically Sinngaporean ). Started raining a bit, then sunny, then wind, then Storms (with stormlights!). Because of the weather (not really used to shoot under this conditions) and my light training at the beginning, I didnt do that well (254 @ 50m.. usually i do ~ 270-280 and 278@30m). At the end of the day i was wet from top to bottom, and pissed because of my poor performance. Went back home and had a beer with Thomas at the Staff Club (.. and Pamela!). At midnight, the results were released (the judges had to send them by mail…) and the result was not that bad: finished 20 out of 82, and my team was 3rd out of 8 qualificated.

Sunday Wake up time: ~ 6am (>.<)
Ok… getting up so early is not something I really like but hey, we had a competition! Not that much to say. we arrived there and didnt do that well on the team competition. As i was the fastest shooter, i had to shoot the last 2 arrows of the team, but hadnt that much time to do it (120sec for 6 arrows, and i only had 30sec in average for my 2 arrows).  Well, we were eliminated on the first round by 2 points (282 vs 284…) by the 6th team (who at the end won the commpetition). The senior’s team did quite better, as they finished 2º on the competition, loosing the 1ºst position by few points. Here are the pics:

Little post to say that i’ve updated and published the page about Bintan trip. This weekend, we had planned to go to Kuala Lumpur, but as we were quite late to take the last bus to KL from Singapore, we just stayed in the city. On friday, we wanted to go to Zouk (a nightclub we havent been there yet) but too late to have the cheap price to get in… So instead we took a cab and went to StJames, Movida! really good night, where we met some nice girls (Samantha, Jessica…) from singapore (the even offered us a drink). Then, in Movida, we had a good time with the dancers and singers there (speaking spanish a good point when dealing with south americans..) and got an invitation for a party on Sentosa beach tomorrow.. let’s see how it’s gonna be!

Today, i’ve been shooting a while (i do some archery), and also studying (yes, i’ve to study!). Dinner with Tyler, Ellen and Thomas in a restaurant!

When someone speaks about what you need to do once in Singapore for the first time, they say few things: Chinatown, litlle india, Sentosa and the night Safari (.. and the Zoo, the botanic garden…). So as we were staying in Singapore the week end of 9 August, we decided to go to the night Safari. The concept is very simple: it’s a place like a Zoo, where you can walk and see the animals. You can also take a Bus inside the zoo, if you don’t want to walk. Why this place is interesting? because, as you visit it by night, the animals are normally more awake than by day. The other good thing about this special Zoo is that there is no cage: the animals cannot go out of their zone, as they are blocked by natural obstacles.
Some comments on the night: I’ve been unable to take good photos of the animals, as we were forbidden to use the flash and there was pratically no light. The zoo was quite good, even if the animals were not that awake…
We took the big visit by bus (open bus) and it was quite good, as the bus cross some zones where the animals are in the middle of the road! We could go out of the bus on the middle of the path, and visit some good animals parts: flying squirrels and the cage of the bats (you enter in a cage where there are huge bats (when i say huge, it’s really huge… we saw a bat with 1m of wingspan…).
Here are the photos (with some fire demonstration while waiting for everybody)

As everyone has been asking for it, yes, I finally have a timetable.

It’s been quite a lot of work to get everything working and having my courses. These are the courses in wich I’m enrolled:

• Artificial Intelligence
  
• Computer graphics
• Cryptography and Network Security
• Game Design Workshop
• Principles of Economics
• History of Animation

Why these courses? Before explaining, I must add that my home university wants 4 courses validated at the end of the semester in order to get my exchange validated. Among these 4 courses, at least 3 have to be computer related.

Cryptography and Network Security is a course I’m really going to enjoy, because it’s a very interesting area and (maybe) is going to be the area I would like to work in. Only problem: it’s a very hard course, with looots of mathematics (and everyone knows how i hate them) and hard assignments and exams.

That’s the reason why I took Artificial Intelligence. The course seems easy, as I did AI last semester and was comfortable in it. There seems to be quite a lot of little assignments, and the exam is open book (nearly all the exams here are closed books).

Computer graphics: a course I wanted to take because I like computer generated images. It seems a very interesting course, even if there are some mathematics in it (level of baccalaureat, so shouldn’t be that difficult). The different assignments are very interesting: i will be building my own virtual house to put in the virtual campus, and stuff like that

Game design workshop: another very interesting course. This course takes place in the art and design school, the best building on campus. Nearly every student here is an artist, they are very interesting people. The only mark comes from a game we will be building during the semester in a 5 person-team. This makes a difference because it’s going to be the first time I really work with non-programmers in a project, and hope the result is going to be good (at least for once we should get good graphics on the final program ). The teacher is very good, the workshop very pleasant.

Principle of economics: I wanted to take some courses related to economics or management. I preferred this course because I wanted a good base of economics. At the moment  the lectures are very interesting, hope it’s gonna keep that way!

History of animation: Well, this course is just “for fun”. It also takes place in ADM (school of art design and media).  I really like animation movies (computer made the most), and the class and teacher are really interesting. 3h per week i just seat in a lecture theater with 2 projectors and see how we arrive to today’s animation. After the mid semester break, we will talk more about Japanese animation (manga)… sweet!

It was really hard to get some of these courses. At the beginning, I had to drop Neural Networks (really too hard for me), and had to drop Advanced Networks too in order to get Game design Workshop (not really a problem as the course covered what I already did last semester in my home university).

The difficulties came from Game design Workshop and History of animation. Here, at NTU, you have to proceed some steps before you have a vacancy in a class. First, you need to get the subject approved ( hard for the two courses because they are in ADM and not in computer engineering school). After that, you have to go through STARS (the internal web page to manage your courses), and hope to get a vacancy: at ntu you can have a course approved but no vacancy for it. So after I had the two courses approved, I didn’t had the vacancies. Then, as I really wanted to get into the courses, I went to see the studies president of ADM, which said that she was ok only if the teachers were ok… so I went to the first classes and they couldn’t say no to a lovely exchange student! Then I don’t know how, they got me a vacancy…

Now, here is my timetable: in orange, the tutorials (exercises).  A lot of gaps during the days, but at least I will be able to work during theses gaps. Friday is nearly off, so like this I can go out for the weekend quite early (I can even skip it if i really need to, as the lectures are recorded and avaible on the intranet…). Monday morning I’ve nothing (the lab is not mandatory, the classroom is just reserved for us during this time, but I’ve free access to it when I want…).

Hi! I’m catching up the delay I’ve with my entries. Today, I’ve finally finished writing down the Tioman trip. As some of you may have seen, I’ve added a subsection “Trips” on the Page section on the right. In this subsection, I will be putting down the different trips I’ve done. Like this it’s easy to find the page of a selected trip… The entry for Tioman is there (or for the lazy ones here , along with the Bintam trip (even if it’s still under the process of writing..). Hope i’m gonna finish writing it down before this week end, as we are leaving for Kuala Lumpur!

Cheers