Student life

I have succesfully started my schoolwork in Australia. I have classes from monday to thursday, so I have an extended weekend. So far the classes seem similar to ones we had back in Finland and perhaps the only bigger difference is the interaction between the professor and the students. On all my 3 courses the prof usually asks lots of questions/opinions from us students and it seems that the aussies are quite keen to answer. In Finland the lecturer usually has to bribe the audience (with chocolate/alcohol...) to get some kind of conversation.

My courses are:
International business and finance: Concentrating in international affairs, multinational companies etc. The lecturer has a strong mid-eastern/indian accent and it really takes a strong effort to follow. Apu the shopkeeper in Simpsons has the similar accent.


Macroeconomics II: Gets a little bit deeper in the macroeconomics than the basic course I had back in Finland. There are 2 lecturers, the first one is an american guy whose english is really easy to understand and the second one is a woman who speaks with an african accent. The latter is hard to understand, but I think I'm gonna get it after few classes.

Machine intelligence: I'm trying to get this part of my major degree in software engineering. It's a course containing more than just the artificial intelligence. Course consists of machine learning, automated reasoning and logic, search and prediction in games, evolutionary algorithms, adaptive robotics and there's also some topics about neural networks and brain mechanisms. It seems that course puts lots of weight into mathematical issues. The professor is easy to follow, but the topic always isn't :)

It's my birthday today. I had few beers when the day changed with my blockmates and there's going to be a bigger party in the evening. That's one of the best reasons to live in campus, there's always something happening. For example one peaceful evening I was sitting in front of our house and chatting with a japanese girl Akari. The surroundings were totally quiet excluding the normal surring of cricquets(don't know how to spell this one). Anyways, this campus security officer arrives from nowhere and askes us if we've seen a naked guy running around. Due to my strong respect towards the authority, I didn't have guts to say that in Finland it's one of our national sports to run around naked and do somersaults into the snow.