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http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~hoyle/Annals6/.
You may notice that you do not receive sequentially numbered annals all of
the time. The truth is that there are two mail lists: one with material
which can be freely distributed with its copyright notice and another more
private one, which is intended for the recipient only. Each annal is
clearly identified at the top whether it is distributable or not.
Introduction
Ah, it's time for a long overdue update on my activities in
Switzerland. I must say, as an editorial aside, that I have
been rather disappointed with summer so far in Switzerland.
Somehow I expected the weather to be nice, but it has been
rainy with a few nice days periodically. On the other hand,
things appear to be looking up for me and I'm happily
sproinging along, enjoying my many adventures. This issue marks
the start of a new segment on Swiss life. I'm kicking it off
with a discussion of the Swiss version of Independence Day
and the right to recycle. Enjoy!
Swiss Life: Fire, Fines, and Fireworks
August first is the Swiss equivalent of Canada Day or the
Fourth of July. What do patriotic Swiss do on this day? It
didn't seem like they do all that much. In the evening, though,
hundreds of thousands of people congregated in the areas of the
city surrounding Lake Zürich and set off fireworks. Fireworks,
unlike in most (all?) of Canada, are freely available to the
public. After having experienced August 1st here, however, I can
certainly appreciate the rational behind fireworks restrictions
in Canada. We saw people setting fireworks off into the maple
trees, even towards other people. What really bothered me was
seeing children under the age of 10 setting off fireworks. The
Swiss claim that the people doing these things are not Swiss. I
don't really know since I didn't stop and ask them. I did see
an especially neat firework that spat out 50 or 60 paper parachutes
that floated gently down to the ground, and I could see the fireworks
from a few metres away.
Although there were all these people playing with fireworks, I
don't think we had any fires, which is a good thing. The prospect
of a fire in Switzerland scares me a little. Most of the buildings
are made of stone and are not required by law to have smoke detectors
or fire extinguishing equipment on every floor of an apartment
building. On top of that, many apartment buildings lock their main
doors from the inside, as well as the outside, after 9 or 10pm. Without
a key, you cannot exit the building! (Trying to put things on the walls
or ceilings of a building made out of stone is no picnic either, I
might add!)
There are lots of places for picnicking in Switzerland. Many of
the public parks feature grills and firepits. It's even possible
to walk into the middle of a Swiss forest and find a camp kitchen
and several grills. With such a beautiful country, the Swiss are
justifiably proud of their forests, mountains, and meadows. They
are so enamoured of their meadows, in fact, that they treat their
lawns like minature meadows. They let all manner of wild flowers
and weeds grow in their grass. The grass outside my apartment is
often filled with yellow and purple flowers. It's beautiful to
gaze upon a sea of wildflowers in the emerald green grass.
I mentioned in an earlier Annal that the Swiss love to recycle,
but you only have the "right" to recycle in the city of which
you are a resident. If the recycle/garbage police catch you
depositing recyclable materials in a different canton, you can be
fined 150 Swiss Francs (about 160 $CDN). Where does that leave
tourists then? I guess tourists aren't expected to recycle!
New Friends
Robert and I, determined to turn our apartment into a zoo, have
acquired two little kittens. Our male kitty, named Listy after
Lister in Red Dwarf, likes to run around the house jumping
on things and creating a mess -- more or less like a typical male.
(-: Our female kitty, Layla, is a lot more sedate and a lot smaller.
She seems to have worms that defy deworming medication. Her
favourite trick at this point is to pee on the bed when you least
expect it. Ick! Hopefully that will clear up in time. Despite
the problems, we find ourselves vastly amused and entertained by
their antics.
My family recently welcomed a new face into their ranks. As some
of you may know, I had an elder sister who was adopted out. This
sister, Sherrie, has recently tracked down my parents and has been
spending time getting to know them and my other relatives. Obviously
I haven't met her yet, but I imagine that I will when I visit Canada
in a few week's time. This is kind of exciting, I think, and not
just for my parents. I've never had a sister before or an older
sibling. I'm looking forward to meeting her for the first time.
Robert and I are anticipating meeting several people on our trip
that we have only talked to through the Internet previously, in
addition to my old friends. For example, in Seattle we'll be meeting
up with Sheattle, a comedienne. We'll be staying a week in Tulsa, OK,
with Fiamma and TheTick, who are both also ADD. While we're in
Tulsa several other people will be meeting us there, including
JazzMan and (hopefully) Don. DaPainter will greet us in Vancouver.
It's too bad we didn't have time go other places. Nevertheless,
we're expecting to have a great time!
We Don't Do It Alone
It's very seldom in life that you meet a person who is solely
responsible for their own accomplishments. I myself have been
very fortunate to have had the support and help of many people
along the way since I left home. In this Annals, I'd like to
thank Siufai Tam.
Siufai was the first person to completely accept me as I
am and believe that I could finish high school, that
I could go to university. He didn't demand that I
somehow change myself to conform to the expectations of the
world around me; I was the way and I was, and that was OK.
That gave me a sense of self-worth. He reinforced (or maybe
even provided) a tendency towards generosity; he was always
willing to help people or to share his time, experience, and
resources with them. Finally, he gave me a home, a place
where I felt I belonged.
University
I have good news, bad news, and no news. I'm still trying to
convince the University of Z&u-uml;rich to allow me to do
a Ph.D. there. In the interim, however, I applied at some
other universities in Europe. The first university I applied
to was the University of Birmingham in the UK. After an extended
period of silence, they regretfully informed me that they were not
willing to take on any more external students after having been
burned in the past. The very next day after receiving this
disheartening news, I received a letter in the mail from the
University of Sussex at Brighton, also in the UK, informing me
that the department had recommended that I be given an offer to
do a part-time Ph.D. with the Cognitive and Computing Science
department. Hurrah!
