Digital Wanderer | Student Life

Student Life - Lectures

2004-12-31

Student life, as it is.

Autumn of 2003.

Project

A group of students sits at desks in a classroom. A young man in the center jokingly makes "horns" with his fingers over the head of the guy with glasses sitting in front of him.

A slightly disheveled young man

Frivolous Andrey in the background is giving me bunny ears, while serious Andrey in the foreground is putting on a smart face.

A group of students sits at desks in a classroom; in the foreground one student is sleeping, face buried in the desk, while another, in a leather jacket, looks straight into the lens.

Responsible and serious guys Vanya and Yura

Poor Vanya is so tired he's sleeping right through the lecture. What can you do, pulling all-nighters for term papers isn't like hauling bricks.

Surrealism

What universal truths is Yury pondering? Alas, we'll never know, and the proverb is right: "He who knows, is silent".

View from the window of the Vanšu Bridge over the Daugava River in Riga on a cloudy day. In the foreground is an embankment with a modern building and white awnings, and a skyscraper under construction towers in the distance on the left.

A beautiful view from the classroom window

We can see the rapidly progressing construction of the Hansabanka building and the famous Vanšu Bridge in the golden rays of the setting autumn sun.

A group of students sits at desks in a classroom with large windows, in the foreground two young men are looking straight at the camera.

Ainar, Me, Andrey

But back to our sheep, I mean students. Ainar already knows he's going to fail the exam for this subject, which is in a month, and is therefore gloomy and pissed off. I, as always, am confident in the forces of good and justice, which should get me an automatic pass. Andrey is also confident, apparently in me (why else is he looking at me?), after all, term papers are done in pairs. The confidence paid off - our hero got a "7", despite not knowing what the subject is about, or even its name. It's useful to have good friends who know more than you do, but who am I supposed to turn to in that case?

Two young men sitting at a table: one in glasses dips food into steaming chocolate fondue, and the other is smiling, holding a spoon.

Students having lunch

As we can see, a student's main dish is "LYPOTON" tea

Portrait of a young man with short brown hair, wearing a dark jacket over a gray shirt, against the background of a semi-dark cafe interior.

A soulful face

Delicious hot food clearly benefits not only the stomach, but also the spiritual essence.

A young man in a black leather jacket and jeans is smiling, standing on a cast-iron bridge against the background of a river, city buildings and a tall clock tower under a clear blue sky.

The Stone Bridge

The main RTU building is located right in the center of Riga, next to the Museum of the Occupation, i.e. the former Lenin Museum, on Kaļķu Street. You can get to the building on Meža Street by trolleybus, which actually runs rarely, or on foot across the Stone Bridge. The weather is wonderful and we are cheerfully stomping our way to lectures.

A smiling young man in a black leather jacket stands against the background of a wide river and an embankment with autumn trees under a clear blue sky. The Vanšu bridge is visible in the distance in the background.

Close-up

You can't see anything behind my back. Which makes sense, since I'm blocking the view.

A young smiling man in a black leather jacket against the background of a wide river and a large Vanšu bridge under a clear blue sky.

Vanšu Bridge

Now in this photo you can clearly see the Vanšu Bridge and my teeth. Bee-yoo-tiful!

A young man in a dark jacket stands on the pedestrian sidewalk of a bridge against the background of the panorama of the Old Town of Riga with the spire of St. Peter's Church.

Max

This is Max Dubovsky, colloquially Duba, a web designer, web programmer, amateur photographer and generally a creative person. It was he who kindly provided us with the camera used to take these shots. As befits an artistic nature, Max possesses an amazing, good-natured don't-give-a-crap attitude towards lectures and everything else.

A man in glasses and a black leather jacket is talking to a woman in a beige knitted sweater in a classroom against the background of a blackboard and a ta

Lecturer Marina Ukhanova

Marina teaches us sinners programming on Microsoft and Borland products. At the moment, it's Microsoft Visual Studio.NET - C# and Visual Basic.NET languages. Sometimes it seems to me that Marina is the only person in the computer faculty at RTU who actually knows the subject she teaches. Of course, this impression is deceptive, RTU also has Rusakov, who knows 11 programming languages, but he doesn't give lectures, only practicals, so it's not really possible to properly evaluate his knowledge.

I won't even mention the teachers who lead subjects of a dubious nature, like drawing diagrams or talking about systems. A good way to characterize these subjects is the fact that, having practically never attended them, and having no cheat sheets, I passed them with quite acceptable grades on the first try.

Marina fluently gives lectures in Latvian, but willingly answers in Russian without an accent if asked questions privately. Sometimes, however, while answering, she switches to Latvian - it's more familiar. It looks pretty cool.

