Language school is worth the cost! [Swedish progress update]

Learning Swedish was right up there among "Find a job" and "Rent an apartment" on my priority list since the day we got the news. A language school seemed like a good idea so I did some investigating and found a few that offered an introductory Swedish course right here in Ljubljana! One even replied to my inquiry so I've enrolled. The only problem: Classes started in a month's time...

When your world is about to change you don't sit around and wait! And I didn't: I started learning Swedish on my own. I tried mimicking youtube videos and using a Learn yourself Swedish product and it looked like I was making progress! While I wasn't going to be fluent any time soon, I was feeling quite good.

It all changed on Thursday, 25th of April. Not only did I have a job interview with Nokia on that day (more on that later), but my Swedish course started as well! Our very first lesson was scheduled for 18:30 and going there I was feeling quite smug. I thought it was going to be a short introductory lesson where the teacher will introduce herself, we will learn a few sentences I'd have already known and we will be on our way. Boy was I wrong!

Notes and study materials from the first ŠOLT lesson.

The first lesson was intense! It took the whole scheduled 3 hours within which we went from "Hej! Jag heter..." to pronouncing words like "Sjuksköterska" and finally to forming our own descriptions of a fictional character. We even got homework!

My take-home assignment included inventing a fictional character and describing him with as many adjectives I can think of. It should include most of what our lesson covered, namely where he is from, his marital status, what languages he speaks and what his job is. This is what I came up with:

Möta Oscar Svensson. Han är från Linköping. Han är förlovad och har inte barn. Oscar arbetar som busschaufför. Han talar svenska, engelska och lite danska. Han och hans sambo gillar att gå till teater men de aldrig tar bussen.

Long story short: I've learned a lot. I have a very competent teacher and I'm learning together with 5 peers including a reader of this blog (Zdravo Aleš!) who appears to be another Slovenian interested in Sweden. Now I am completely sold on language schools: if you're trying to learn a foreign language be sure to enrol in one!

Related articles

• Swedish is starting to sound familiar [Swedish progress update] (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Language lessons or should I say Jag heter David! (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• The game is on! (helpmemovetosweden.com)

Making baby steps towards a finished thesis

Gotta love The PHD Comics, right?

I haven't yet finished my formal education: While I have been working at INDA for nearly 5 years I have also been studying Computer Science at University of Ljubljana. Officially I'm still a student!

With the project Sweden going on the question I hear a lot is: What about your degree? My intention was always to finish my studies and get a degree, but with the rigid bureaucracy of University of Ljubljana I can't graduate before the end of September, in spite my good intentions and time crunch. And that in combination with the fact that the lack of a degree isn't really hurting the job search process, means I'm in danger of dropping out!

Well I have decided not to let that happen! I here and now publicly announce my goal to graduate before 1st of October, 2013. With so few obligations left it shouldn't be that much of a challenge. If I make baby steps and do something about my thesis every week I should be there in no time!

I have two classes left, both of them due for completion at the end of this semester, but more importantly I still have to write the text part of my thesis. I have given my thesis some though and I have decided I'd love to do more research in one of my favourite fields of computer science: Soft Computing.

Warning: The next few paragraphs are more about computer science than they are about moving to Sweden. If that's not your cup of tea there is no shame in skipping them!

I have been fascinated by Genetics Algorithms since quite early in my academic career. Even though I didn't take a class on it since last academic year, my first attempts at solving problems with genetic algorithms date all the way back to my high school years.

I have to thank my friend and school mate Smily (who is doing some mighty impressive stuff of his own) for talking me into my very first introduction project, finding a linear equation for X using GA, that turned out to be heaps of fun. After that I used genetic algorithms for tackling the travelling salesman problem, and after that the project I'm submitting as my thesis.

A screenshot from my thesis project
NeuralCars

NeuralCars simulates a playground where agents (controlled by a artificial neural network) learn how to drive around a race track without human intervention. The process starts with a completely random weights in the feedforward neural network (10-8-8-2) but sure enough, given enough time selective breeding will create agents with impressive driving skills!

I've opensourced the project a while back, so you can check it out on Google Code. Compiled binaries are avaliable for download in case you'd like to compete against Skynet's getaway driver :)

So with the software part of the thesis nearly completed (my mentor did request a few changes) I just have to take the dive and start writing the text! Hopefully the pressure of public failure will keep my eye on the prize!

In other news I am being interviewed by Radio Sweden today! Thank you for creating enough buzz for the mainstream media to pick up on!