I decided to go and take some pictures of the garden today, and decided to experiment with different depths of field. I am pretty happy with the results. It was also something new for me as previously I had not altered the aperture setting much when I took pictures, and being able to do this gives me a new tool to use when creatively composing a photo.
I uploaded six which I think accurately represent what I was trying to acheive, and they can be found here, in a new album in my gallery named Photography, and the sub-album Experimental Photos.
The last few days have been very busy. On Monday we went on a guided tour of Dresden by bus. I tried to get some good pictures but moving buses and dirty windows make that very difficult. Tuesday was very similar, with the group going by bus to Berlin, and taking a bus tour of the city. The tour was great and we saw parts of the Berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, and many other notable locations throughout the city. Today was very interesting, at least for me, as today we went to the AMD factory in dresden and were given a presentation by their public relations officials. Unfortunately we were not able to see the actual factory, as most if not all of the facility is contained within their clean rooms. And taking a group of 20-30 teenagers into a clean room is generally frowned upon.
Overall this week is going very well. It’s sad to think that our stay in Germany will be coming to an end soon =(
The welcome party last night was fun, although it ended up raining the entire time. The food was delicious though, and it was just like an American barbecue. Following the party we went to downtown Dresden, and watched the game between Germany and Turkey with a lot of other people. It was great, and Germany won!
Today we took a bike trip out to Meißen, an old city which is about 20 km away from Radebeul. The weather was great, and it was the perfect day for a bike ride. However it was a little too nice out, and I ended up getting a slight sunburn from being out in the sun all day. While we were in Meißen, we took a tour of the famous porcelain that is there. It was very interesting, as they showed you every part of the process of making the porcelain.
That evening I had dinner with Jana, as Marie had to goto work. And after that we went and hung out at the observatory before heading home to Marie’s house.
It’s really great to be able to see our german exchange students again! They were waiting for us when we got off the train, and it was very exciting. The mother and father in my family do not speak english, but I can understand them when they speak in German.
That evening we went down to the river Elbe in dresden, and played volleyball in the park there. It was very fun, and was great to have the whole exchange group together again.
Today we did a bit of sight seeing, and walked up a long set of stairs to get to the vineyard that is on the hills above Radebeul. The view was great, and I got some great pictures of the city while I was up there. Tonight we have the welcoming party, which should be great assuming it doesn’t rain again.
I was busy installing a gallery2, and updating the theme to one that is properly optimized, so I was unable to post an update for the last couple of days.
On Friday I took a train out to Dachau, and spent the day at the famous concentration camp there. It was a very somber time, and the whole atmosphere of the camp, even in it’s current state as a historic memorial, was very chilling. I took many photos while I was there, and selected a few of them to upload to my newly installed gallery.
The next day we took a trip out to Salzburg, and visited a castle there. We had some time to go out on our own, and I went to Mozart’s birthplace.
On Sunday we took a very long train out to Eagles Nest, high up in the Alps. The view there was amazing, and I got some great photos while I was there.
Today was very relaxing and was spent at the Olympic swimming pools that are in Munich. Tomorrow we meet up with our German students, which I am really looking forward to!
Well, I’d like to write something interesting about the first day of my trip, but it most likely consist of several paragraphs detailing my expience of sitting on a plane for 24 hours. So I’m going to skip that actual first day and go instead to the ‘first day’ my trip, which is actually the second day, but will from here on be refered to as the first day.
My plane landed in Munich at 5:50 AM, or 11:50 EST. Being very tired, the first thing I did once I arrived at the hotel was take a much needed nap. Around noon, we walked around the city a bit, and took a bike tour. The tour was 4 hours long, but was very fun. Unfortunately, I had left my camera at the hotel, and missed a lot of great pictures while we were there. That night, I slept like a rock, but was awoken in the middle of the night by drunk Germans partying in the streets (Germany had won their game against Portugal).
I am in the process of buying furniture for the room I am going to be renting while I’m living in Troy for my coop at Beaumont. So, before I am buying anything, I’m planning out how it will fit in the room, to ensure that it will fit in the room. My parents suggested that I make paper cutouts of the furniture, and make them to scale, and use that to plan the room. That’s wayyyy to primitive, so I decided to do it better, and opened up Google Sketchup, and in about 45 minutes, I had a scale model of the room, as well as all the furniture I am going to bring.
<3 Google
Wow, have the last few weeks been busy or what! So busy in fact, that rather than make individual posts for each event that occurred recently, I decided to just make one big post.
First off, I am officially DONE with high school! I had my commencement this Sunday, and wow does it feel good to be done.
Of course I also had my open house that weekend too, and got a lot of gifts from relatives for my graduation, including a Canon Digital Rebel XTi! That is one gift that I will diffidently be bringing with me on my trip to Germany later this month!
Finally, a couple weeks ago I had an interview for a coop position at Beaumont Hospital in Troy, Michigan. The interview went extremely well, and I received a job offer later that week! I accepted, so now I am all set to start my Kettering coop terms in July.
Anyone who has seen my Last.fm profile would know that The Flashbulb is my favorite arist. I’ve listened to every album of his countless times. But his newest release - Soundtrack To A Vacant Life - is by far some of the best musical compilation by The Flashbulb I have ever heard.
I just checked my math placement test results. I did well, missing only 2 of 16 questions of the first section, but missing 4 of 9 on the second section. So when I scrolled down to see my course placement, I was a bit confused when I read ‘MATH-101′… “What does that mean?!”, I thought. I was expecting ‘CALC-101′ or something similar. However after snooping around their site for a minute, I was able to learn that ‘MATH-101′ is Kettering’s calculus course.
In my opinion, that name is very confusing… Kettering should consider renaming their math courses to something that makes more sense.