Yay! :)

Finally I can officially share this information, and I'm glad to tell you that our team got 2nd place in 2011 Biomimicry Student Design Challenge! :) I could never believe that we'll be in top3, as we're from Latvia and there are so many better countries, but here we are :) Big congratulations to three persons of our team, who really spent so much time on this project - Anna, Anta and Edgars!

`Using the desert snail as inspiration for their design, a team of students from the Art Institute of Isfahan in Iran took the top prize of $5,000 in the third annual Biomimicry Student Design Challenge, organized by the Biomimicry 3.8 Institute. The team conceived of a building that makes use of self-shading, surface reflection, and insulation to create a livable habitat rather than relying on air conditioning. The second place award of $1,500 went to a team from the University of Latvia for a sunlight-induced shading system that mimics how flowers and stomata open and close. The third place prize of $750 went to a team from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. They designed click-on facade panels that can insulate existing buildings using snow. A Norwegian team from Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences won the Autodesk Sustainability Award, a $500 prize for showcasing how resources from the Autodesk Sustainability Workshop were utilized in their design process.`
You can read about projects (short descriptions), who got prizes here. I thought team from Sweden would win (I liked their idea the most), but they were just third.
Have a nice day! ^^

Magic winter ^^

Today is so great ^^ It's snowing so beautifully outside :) Days when I can say I'm happy are like these - when you can walk through loads of fresh, white snow and smile like crazy, even though all the others walk around, trying to put their hats all over the face to avoid snow. And look at you like you're a bit strange.

And this song is stuck in my head right now. I even was singing it loud while walking at my district (fortunately there were nobody to hear my `good` singing :D )

*of course, it's Nightwish, what else can you expect from me, lol*

Last Friday one of my course-mates went to university, wearing T-shirt with Nightwish, he came in during ecology lecture, and I was like `heeey, Juri, you have a shirt with Nightwish?!` :D Teacher looked a bit surprised :D And I was reading lyrics on his shirt all lecture :)

"Tuck me in beneath the blue
Beneath the pain, beneath the rain
Goodnight kiss for a child in time
Swaying blade my lullaby..."

And two photos from today - we had laboratory works at plant physiology, me & Sandra were working with cannabis plant :)

Have a nice day! :) I'll go to learn plant physiology a bit, have my first test on Thursday :/

Latvia's Golden Talents

Hey! :)

Today just a quick post. Last Sunday I attended Latvia's Golden Talents show, as my best friend Linda was participating there. Was fun & interesting, although I don't like this kind of shows (especially Latvian), and this time all ten contestants were really good.

So, photos & video, where she's playing her violin.

All contestants (all except two guys), who got at least two stars and people could vote for them.

Photo from delfi.lv, on the left are Mārtiņš, Evita, Samata and Krista (part of Linda's & mine friends).

Photo from kasjauns.lv, Linda and us.

I know it wasn't perfect (there were also problems, as she wanted to play with her group, but people from the show didn't let her, then song was too short etc.), but for me she's still the best ^^
Three contestants got into the semi-finals, and they were Ultimate Jump (dancers), Daniela Rozmisa (9 y.o. storyteller) & Agita Gabranova (singer). To watch videos, press on their names ;)
Have a nice evening! ;)

Hello! :)

It's almost 1 a.m., and I'm not sleeping again. Instead of it, I'm listening to different bands from my `must listen sometimes more songs` list. There are 19 bands, 11 of them are from Finland, 5 from Sweden, 12 are melodic death metal bands, rest of them - folk/viking/pagan/black metal. What this winter has done to me? :D *at least I'm now listening to Made Of Hate, and they're not Finns, they're from Poland*

Today I promised again to my teacher, that I will come to him to talk about my course work. Now I have feeling that I won't write anything until 15th May, when everything has to be finished and handed in. Someone has to sit next to me and tell me after every five minutes `write!!!` :D

Ahh, and tomorrow (or today already) there will be referendum about making Russian language second official. I don't like to talk about it, as it's politics, but I'm fed up with all these commercials, leeflets, tweets and videos about it. There will never be so many people to vote for it, so everyone could just chill out, not making a tragedy out of this. But everyone keeps talking about Latvian culture, traditions and so on - one of the things that I can't understand in this world is why people have to make big problems of nothing, rather than solve the small ones, which lead to these big. I'll better shut up.

Something positive - photos from Wednesday party with my best friend Linda & my university girls. Now no parties for me until May & finished course work! :D

Me & Linda ar Četri Balti Krekli

Guys from Germany :D Was `great` to talk with them with my `knowledge` of German language :D

And this one looks like Edward from Twilight (maybe not so much at photo, but in reality it was so funny :D )

Stay positive ^^ And I think I must finally go to sleep now.

Photopost: Ice Sculptures, Jelgava 2012

As I promised, I'll show you photos of ice sculptures I took yesterday in Jelgava. It was so cold, that at the end my hands were shaking so much, I couldn't even take normal photos :D

This year's theme of a festival was `Mystery`. Enjoy! ^^

Universe

Author: Alexey Verbitskiy (Russia)

New study semester

Hi to everyone! :)

I think I must apologise now for the fact that I will write soooo rarely here until summer begins. I so much wanted this study year, but it seems like it would be harder than all the previous. I never thought we would have so many tests (I counted more than 30 in 16 study weeks). And also our botany teacher decided to try something new this year - we'll have to write about some plant species, make a list of plants growing in a territory she will show us, write many many pages about all plants growing in Latvia (it will help us later, she says) and learn about 400 Latin names of plants and how they look like. Also ecology teacher said that we'll have to write about plant or animal species (about 15 pages). And there will be so many homeworks in biometry (we are working with a program named `R`, where nobody understands anything). And finally - my course work, for which I haven't even started to analyze literature.

This was the first week, and I even now feel like a zombie - at 9 p.m. I already want to sleep so much :D But I'll make it, I just like to complain sometimes :D

Photos from Evita's birthday (28.01)

And it's just a month now until Nightwish ^__^ And tomorrow I will go to Jelgava to see ice sculptures (as last year), so new photos with them coming soon.

I hope you're having a wonderful time, my dear readers :)

Bye for now! :)

Photopost: Riga Zoo

As I promised, I'll finally show you photos from Riga Zoo I took in April, May & September 2009 :)

It's so cold outside now, and I have sore throat, so I haven't been out for 4 days :/ And I'm just sitting and watching photos from this season's F1 cars presentations & reading about them. Caterham was first at 26/01, then McLaren (01/02), Ferrari & Force India (today). Can't wait for next Tuesday, as this study semester will finally begin - I'm tired from doing nothing, and when I can afford it, I'm becoming so lazy, that I hate myself for it (but I'm so lazy already that I can't change anything :D ). Yeah, and also I can't wait for 10/03 ^___^

Hope you enjoy photos :) (press `Uzzināt vairāk` to see the rest of them)