KYRIAKOS ANASTASAKIS – ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΣ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΑΚΗΣ Blog

Well… even though I did absolutely nothing the whole week, I am still not planning to do anything today. In the morning I met again my flatmate from Jarratt (while I was staying over there two years ago). He came back from China for a while and I saw him again after almost 1 year. It is great to see people from the past.

I am also going to play basketball at 16:00 and then go home, have a shower and go to the GR with Thanos, Elias and Philipp to watch the Greece-Denmark game. That means no work today! Well.. tomorrow I have to get back to heavy research business, otherwise I will start getting stressed, which is not good!

In the morning I was woken up by Telewest. After that I tried to sleep a bit, but couldn’t really and I saw some of the most weird dreams I had ever seen! Anyway… I off to basketball… I just hope it stops raining… it’s been raining like hell for the past 2 hours and it’s gonna be difficult to go out…

This is the end of a quite busy week. The bottomline of this week is that there was no or little progress with research, as I had other issues to take care of. Had to register for the new term, give 2 lectures, demonstrate at the labs and take vivas. I honestly can not understand how time flies like that. It seems like yesterday as the previous week was coming to an end. Well.. in more details…

On Monday I started preparing for Tuesday’s lecture on the Foundations of Computer Science. On Tuesday I had the meeting for SSC1 and in the afternoon I had to demonstrate at the labs. So there goes 2 days. In the evening I also had to prepare for Wednesday’s lecture. Not so many people turned up, so I guess they didn’t like the first one on Tuesday. Then I went home and had to sleep. On Thursday morning I had quite a lot of sleep and then came to the uni for the labs sessions. Today, in the morning I had to stay in and wait for the technicians to come and fix the gas boiler. They didn’t for another time, claiming that their dealer didn’t have the spare parts they were supposed to get. So we rearranged the appointment for the coming Wed. morning.

I also paid the tuition fees this week. £3085! I have filled in the form to ask for the receipt, so as to send it back to IKY and get back the money. I hope I get it back soon!

I also booked the tickets for the Dio concert on Friday the 21rst. I hope it’s gonna be fun!

Well.. today it’s been a weird day. I had to wake up at 7:00 am local time in order to call a foundation in Greece at 9:00 am Greek time. That means I didn’t sleep much, I have a terrible headache and I am feeling sleepy all day long! I will be heading home in a short while.

I am also going to give some lectures on Tues. and Wed. and I have to prepare for those as well over the weekend, so I am expecting a quite busy weekend.

Researchwise I will try to use the latest QVT to define the transformation rules. We will see how this goes.

The past days have been quite busy. On Thursday and Friday I had been at the desk of the Hellenic Society at the freshers fair. Some pics can be found at: http://students.bugs.bham.ac.uk/hellenic/portal/boxx/knowledgebase.asp?Type=4&Cat=18

We signed up some 30+ members. We also decided to have a basketball team on the IMS. The team is called Greece’2005 after our national team won the Eurobasket 2005. That was a great event!

I am also back to research. Feel quite fresh and productive after 2 weeks of holidays. I wish I had more (I think I’ve said that before). I also had my first session as a demonstrator of SSC1 a while ago. As it was the first day, not so many people turned up, so things were quite relaxed. Having a snack break and going to watch Panathinaikos against Bremen. I am sure we won’t win (not to mention lose) but I am too bored to work and I want to see how bad the team will play.

I am back after two weeks of holidays. It was great. Just great! Had lot’s of rest, ouzo and food. The weather was great. Sunny and warm. Didn’t go swimming, but still… it was very nice and relaxing. Some pics:

My father outside the house.

My mom preparing a very nice barbecue.

Now back to work. The new term starts on Monday and a really busy winter is waiting for me! That’’s it… can’t write more! Have to get used to the laptop and long hours in the office again.

Well… looks like the preparations for the holidays are quite demanding! I have to clean the desk at the office, clean the house, pack my staff and take care of a couple of other bureaucratic details and install the new hdd at last!

I booked the tickets for the coach today. The return trip is going to be a mess. I will be arriving at Heathrow at 21:00 and the only coach available is at 23:59. I will be arriving home at 03:00 and I will have to wake up at 08:30.

On the outbound trip, I will be leaving Athens on the 9th after all. That gives me 11 days at the island. It should be enough to be bored to death…

P.S. I still haven’t received feedback for the first item I sold on eBay.

I am back from the conference in Norway. Haven’t posted in many days, so I guess a lot of news.

Trondheim is a very nice place and apart from the fact I caught a cold and my presentation was not exactly up to my expectations (well.. I suppose a cold is a good excuse) , the rest were fine. There were some really nice talks and it proved to me that not all research is just theory, which is a very very good thing. Pics will follow.

I also bought a nice WD Scorpio 80GB 2.5” HDD for my laptop from dabs today. I will replace the one that I currently have in my laptop and the old one will be used as an external backup disk.

P.S. Forgot to mention that I sent my first item sold on ebay yesterday. It was a memory module from my laptop, that I removed because of an upgrade. Sold for ~10 pounds + 3.5 pounds for the package, is not bad at all. I hope it reaches the buyer safe (well… the packaging is not exactly professional) and the feedback left is good. The next item I might be selling is the that voice I got and rarely used (why did I buy it in the first place then)?

Today I made my first listing as a seller on Ebay. I decided to sell my spare laptop memory module. It’s really easy to do it and it does not take so much time at all! It starts at 0.99 pounds. Let’s see how much money I am going to make on this…

At last after the admin jobs, I have started writing the thesis proposal. I’ve already reached 1000 words. Well… if I keep up like that I should be able to finish it in 15 days. I know this is not going to happen, but I want to finish it ASAP.

I am finishing work early today. Now going to watch football for the qualifying of the CL (Visla-PAO).