Campus is so empty...

...because nearly everybody left. You almost feel as if you were lost.

I got up at around 9 today morning. I could sleep a little bit better than last night, which was good because otherwise I would have been really tired.

I made myself a sandwich. Joe also came over to our room to have breakfast with us.

The last day before recess...

Today was luckily the last school day before the one week mid-semester recess.

I was really tired this morning, because I couldn’t sleep for a single minute last night. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t. I’m just not used to have someone else in my room!

What a day...

… it begun actually very nice. I went to my English class just to find out that there was no class, since we had the test yesterday.

That gave me the chance to study a little bit more for Business Accounting and Software Engineering.

Back to normal… - but actually not!

The first class was Database Programming today. I feared that we had to write a test, but luckily we didn’t. Instead we got a lot of homework. We have to write SQL queries to perform certain tasks.

Statistics was as usual but we didn’t have Business Accounting today, because we’re writing a test tomorrow and the lecturer gave us the time today to study.

An exciting and long weekend...

...is almost over now.

My cold is nearly gone and I already feel much better than last week, even though I had a bad headache all day long today. My stomach also feels a little bit strange today. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t update the Journal so far. I’ll catch up during the next days.

Photo Gallery Online

Today is a Public Holiday in Namibia and I took the time to finish up my Photo Gallery. Have a look at:

http://www.kretzschmar.org/namibia/gallery.

I’m planning to update the Photo Gallery as new photos come along, even though I didn’t manage yet to update the gallery with all the photos I took so far. This will be done during the next weeks.

No school today..

… since tomorrow is a Holiday. And since people over here also like to have long weekends they decided to close the school for today.

It is nearly the same at the UAS Jena. If there is a Holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday they always also close the UAS on the corresponding Monday or Friday.

Herero Day in Okahandja

I slept long after this great and exciting night yesterday. I guess I really needed the rest.

Bernd Schulz planned to go to Okahandja to watch the Herero people to celebrate their Holyday and he was again so kind to invite me to join him.

Windhoek rocks...

Since I went to bed very late again yesterday, I slept long today morning. I think it was almost around 10 when I got up.

I used the time to organize all my photos I took so far. I also started to work on my long promised photo gallery section of my journal.

A day packed with impressions.

I really got up early today, because I didn’t want to miss breakfast again. So I set my clock to ring at 6 am, which was awfully early.

But in fact I had enough time to shower and get ready. I even had enough time to eat without any hassle, since I didn’t have a class during first period.

The mission continues.

I took things slow again today. So it was in fact another relaxing day.

I think I’m on the right track, since I already feel a little bit better compared to yesterday.

Today I had a mission.

The mission to get healthy again!

I’m just so tired of being sick! I can’t really enjoy anything. And to make bad things worse, I missed breakfast again today because I got up too late. I went to the dining hall like 5 minutes to 7:30 but the kitchen was already closed.

Uh - what a tough day.

Even though I have medicine now I don’t feel that it’s getting better. OK I just bought it yesterday and those things are just normal medicine and no antibiotics, so I can’t really expect to feel better by now. But my goal is to get rid of this cold until the weekend!

Everything is about having goals - don’t you think?! :)

This day went by like nothing.

It was a normal day at the Polytechnic I guess.

Classes were Ok, and a lot of homework to do until tomorrow. I’m beginning to think that the lecturers do this on purpose just to keep the students busy and away from bad things…

Time to catch up with things

I slept a bit longer today, since Joe came over to my room yesterday night. Elizer joined us a little bit later. We talked and surfed the net. I explained some basic html to them and afterwards we did some Java exercises.

I am sorry, that I didn’t have the time to update my journal during the last days, but I was really busy with statistics and the other classes. And I still have to catch up, since I came two weeks after the beginning of the semester.

School even on Saturdays..

Well, luckily not every Saturday, just this one. And I also knew it already since my first week here.

It was a workshop about Communication Skills for Software Engineers. It was about how to structure Interviews, how to approach clients and how to eventually get all the system requirements you need from the client in order to do your work.

Fridays are nice days.

Especially if I don’t have to get up early. I realize that I still do a great deal of sleeping over here, but I feel that I need it somehow. Days are still very tiring for me, which means I still have to get used to the surrounding over here.

Another thing that adds towards this is that I didn’t have any vacation this year so far. I just finished the semester in Jena and went straight to Namibia to start studying again…

Statistics here, statistics there...

.. it’s chasing me like a bad dream.

I got up early today to keep practising some more statistics. Actually it’s not that difficult, but I still have a hard time understanding some of the special terminology.

studying...

It was the second time today that we practised some SQL things with Oracle. As good and well known Oracle is, it also has some flaws. We were using the Oracle SQL Shell to perform some queries, but there is no real command prompt history available. With MySQL for example you just press the arrow up key and you can scroll trough your last commands. With Oracle you have to type the whole query in again if you did something wrong.

Tomorrow is my first big test and since I’m a “lucky” guy it has to be statistics out of all things.

Brrr - what a cold day today.

And I expected Namibia to be a warm country. But I guess I was wrong. To be honest I didn’t expect the winter over here to be that cold. Your have to wear a jacket all day long, even though the sun is shining and there are no clouds at all.

We had a little test today in our Database Class. It wasn’t really that difficult. I think I’ve got most of the answers right, I only missed some. For example I didn’t really know what a database domain was supposed to be. When I hear the word domain I’m always thinking of Internet domain names…

Internet access at my room!

