hectic

1. I've got a new pet, a male budgerigar for my old virgin Lyuki. the new guy's name is Rikky. I hope that he will fix the .. hm-hm .. situation ..with Lyuki :D He's sweet and nice and doesn't scream at the top of his voice all day long like the previous parrot did. So even if nothing turns out of my plans, at least there still will be something good :D
For more photos go here:
http://photo-blog-121.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-pet.html

2. "pet sematary" by Stephen King
i have a lot going on as anybody else. translating the diploma, some other issues. the defense is on 21st and i can't say i have much spare time. however for several days i've been doing nothing but reading this book. it was the first thing i'd do in the morning (well after talking to Michael) and the last thing before i went to bed. it was absolutely crazy and insane for me to be reading it all day long, hour after hour, page after page... but i just couldn't stop as if i had to know the secret, the mystery..... but oh the book shows that there are some secrets that are to be left secrets.
there was a strange effect of this book. at first it seemed scary, especially when people went to that pet sematary, were in the dark woods, heard voices and such. but oh it wasn't creepy or scary later on. it was really terrible not because of going to pet sematary at night.. but because of how something could destroy the family, how wrong it all was, how very not fair.
analyzing the book, i noticed smth peculiar.. Stephen King has used little children in almost all stories i have read. that's part of what gets you. such things should never never never happen to kids. to anyone, but especially to kids. the other thing is that somewhere in the story, when things seem so very bad Stephen Kind will write a chapter that it all was a dream that things were good. too good. and then it would turn out that that good reality was a dream.
i can't say whether i liked the book or not. maybe if at least its end was some different i would like it more. when i read the last word i just shut the book and threw it on the shelf, feeling that i can get back to my activities, free of that book. maybe it was just wrong to me and against my nature.

anyway, enough of this.

3. Mary's defense took place today. she has got "A+" (the best) and is very happy (of course she should be :D) Finally she has graduated from this wonderful circus called university, has a BA degree and is just waiting for their certificate.. oops diploma i mean :D. and yes she is being mean to us, saying that we are still students and that she's already a graduate (not certified just yet). She can be mean until 21st. then we will be uncertified graduates too. really the diploma should also give us medals for the patience and endurance we showed during 4 years, that during the 4 years (why.. 5 really. forgot the prep. course) we have been able to stand them, their dumbness and unlawfulness.

4. oh i don't want to speak about this. this is really another pain in my ass. the Tamanyan website. The guy who worked on it before me (Mika) for some reason moved the site from one domain to the other. so i had to fix things. that was bad but i survived it. BUT. now there is a new problem. the old webmail doesn't exist anymore and its address book is lost. what's my fault? that i didn't back it up. but oh wtf, i had to work on their site and i did back up that. why would i interfere with their mails? i've already done way too much for them and i know it. just it was my first site (order) and i wanted things to be nice.. at the beginning. now me and Mika talked on gmail chat and oh yes it was gossiping but we understood each other from just a word. so now what Hayk Tamanyan wants is that Mika has no access to anything. but the site is on Mika's domain :D from many funny things Hayk believes that creating a webmail is as easy as opening a yahoo account, even he could do that (but he won't of course). and oh the only reason that stops him about buzzing me to be their webmaster is that i'm leaving for IDAHO soon :D:D:D looks a lot like OHIO no? it's stressful... but oh it's getting really funny, as funny as it has never been. i really hope with all of my heart that they will find a webmaster somewhere who will be the whipping boy for them... and i will run away to Ohio :D:D. let them think to IDAHO, they will never find me :D

photos

Whatever is going on in my life and no matter what problems i have it doesn't mean i'm not going to have fun.

so there are 2 new posts on the other blog. the first is about the visit to the zoo. after the visit i found out that Mary wanted to go too. so probably we will go there all together soon.

the second one is... yes. glamour. i was just playing with my hair. suddenly an idea appeared. then another one! and wooooh a whole lot of ideas of how to seduce Michael. i wonder which of the characters he liked most :D:D that photo on the left is the very first one, so be ready for something shocking.

http://photo-blog-121.blogspot.com/2008/05/glamour.html

things happening at ERIICTA

i'm feeling very numb right now. so it all has been true and we have to hand in the armenian version of diploma project by 15th.

