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I'm now into my fifth night in Zurich and it's all been a bit exhausting. Everyday has been attending the residency during what is slightly more than normal work hours, plus working on draft proposals and proposals for my thesis. In a sense it's been good that I haven't had an enormous opportunity to see the limited sights of this city, as it is extremely expensive for visitors, however for locals the high GDP PPP per capita suggests that it is less onerous (Luxembourg is even higher, but on my limited time there it seemed a lot more friendly, financially-wise). Zurich has its charms of course, including the beauty of Zürichsee, the parks and gardens, and the fine old buildings of District 1 and Altstadt. The public transport system is excellent, and everything is neat and clean and just so. I also rather suspect I would be dying of boredom if I had to stay longer than a month. Either that or spending all my time with Cabaret Voltaire and engaging in good art damage.
As for the MSc Residency, it has been quite a mental disruption to what is supposed to be a vacation. It's pretty hard work in many ways, but is also an excellent introduction to the thesis writing process. The highly international class has been provided a number of group tasks, one being a very quick hypothetical business analysis of a European company moving into China. The group decided that I would do the presentation itself and, to be quite honest, it came across extremely well as I gave a rapid, relentlessly logical, and very passionate exposition on a project to rebuild China with various environmentally-beneficial building materials (apparently I've been nick-named "The Dragon Professor" by classmates as a result). In addition to this, I've produced the draft proposal and proposal for my thesis; Is the Future of Business Software Free and Open Source?, where I'm looking at various trends in software licenses over the past two or more decades, plus the disciplinary influences of business studies (especially monopolistic advocacies), the economics of imperfect competition, and software engineering. Plus a bit of the Church-Turing thesis for good measure; one can't get enough of that.
In addition to all this, I've been making preparations to the final leg of the vacation. This includes the flight to Vienna, and train tickets and hotel bookings to Bratislava, Prague, and then finally Frankfurt, before the journey home (after which I have two days of classes to conduct the day after landing). Tickets have been produced to see Jules Massenet's Werther at the Vienna State Opera because, let's face it, such opportunities like this don't come up often. Also worth mentioning is that over the past three weeks or so, I've been topping the weekly Duolingo leagues, firstly ruby, then emerald, and most recently pearl, through a combination of lessons in German, French, then German again, and most recently, in Czechoslovak. Hopefully, I will have enough of a grasp of the latter by the time I arrive in Prague to at least give simple greetings and requests! Actually, I am kind of hoping that this will be a gentle gateway to the Slavic languages and Russian in particular, which I have struggled with for some time.
As for the MSc Residency, it has been quite a mental disruption to what is supposed to be a vacation. It's pretty hard work in many ways, but is also an excellent introduction to the thesis writing process. The highly international class has been provided a number of group tasks, one being a very quick hypothetical business analysis of a European company moving into China. The group decided that I would do the presentation itself and, to be quite honest, it came across extremely well as I gave a rapid, relentlessly logical, and very passionate exposition on a project to rebuild China with various environmentally-beneficial building materials (apparently I've been nick-named "The Dragon Professor" by classmates as a result). In addition to this, I've produced the draft proposal and proposal for my thesis; Is the Future of Business Software Free and Open Source?, where I'm looking at various trends in software licenses over the past two or more decades, plus the disciplinary influences of business studies (especially monopolistic advocacies), the economics of imperfect competition, and software engineering. Plus a bit of the Church-Turing thesis for good measure; one can't get enough of that.
In addition to all this, I've been making preparations to the final leg of the vacation. This includes the flight to Vienna, and train tickets and hotel bookings to Bratislava, Prague, and then finally Frankfurt, before the journey home (after which I have two days of classes to conduct the day after landing). Tickets have been produced to see Jules Massenet's Werther at the Vienna State Opera because, let's face it, such opportunities like this don't come up often. Also worth mentioning is that over the past three weeks or so, I've been topping the weekly Duolingo leagues, firstly ruby, then emerald, and most recently pearl, through a combination of lessons in German, French, then German again, and most recently, in Czechoslovak. Hopefully, I will have enough of a grasp of the latter by the time I arrive in Prague to at least give simple greetings and requests! Actually, I am kind of hoping that this will be a gentle gateway to the Slavic languages and Russian in particular, which I have struggled with for some time.
