Discovery

Last week we had a Vietnamese martial art master here called Chiki. He was teaching us some monkey-style and snake-style techniques. He also suggested watching Animal Planet for improving our skills :D

And yesterday there was this space shuttle launch. There was big event in conference facility @ ESTEC. When american speaker said "Discovery has just launched, putting America in is march to Moon, Mars and beyond" a slight wave of laugh passed through the audience :D

Today I am having a Tiger Team meeting. It started at 10:00 AM. Now we're having a lunch break, and the meeting continues until 4:00 PM. Tiger Team (rrroaaar!) which I'm part, together with Project Engineer and two guys from Delta-Utec is kind of managment board of YES2 project. Today we've been reviewing tasks and reporting how they're progressing. I'm responsible for Space Software Product Assurance and managing the work of 6 software developers.

Settled down

Two weeks have passed since I'm in Netherlands. It was a damn good choice to got here. Few not-so-obvious things you have to be aware of while being in Netherlands:

• hot water coming out from taps is really HOT here
• don't ask for coke at the bar cause they'll kick you out
• and for Poles: Dutch don't mean to offend you saying "huj da". It's a greeting : )

After few days of sunny wheather, clouds came. I hope it will change soon. BTW. Effects of daily bicycle riding are becoming more visible. Muscles in my legs are getting stronger.

Karolina's (friend I was referring to before) hospital adventure is still not finished. She's now in Brussels (Belgium) getting some seriuos medical treatment. She's in a limited access facility. Anyway she's closer now, isn't she? Hope we can meet soon : )

I've been to tango salon in Leiden last Saturday. Place was really nice. I liked it. I had a meeting arranged there with my new partner - Julia. She's a psychologist and has little experience in tango. But she was progressing fast through the evening so I'm sure she'll be fine. I suppose we got along toghether : )

Getting started.

These are my first day here in Netherlands. I've lived with Marco and Dimitrios from YES2 for the first two days. Now I've moved to my new apartment. I live with an old lady - Jacqueline and guy from Poland called Sebastian. Apartment is quite nice but it's 5 km's from centrum of Leiden. This weekend I was reparing my crappy bike I got from Michiel from Delta-Utec.

When I was moving to my apartment it was like AM 2:30. I asked some guy called Lawrens to show me direction to Leiderdorp. He offered to accompany me for a while. Eventually he finished up accompanying me throughout the whole trip and carrying my fucki*g heavy travel bag. Now that's what I call hospitability! :)

And last a word about how it is like to work in ESTEC. Basically it's the most friendly and inspiring work environment I was ever into. I've started to attend to Vo-dao Vietnam and gym which are both (but that's not all of course) available for ESTEC staff.

Ow. And next week I'm going to get the sweetest email account I've ever had: marcin.olak(at)esa.int :]

Welkom op Nederland

Flying at the altitude of 11 kms is pure fun :) You can get the proper perspective then. Warsaw, place which is basicly where my life goes on, instantly lost its size. It became small splash on the ground and dissapeared eventually.

Whole trip there was no single cloud in my area of view. Layer of clouds was a sign we're coming close to Netherlands. I enjoyed the moment when we were passing through the clouds. From top they were light and shiny. From the bottom, the sky was gray and dull.

Ok. So I arrived at Delta-Utec, got introduced to the team tough (not everyone was present) and started reading introductionary ESA course about ECSS space product assurance and space software engineering. It will be a cool experience for shure : ) Guys here are Joaquin (Spain), Colin Paul (Ireland) and Andrew (Aussie). More to come soon!

Yesterday I've also finished my internships in IBM. Hoping to get good references. I was assigned an extra task to perform which was bringing back to life IBM Rational Portfolio Manager server in Wroclaw (via remote desktop of course) and I did it : )

Great news! My friend is feeling better. She's changing the hostpital. Hope is still alive that's not a severe disease she's suffering from. Yay. She's so cue and delicate.... and so damn away. I think I just have to be patient. In 60 days I'm back to Poland to make use of a free week. Weeeeheeeey!

And now it's time to do a little trip around Leiden. Seems to be a leasant place.

Why everything can't just be allright ?

And again life prooves that everything can't be just allright. Damn. My close friend is in hospital in Cracow. She's being evaluated against leukemia and is fighting with severe anemia . She's getting blood transfusions all this weekend. I wish I could visit her but shit-load of things to do before my flight to Netherlands. It's not that I'm sad. I belive she'll be OK! Just nostalgic...

leukemia, Cracow

Almost ready!

Got the ticket, got the money. Four days to take off! But on Sunday, I'm expecting the most unprecedented date up-to-date : ) Details soon!

Cooling the head down...

I've reported everything to teacher endorsing my diploma work on university and he said. "Indeed, you're looking for some trouble". When I think about how many things I have to arrange before my departure I instantly get a headache. So let me name them:

• tommorow is my first day at NOKIA. I mean it is supposed to be my first day. In fact, I'm going there only to say "Sorry guys. I've changed my mind this weekend"
• I have two unfinished projects at my university. Deadlines are Monday and Wednesday.
• I don't have foreign insurance
• I have to finish my internship project in IBM until Wednesday

Taking decision about my next 5 months was relatively easy. Now it's time to take the consequences...

Internship, Diploma

Every journey starts with a single step...

Today I received a call from Netherlands and heared in speaker "Welcome to YES2 team". So I'm going to spend next five months living in Leiden and working in space research centre in Noordwijk . My job will be to perform software quality assurance and testing activities. I'm also going to do some programming job. I'm leaving Poland in less than 2 weeks.

YES2 is a very innovative european student space mission which has a goal of delivering so called 'space mail'. It's quite a new approach to returning payloads from Earth orbit. Boy, how excited I am about this!

Netherlands, Space Engineering