Instead of going to work for a full day today i spent half of it at university and when i finally got to work i was so pissed off that didn't even manage to right a normal "good-bye" letter as it was my last day at work.

i can say that this has been one of the worst days in my life. the thing is there was a law adopted by the country that the diploma project can be in any language but you will have to present the armenian copy or you can bring only the armenian one. i'm not sure when this law came out but definitely long ago. last year some people defended their projects in english, this year we were told that it's great to have it in english. then a new rector comes to our university, and last week a new vice-rector is elected. The vice-rector says that there is this law and all projects have to be in armenian. it was signed yesterday.

we talked to everybody at the university except for the rector who was 'too busy'. when we went to the vice-rector he said that he doesn't want any problems with the government and that whatever took place before him doesn't touch him in any way. Now he is the vice-rector and everything has to be legal. in other words he is just covering his ass.

even the professors are mad but nobody can do anything. they just played one of the meanest tricks on us. as usual the side for who things turn out the worst are the students.

i just still can't take it in... i can't believe they can do this (in fact already did) and that nothing absolutely nothing can be done. they think they can do everything and that they have the power. Now it is so. but tomorrow things will change. once (actually if..) i graduate, i will write open letters to some newspapers letting everybody know how things really were at this university and what we went through during these years. it won't affect anything but at least the university will gain some bad fame.

i will do my best to cause them as much stress as they caused for us.

they won this battle.. but not the war.

there are many good things about Armenia, but sometimes some bad things outweigh. One of those things is that the country never protects the citizen and that the only thing that can give you a green light in any situation is money.

ERIICTA is not an exception of course. and yes "E" in ERIICTA stands for "European" but it's only the name - long and promising - the european regional institute of information and communication technologies. what stands behind the name? nothing... imagine a balloon with ERIICTA written on it. what will be inside of the balloon? some good stuff? no just old smelling air from somebody's lungs. That's exactly what are university is.

P.S. visit these links:
http://517design.livejournal.com/84920.html
http://517design.blogspot.com/2006/05/eriicta-european-regional-institute-of.html

Photo-blog

Yes, taking photos has always been there with me for years. When I was a child it was a 'khaki' cam (in both meanings..) and I'd still have it with me constantly and would have to run to the photo-services to develop the negatives and to get the photos printed. Then it was the cam on my mobile phone... which was I guess better than the old one however crazy it may sound. Then it was the good old Sony DSC-S600 which everybody was used to see in my hands. And even though I couldn't set a lot of important things manually I still feel that I learned *a lot* using it. and it's when mom made one of the greatest gifts - the huge photography book which is my desk book at all times. Then I felt like I really want a better cam and that the old one will 'die' soon anyway (when i zoomed in and out it made some strange noise). So yes now i have my Sony DSC H7 and am happy about it. Whatever they say about Sony's cams I will say that the cam is an instrument and you can take great shots even with a bad cam. what matters is how you see things. I like Sony and that's what matters :) and I am used to it, I know how it will behave. it's smth like an old friend.

anyway. lately i felt like i'm kind of turning this blog into a photo-blog so i have decided to create a separate new blog and to upload photos there. here i will upload photos of friends and such, but not a whole bunch of say blossoming trees ;)

http://photo-blog-121.blogspot.com/2008/04/welcome.html
Here's the link.

Khaki university

it's not enough that 90% of professors are badly educated and have no idea what they teach. it's not enough that university's administration is one big mess. it's not enough that they move the deadlines daily and that it's already a habit like Alex says. Now, just now, when the deadline of handing in the 60+ pages of diploma thesis and of its overview of 10 pages is tomorrow, the new rector has decided that all diploma works have to be in armenian. It's done in order that the university commission and commission from other universities are able to read and understand the projects. People who have graduated last year and had projects in english have to translate them now.

we will find out the details tomorrow. if this is true we will just hold a rally.

soon i will make a post under "only in ERIICTA" title. it will be a long post. once i graduate i will have it printed and translated into armenian and will stick to all doors in university. and will make sure all professors and students have copies.

