Andrés at Joensuu

The reason why I came to Warwick was to carry out an experiment with some students in a Programming course. I wanted to observe them while the use Jeliot 3. Once here, the students have not been very participative. Fortunately, some of them have been, and I have been able to track them in better detail that I will have to analyze in more detail. On the other hand some of them have been sporadically using Jeliot 3 in their lab sessions. From observing them, I have a first-hand insight of how teaching and learning work in an actual classroom, far from my working room.
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What will you do if you happen to come across with someone wearing the Finnish uniform in Warwick? You must ask her whether she is from Finland or not, of course. You have to prove yourself that you can spot a Finn anywhere in the world, and be right.

So I met this girl in my way to the Uni, she was walking in front of mine, and she had a Haglöfs backpack and wearing a cotton hat. That was interesting. She was either Swedish or Finnish. And she probably was remembering how cold was at her home country. It is a sunny day here after all, no need for hats!!. Anyway, when I passed her I saw the official stamp of a proud Finn, Hälti. That was all I need to know, but I had to ask her.

She was not only a Finn, but she was coming from Joensuu!!! I know that Finland is not big, and I though I was already using the Joensuu share in Warwick; but now I am not the only Joensuulainen here. I wonder what would have happen if a true Finn would have been in my situation. Would he introduce himself to the walking compatriot? Maybe not, at least I haven’t yet introduced myself in the Spanish community here, I guess I would have time…

The good thing of being in England is that cities are close enough. And the University of Warwick is closer to Coventry (200k inhabitants) than Warwick (150k inhabitants) itself. Funny, right. And Coventry has another university … who hosted the 2006 Small Workshop of PPIG!! I was lucky enough to attend despite that my experiment duties were going on at the same time. Nonetheless, this opportunity has let me see what is going on in the PPIG community, a community that is really close to my PhD whereabouts, and I can say I really like it. What follows is a short summary of this PPIG event from my point of view, and the one of Jeliot 3.

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The reason why I came to Warwick University is that I had the opportunity to carry out an experiment with some Math students taking a programming course. From the moment I decided I was coming to Warwick till the moment it was possible, only 2 days passed. I was glad everything happened so smoothly at Joensuu and at Warwick, moreover, when I was jumping over so many deadlines and taking all the possible shortcuts to be an Erasmus student at Warwick. At that time, I was in a bubble, I could not believe I was going to Warwick, and that I was going to be an Erasmus student again! (I had been anErasmus at Joensuu). However, after I bought my plane ticket to come to Warwick (Zaragoza-London), I got the bad news. Joensuu university was not granting me the Erasmus status, even if all the legal papers were signed by the right people …I was on my own at the University of Warwick.

The adventurous in me was a little bit scared about going to Warwick without the backing of my home university; but one thing was for sure, I was going to Warwick, accomodation services there had already offered me a room at Westwoodand Mike Joy was waiting for me.

The room, i discovered later, is a shoebox, as Tuukka will put it. But everything fits in and it is easy to keep it clean (it helps that cleaning staff is hoovering it once per week). On the institutional side, Mike Joy and the international office at Warwick have let me stay here as a doctoral student, so everything is solved from that side.

These 12 days has not been any kind of exciting, I have been setting up the experiment and doing some coursework. Next weeks, it will be the same: experiment, write, swim and sleep. But February will come and I should have more time to behave as a social being.

No, I gotta go, the residence tutor has something to tell us about cleaning the common kitchen, I feel young !!!