It has been a year since I first stepped my feet on Norway‘s soil. Many events happened during the last one year, adding new experiences to my personal and unique life-experience library in my mind. However, it is sometimes difficult to direct the memory pointer to the correct storage point inside the memory repository, and thus, copying them to the outside world (from my brain’s perspective), in this case a weblog, may ease the searching process when in need. The bad news is that one year is long enough for me to forget many details. Thus, the granularity may not be so high.
I have been living in Grimstad, a lovely small town in southern tip of Norway, since I first came to Norway in November 2010. The winter may look somehow gloomy for some people, but the summer is definitely enchanting, to a point that I felt I wanted it to last forever. This is in particular true especially since I live in an apartment by the sea. The beach is an excellent place to relax during the mid of year season with a very beautiful scenery in the surrounding. The only downside I experienced during the golden season of the year was the fact that the weather was a bit unpredictable. When rain came, the temperature could drop suddenly to a situation where I needed more layers of clothing than just wearing a mere t-shirt.
Groos beach - Grimstad, Norway
I was busy writing project description related to my work during the first couple of months of stay in Norway. I was quite new in the research arena, and I found being employed as a research fellow was quite tough. But hopefully the initial hardships will yield sweet fruits in the future. My research project proposal was approved around February 2011 by the research education committee, and I started to conduct the planned steps. As part of the PhD programme, I had to take 30 ECTS credits of courses during the entire lifetime of the contract, and thank God I have completed 25 of the projected 30 credits at the time of writing of this post. The first year was not that bad as I managed to publish two papers at IEEE-channel conferences, although I must admit that the papers were not of high quality.
In mid March 2011, I was invited by one of my supervisors to take part in a study tour to Edinburgh, UK. This trip was mainly a visitation to several partner institutions in the UK which had conducted some collaborations with the university (my current employer) in the past.
Edinburgh castle, Edinburgh, UK
In late March 2011 I travelled to Oslo for attending a block course which lasted for several weeks, and in mid April 2011 I went to Kjeller for a block seminar which lasted for several days.
Royal Palace, Oslo, Norway
In late May 2011 I travelled to Aachen, Germany, to fetch my left luggage in my previous apartment. My sincere thank you to my previous flatmate as well as friend who stayed in my old room. Congratulations to him as well for landing a high-profile job at Facebook‘s HQ in the US.
June 2011 was quite a busy month since I had to travel to Missouri, US, for presenting my first paper, and continued with another trip to Lesbos, Greece, for attending a mandatory summer course in Philosophy. A paper deadline by the end of June made things look worse, but in the end I managed to go through all hurdles on my way.
University of Missouri - Columbia, MO, USA
- Lesbos, Greece
In July 2011 I visited Indonesia and met my big families and old friends.
Borobudur temple, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
In late August 2011 I presented my work progress in a PhD forum at UiA.
PhD forum ICT UiA, Grimstad, Norway
In early September 2011 I presented a poster in another PhD forum at UiA, but this time held jointly with Mechatronics department. Soon after I presented my second paper in Gjøvik, Norway.
PhD forum ICT-Mechatronics UiA, Grimstad, Norway
Gjøvik, Norway
In mid September 2011 I had the chance for visiting Stockholm with some friends for several days.
Stockholm, Sweden
In late October 2011 I presented my latest work progress in a workshop in Copenhagen.
Copenhagen, Denmark
And at last, I was born in November. This means I am a year older now. I do hope that I will be wiser, smarter, and stronger. Hopefully the road ahead will open up a way for me to taste more interesting experiences, and hopefully good things will come my way.
And yet you always talk as if you don’t perform well. Man, my inferiority complex rises (again) while reading this post
hahahahah
I personally think that way (much space for improvement). I believe you shouldn’t feel that way man
Daffe! cool post.. the first paragraph sounds a bit geeky
Thanks a lot Rakeb! Nice point. Actually I tried to sound a beet geeky in that particular paragraph
Great to hear you’re having so much fun while also traveling. Let me know when you’re anywhere near Dublin.
Hi Alex! Thanks a lot for visiting my blog (which unfortunately I couldn’t manage to update regularly). Nice to hearing from you as well. Hope you are doing well in Dublin. I’d really like to visit Dublin. It’d be great if we can meet up. Let’s see when I can travel there.