A few weeks later, an official offer from the postgraduate affairs
office appeared in my mailbox, complete with financial information
about the costs of doing a Ph.D. at Sussex. Since I am not an
EC or UK student or a residence of either the EC or the UK, I
have to register as an overseas student. A fulltime Ph.D. position
for an overseas student in computer science costs 8100 British
Pounds a year, roughly $15 000 (CDN)! EC/UK students only pay
about 2500 British Pounds a year. Luckily, I'm a part-time
student, not a fulltime. Oddly enough, though, they don't have
a category for part-time overseas students. You're not supposed
to apply for a part-time Ph.D. if you live outside the UK/EC.
I didn't know that when I applied and I was accepted. It turns
out they can only charge me the same as EC/UK students which is
1250 Pounds a year, or $2500 (CDN). What a bargain, as the lady from
the postgraduate affairs office would say. (-:
I'm not actually sure if I'm going to go to Sussex. When I
applied I told them that I wanted to be able to spend most
of my time in Zürich, where my funding is, and only
the odd semester or so there. With an unconditional acceptance
at Sussex, however, it could be that either the University of
Zurich or the Swiss Polytechnic University might accept me as
I am. After all the trouble they've given me, though, I'm not
sure I want to be a Ph.D. student at the University. A decision
must be made soon, as I only have six weeks to respond to the
offer from Sussex.
The professor of the AI group at the University of
Zürich is bringing my case back up in front of
one of various committees or other, and the professor
from the Swiss Polytechnic University, for whom I've
been working during the summer on information retrieval
things, is investigating the possibility of doing a Ph.D.
at the ETH. I've also applied for a position at the University
of Saarbruecken, with funding from DFKI.
A-ha! Further news! (I'm just so slow at writing this
edition of the Annals.) Professor Schäuble did talk
to the people at the ETH and they claim that I can start a
Ph.D. there if I do a maximum of three additional courses
and then exams only in those subjects. Unfortunately, there's
a catch: he cannot fund me during that time and it will take
two semesters because the courses are not all offered in
the same semester. Also, that would mean I would have to change
the direction of my Ph.D. work from intelligent agents to
applying cryptographic methods to information retrieval
systems. The head of the software engineering
group here tells me to go for Sussex and that I can keep my
funding in Zürich without a problem! Hurrah!
Speaking of Professor Schäuble, I finally realized that
it was this Swiss man that Michael Wong was warning
me about. Michael was telling me how bad all the men in
Switzerland were before I went and how I shouldn't go to
Switzerland because of this. Personally, I think Michael
was thinking of Peter Schäuble and how cute and
young he is. (-:
Finally, Kenrick, Leora, and I had our paper on
Rob/ReneeBot accepted for publication at a AAAI
workshop on, what else, entertainment and AI. Another
research assistant and I here at the University
wrote a paper for Autonomous Agents '97 on personal
assistants, and I'm writing a third paper, this time
with me as the primary author, on testing methodologies
for information retrieval systems, which was my work
over the summer at the Swiss Technical University.
Coming Home and Other Trips
Just before my birthday in June, Robert and I took a
trip to Prague in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately, we
were only there for 5 days or so. The city is huge and
there are so many things to see and do. We didn't even
scratch the surface, although we sure did a lot of walking
around.
I would have to nominate Prague for the city with the
most churches. They have an incredible number of churches
and religious-related materials. For example, there's a
simply huge museum of Jewish art and literature from
around the Czech Republic.
I'm coming back to North America! It's true! I've been
promising for months that I'd return home for a bit and now
the tickets are finally booked. I should be arriving in Edmonton
around the 5th of September (yes, this year!). I'll be bringing
the RegenbogenRobertfnoolfisch with me. I promised him I'd take
him to Canada if he passed his exams in the spring, which he did.
We'll be returning to Zurich around the 28th of October. That
gives us 6 weeks to get into trouble and create chaos in Canada
and the United States. I've included a rough itinerary below of
our expected travels. We're very excited. We get to meet a lot
of people in person that we only know from the Internet, plus I
get to eat at the Double Greeting Wonton Noodle House in Edmonton;
my life will be temporarily complete (while I'm temporarily
replete!).
| From |
To |
Location |
People There |
| 5 Sept |
6 Sept |
Edmonton |
Parents, Stephen, Davids, Shren,
U of A |
| 6 Sept |
8 Sept |
Jasper |
Stephen & Us |
| 10 Sept |
13 Sept |
Regina |
Nick, Hardwood, Chris, and
U of R |
| 15 Sept |
21 Sept |
Minneapolis |
Hue, WittLess, Zaphod,
GalaxyNet guy, Zrock |
| 21 Sept |
26 Sept |
Vancouver |
Dan, Jamie, SFU, Siufai,
Dr. Au |
| 27 Sept |
30 Sept |
Seattle |
Sheattle, Q*, U. of Washington |
| 30 Sept |
4 Oct |
Tulsa |
Fiamma & TheTick, Jazzman, and
Donn! |
| 4 Oct |
6 Oct |
Dallas |
Joel, Bets |
| 6 Oct |
9 Oct |
Tulsa |
Fiamma & TheTick, JazzMan |
| 9 Oct |
10 Oct |
Seattle/Vancouver |
Dan, Jamie, SFU, Siufai,
Dr. Au, Sheattle, Q* |
| 10 Oct |
28 Oct |
Edmonton |
Parents, Stephen, Davids. |
This schedule is subject to change with little or no notice. (-:
(And it probably will, too.)
Closing Words
Bah! It took me almost a month to write all this. I need to
write faster or get less distracted, or maybe both. To those
of you I'll see on my trip, "See you soon!" To others that
I'll miss this time, "Take Care!"
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