i have bigger plans. since i will have much spare time this summer, i will make a website with photos and stories on ERIICTA.

no need to say how very mad we are now.

diploma

just one big stress for all of us. things would be very good if people at university stopped shifting the deadlines back and forth and giving us unrealistic information daily.

me, Alex and Anya have chosen such a supervisor who will not help us with the project at all, but will cover us, sign papers etc. She let us work by ourselves without sticking her nose into what we do. Fine, that's what we wanted. And that surely was great for her since she just didn't do anything but had 3 people who have good projects. But she could have at least keep an eye on the deadlines and let us know, and not have us waste time on coming to university every time to hear that the deadline was shifted. Now we have the pre-diploma defense on monday, but she won't be present as she will be in Albany on business.

What for Mary, oh really she is an extremely patient person to have that supervisor. the man is a mathematician.. and a painter (he believes he is and that his pictures are wonderful). He would have her take photos of his pictures, help his other student and god only knows what. she would have her run here and there, pressed with every possible way... but didn't help her project in fact. So yes, we better not complain :D i would have killed that supervisor on the next day!

Anyway. Yesterday Mary and Vova had their pre-diploma defense. the committee was the head of chair of "multimedia and programming", the supervisor, a professor of network, 2 of his students, and us.

I can't decide who of them was the dumbest. probably to decide that we should have given them a test or something like that. i was there, i listened to Vova and Mary for the first time but somehow i understood what they were explaining. the questions that the professors asked were really professionally dumb.

Vova is a designer, he is not a programmer. his project was organization of a virtual museum. he designed the museum using 3dsmax, added music background and when you went on a tour in that museum, a 'guide' would tell about every picture on the wall. i think it's a great idea and the museum itself was a very interesting and useful project. any painter can have his virtual museum as it doesn't make much difference what paintings hang on the walls.

Q.: so you can add any photos?
A.: yes any.

Q.: even from a digital cam?
A.: .. any photos ..

Q.: so what was the 3dsmax part there?
A.: .. the whole museum.. everything except for the paintings..

Q.: ah so you designed just a museum, that's all.
supervisor: why don't you say that the frames of pictures are your work too??
Q.: really? wow!

Q.: so if i am a painter, photographer or whatever i can use that to put my paintings into the frames?
A.: well it will take me smth like a day to replace the photos and to add the necessary information, change the menu etc.
Q.: see? if that was a program that you could sell to a pinter..
me: i'm sorry but he is a designer.
Alex: if a programmer writes that program it will be what you want.
Q.: but didn't he study programming?
me,Alex: surely he did, but do you really believe that it was enough to write such a program?? :D:D the programming taught here is definitely far from being enough to write any normal program :D:D

etc. Mary's project was too complicated for them to understand, but she spoke in such a way that they didn't ask much questions and just were absorbed by the pictures and all. Check out her blog for more information :)

Now some photos..


head of chair of multimedia and design... who knows pascal, some algorithms of Noah's times and how to convert digits from binary to 10-based, 16-based system etc. He has some cool degrees and was educating people in... Algiers.


Mary's supervisor smoking at the chair of informatics.


reflection in the notebook

for the rest of the photos, go here:

Friends - ERIICTA

classmates

yesterday (well actually on 06.04..) it was Lilit's birthday (pictured. she hasn't drunk anything yet)

The last time i met up with the class was about 2.5 years ago, so there was much to talk about. It was a strange feeling to see that they didn't change at all but grew older at the same time. Same faces, same characters... but it was some 4 years ago that we were sitting at school benches doing some lessons, and Dashyan shouting "Seroj!!" when he'd make some joke and be silly. The time flies by and one notices things only at moments like this. The other feeling was that no matter how often we see each other, no matter what we did at school, and where we will be during our lives, we will always remain same kids, classmates for each other :)



me, Sergey, Lilit, Dashyan (Lilit's mom, our math teacher), Amalya, and Inessa


It didn't happen. Lilit would kill him )))


yes i had some vodka :D


Vahik, axper jan, it's great to smoke after vodka!

For the rest of the photos, visit this album online:

Classmates