First LAN party in years

I spent yesterday evening and most of this morning on a LAN party, on invitation from one of the poeple in our dorm’s network team. It was the first LAN I’d been to since I started studying; kind of surprising considering how much I used to enjoy them in school.  We used to have a loose group of 6-10 people back then, and meet up in the living room of whoever’s house had been offered. Gaming fare consisted mostly of real-time strategy, with Age of Empires 2 being the initial staple, later to be replaced by Warcraft 3 when it came out. That gives you a general timeframe as well. As we used to play in teams of three or four people each, the games often took three hours per round, with maximum concentration all the way through. After one round like that, you need to chill out a little bit, so we’d normally turn to something brainless like Counterstrike (hereafter CS) for a while.

The party yesterday was different in that it was a pure CS occasion. Attempts to play something else were made, but failed because not everybody had the game in question. This was rather novel for me, because I’d never been that much of a CS fan, nor am I that good. But the nine hours yesterday were admittedly quite fun, so long as you can live with only occasional success. To say it truly, I had fun, but that doesn’t mean I won or did particularly well. I’ll leave that to the more experienced people. I don’t really like CS enough to put serious effort into it, not to mention that I have other obligations and interests, too.  So this was just a little entertainment on the side. I should get back to reading now, I think.

It’s been a long time

and I promise the next post will come sooner than that. The reason I stopped posting in the first place was my theoretical physics exam, which was in mid-december and required my full attention. After that, I somehow got caught up in christmas business (i.e., lazing around drinking Glühwein or shopping) and didn’t post, either. Now that christmas is past, I am finally getting back – I don’t want this blog to die on me, especially since I’ll most likely have a lot to tell in the future.

The past month has been most eventful, as well. For lack of space, I’ll give a bullet rundown:

• On november 26th, my choir participated in a big concert, the Elias by Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. The organizer had gathered three of the best local choirs, four very good solists, and his own Aachen symphony orchestra. Everybody but the choir were professional musicians and kicked ass. The concert itself went splendid; everything that had failed in the rehearsal suddenly seemed to work. Our pieces were well-enunciated, intense and powerful. The concert got rave reviews, with some critics actually writing four-column enumerations of our musical virtues. Very proud.
• On december 13th, I had my theoretical physics exam, which I’d prepared for for two months. Regretfully, the choice of topic level took me rather off-guard. The professor wanted to see basic principles and model operations demonstrated on paper – I’d practiced recounting complicated phenomena verbally. The result was a serious surprise and a not so pleasant C grade. I can and will retry, however, although the schedule is yet to be determined.
• After the exam was over, I could finally get some fun stuff done again. I spent two days just lazing around, reading books and watching movies, then got back to business a little bit. I had a first long talk with my future supervisor about my thesis, I got presents for all of my family (some difficult, others easy), I involved myself more in the work of the dorm network workgroup.
• Most of all, I finally started painting with acrylics. Acrylics are like nothing I’ve ever used before: A thick paste with very powerful color that dries quickly. I have three paintings in my gallery by now, but they show my inexperience. Even so, I’m enthusiastic. Acrylics are quite handy, allow segmented work and look quite professional, not to mention the colors can be incredibly deep. I’m not so good at brush handling yet; I still paint like I’m drawing with a pen. Since the brush is thick, this leads to imprecise outlines. It also means that my large surfaces have rather little character. But the second piece already was not a desaster. The main problem I have at the moment are ideas: Having a fun or beautiful idea behind every picture, something original and non-cliché. I’ve made a list of possible ideas, but I suspect I don’t have the technical skill to implement some of them.
• And, of course, we had christmas. Christmas is a close-family affair with us. This year, it was mostly my parents, one of my two brothers, and me. Our grandparents are deceased, my eldest brother has just moved to England and didn’t want to fly down here again right away, and most of our relatives live a little bit farther away.  We did get a visit from one of my aunts, though. Anyway, our christmas started on december 24th with a visit to the local thermal bath, for three hours chill-out in the sauna. Then, we went home, decorated the tree, set up presents, prepared food.  As evening came, we sang carols and opened our presents, then had a very nice meal. In the evening, our choir sang in a service, so we went there. The cold and sore throat I’d had the days before had been hard-hit by the sauna, so I actually managed to get sound out.
  December 25th was a slow day, so we decided to take a hike in the hills 40 minutes drive away. It was about 2°C and very foggy, so we got pretty chilled in the three hours we were on tour. Estimated distance covered, 10 km. Very nice though, especially the forest where everything was glazed in rime.

Now I’m back in Aachen, and aside from studying for the next exam, I have a birthday celebration and maybe a LAN party coming up. I’ll have to see 🙂