As befits a person with such a name, Marina makes a pleasant impression on the young men studying under her. Plus, she's a kind person, not particularly inclined to torture students.

Based on the aforementioned, I've decided that it is exactly under Marina's leadership that I will be doing my bachelor's thesis on the topic "Development of distributed applications in C# in the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET environment"

A cobblestone pedestrian path in an autumn park, strewn with fallen yellow leaves and surrounded by trees with bright golden foliage. In the background, a road with passing cars and a bus is visible under a clear blue sky.

A very beautiful autumn

A large tree with lush yellow-green autumn foliage stands against a blue sky with white clouds. In the foreground is a road with fallen leaves and a lawn, and in the distance other trees and buildings under construction are visible.

Or maybe not quite autumn yet . . .

A tree with yellowed autumn foliage and spreading branches against the background of a multi-story historical building under a cloudy sky.

Here's such a mighty tree . . .

Autumn landscape with numerous trees covered with bright yellow foliage, under a blue sky with light clouds. In the foreground, a winding asphalt path strewn with fallen leaves is visible.

. . .and here's such a little tree

A multi-story building under construction with a glass facade and a towering construction crane against a cloudy sky. In the foreground, a city street with parked cars and trees with autumn foliage is visible.

Construction of the new Hansabanka skyscraper

A tall unfinished skyscraper with a half-glass facade and open concrete floors, topped with a large yellow construction crane, rises under a blue sky with clouds. It is surrounded by bright yellow autumn trees.

The same building close up

A tall modern building under construction, with the lower part covered in blue glass and an upper exposed concrete frame. Two yellow construction cranes tower over the structure against a blue sky with clouds and green vegetation.

The same building from a different angle

View from below from the stone steps of an underground pedestrian crossing to a cable-stayed bridge with a high A-shaped pylon under a bright blue sky. Cars are driving on the road in front of the bridge, and a multi-story building rises on the left in the background.

Vanšu Bridge

Every time we wait for the trolleybus at the stop, we admire it. In the photo it's somehow not very impressive, but in real life the huge and delicate structure creates an impression of power and lightness. At night, red lights glow at the top. If the weather is damp and foggy, the top of the bridge sticks out as if out of thick jelly.

A young man sleeps on a bed with his eyes closed, holding a pack of "Selga" cookies on his chest and holding one cookie in his lips.

Laima's "Selga" cookies

The student is so tired after the day that he can't even eat a cookie, he falls asleep right away.

No strength even to smile

Look what Uni drives you to!

Several light-colored, irregularly shaped pieces of dough are frying in a dark pan with oil. The grate of the kitchen stove is visible in the background.

Pancakes from a box

Having recovered, you can cook something to eat. Student food - cheap and cheerful. Tasty, even if it's semi-finished.

Several pancakes are frying in a pan, and their surface is severely burnt to the point of forming black charred crusts.

The same, only already cooked

A blonde woman in a black t-shirt is flipping pancakes in a pan, standing in a kitchen with old tiles and pipes in the background.

Inessa

The girls cook the pancakes for us, so we don't accidentally overexert ourselves. There is something cute and homely in how a woman cooks, or, say, puts on makeup. The gestures are not devoid of a certain elegance and coquetry, especially if the process is being watched.

The computer wants to eat too . . .

Three young people in a room: a girl in a red sweater sits on the bed with a bottle of beer and talks to a guy leaning towards her, and next to them another young man sleeps under a blanket on a pillow.

Neighbors

These are our neighbors - real alcoholics. They booze almost every day, for which the dorm manager strongly dislikes them and threatens to kick them out. They constantly break the rules, party until late in the morning and bring in suspicious characters secretly from the key-keeper*. Lately they've smartened up and calmed down a bit, as they've had problems with the university and the people around them, in the form of me and others. If you knock on the wall, they turn the music off.

(* - Key-keeper - aka the concierge - keeps order and hands out keys)

A young blond man in a beige jacket and a smiling blonde woman in a red sweater sit together in a room, holding beer bottles. In the background, a wall with wallpaper and part of a bed are visible.

Imant and Iveta?

Imant is my classmate, and was not previously noticed to have a special addiction to alcohol. Tsk-tsk-tsk, what the dorm does to people! Good thing he hasn't started smoking at least, like many others . . .

Two young people with squinting eyes holding packs of Aldaris beer. The man on the left is in a cap and a turtleneck, on the right in a light jacket.

No comments . . .

Close-up of the face of a young man in a gray cap with half-closed eyes against the background of a light textured wall.

Even the camera doesn't focus

Did alcohol fumes seep into it or something?