They finally managed to hook up my telephone line to their internal system, meaning I have Internet access at my room from now on! :)

I hope to see ya guys on Trillian, later on!

And a very big thank you to everyone involved at the Polytechnic in making this possible!!!

The new design is online!

I just went down to the Main network Department to connect my Notebook to the Internet. They don’t have any restrictions down here.

I updated the main weblog files and put the new design online. I hope you like it. Please let me know!

I just updated the journal...

..with the entries I wrote during the weekend. Sorry that I didn’t leave a message before the weekend, but I had no chance to get back on the Internet last Friday.

It was very windy last night...

...but I slept very well. I think I got used to my room by now. I don’t have to worry to fall asleep anymore. It was difficult during the first days, when I really wanted to sleep but I couldn’t.

But I think this is normal. I mean, I’m nearly 8000 km away from home somewhere on the southern hemisphere. It is just not possible for a human to adapt just right away. OK there might be people out there who don’t really have a problem this. And their body adapts within minutes to new circumstances.

But for me, I’m definitely not such a person. I even have a difficult time to fall asleep in a car or in a train, not to speak of a plane.

A very restful Saturday

Well, I didn’t really do anything this morning, except to organize my pictures a little bit.

I also started to work on the new design of my journal. I played around with some graphics and pictures. It took a little while until I came up with some nice ideas and a structure I liked, but I wasn’t really up to work hard. I wanted to relax a little bit, since the last days were really exciting and packed with things.

Music in the morning

As anticipated I slept very long tonight. I think it was already 9 when I woke up. Some soft music was playing at my neighbour’s room. That was nice. So I stayed a little bit longer in my bed, just listening to the music. I almost fell asleep again.

I almost felt like at home, where I keep the remote next to my bed so I don’t have to get up to switch on the music. Here, I don’t even need a radio. :)

Miss Polytechnic Crowning

Today morning on my way to breakfast, I accidentally met the guy who was supposed to install the telephone line for Internet access in my room. Since I only had 3 classes today, we made an appointment for 10:30 to meet at my room.

I was there at 10:30, but take a guess who wasn’t? I waited until 11 then I went to the CED Centre (Centre for Entrepreneurial Development) to hook up my notebook to the Internet and to surf a bit on the Net.

I love Thursdays...

..at least since I got my timetable set up. Thursday is the only day during the week besides the weekend where I don’t have to get up early.

Therefore my first class was Object Oriented Technology at 9:30. The lecturer marked the first Class Exercises today. I got all points which was nice, but to be honest, the exercise wasn’t very difficult.

Days are already starting to fly away...

… which is in fact a very good thing.

We all know days that just don’t want to end. Normally nothing really exciting or good happens on those days. It’s even difficult to recall those a week later, because nothing which is worth to be remembered really happened.

And on the other hand there are days that just fly by like a rocket. Those days don’t necessarily have to be stress. In fact it was a really relaxing day today. I slept very good, had a nice breakfast and good classes afterwards.

Today was an exciting day...

… not only did I come to Namibia a week ago, no, also the Cultural Festival at the Polytechnic campus started today.

I had my first class today at 7:30. I skipped breakfast today morning and slept almost until 7:30. I could have easily slept until 9 am I guess. It is actually a very nice thing if you stay at the campus, you just have to drop out of bed to attend your class.

Actually I already wanted to sleep very deeply by now..

..but somehow I ended up to have my room next to one of the few guys here at the Polytechnic who got their own TV and this one is wicked loud! He’s the superintendent of the men’s hostel, so I can’t and I don’t want to say anything.

I guess they gave me this room, because it’s one of the few rooms that have extra metal bars in front of the door and the balcony. I can’t sleep right now but at least I feel save! Let me see if I can get myself some oropacks tomorrow.

Today was the first time where I was able to use my Java skills.

We had to write a little program in our OOT class today. We had to simulate a car race. the lecturer gave us plenty of time to finish it up, because the students here don’t really all have the same level of knowledge. After I finished the program, there was still a lot of time left and I helped some girls to finish up their work.

It is really easy to get to know people here during class, because they do a lot of group work. And nearly everybody here is easy going.

Hooked up to the Internet again! :)

I just finished my first class (Object Oriented Technology) for today and went down to one of the Computer Labs to hook up my notebook to the Internet to update everything I wrote over the weekend.

It was a quiet and relaxing day today.

I got up around 9 in the morning, which was kind of nice. I didn’t really sleep very well. I don’t know why, actually I should because I was really tired yesterday but somehow I had a hard time to fall asleep. There was always something going on around.

I did some journal writing until lunch. I was eating with some guy. He is studying some kind of civil engineering, but I don’t really remember his course of study.

Ahh, finally Saturday...

I was glad, that I could sleep a little bit longer than the days before. After a refreshing shower I went to eat breakfast. It was porridge with toast, butter and jelly again. I kind of like it, but concerning the porridge I rather think it is some kind of semolina pudding, at least this is what the dictionary says. It is rather sweet. In Germany we would call it “Grießbreiâ€� - Zucker ist drauf, nur Zimt fehlt…

Heute war der erste Tag, wo ich...

… meine Kurse zumindest halbwegs vorher durchgeplant hatte.

7:30 Uhr Object Oriented Technology

8:30 Uhr Statistics

9:30 Business Accounting

Dannach bin ich zu Mr. Kiekebusch dem Head of Department of Information Technology…