May Wrap-Up

Life Events

Defended my thesis and got a top grade! Now I am officially a cosmologist!

Together with my husband and my family we celebrated one year of my marriage by eating a piece of wedding cake that we preserved in the freezer for that occasion specifically (Danish tradition).

Books

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas - I enjoyed it.

Man in the Dark by Paul Auster - really good read.

The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg - a classic popular science book in cosmology. Since it is from 19.. It is a bit outdated but it is still a delightful book to read.

Cruel Crown by Victoria Aveyard - two novellas Queen Song and Steel Scars as s prequel to Red Queen series. Both stories had potential that in my opinion hasn't been explored. I like the concept and ideas Victoria is presenting in those stories but I lack in depth description and dimensionality of characters. We are being informed that the heroines are interesting and unique personalities but we get to know way too little about them to really believe that it is true. 

Movies

I watched obscenely many movies on youtube. Here is a few that I saw first time:

Not Another Teen Movie - horrible but might squeeze from you few cheap joke provoked laughs.

What's your number? - funny enough if you really have nothing else to watch or if you want to watch Chris Evans playing a charmer.

The Switch - bearable.

The Accidental Husband - sweet and funny enough.

Hot Pursuit - funny enough. 

The Prince and Me - I thought it was funny and sweet but I am biased because I like one particular Danish man a lot ;)

Bad Teacher - horrible movie but it has a moment when the teacher played by Cameron Diaz checks tests of her pupils and probably most people who ever were checking tests/homeworks/exams will find it funny!

I also saw:

Money Monster - pretty good.

The Dressmaker - I liked it a lot. If you liked movie Chocolate then this one has a bit similar vibe, maybe a bit more dark.

The Intern - nice movie to watch with family excluding kids (they might not find it very interesting)

Deadpool - it was totally different form what I expected. At first I really didn't like it and couldn't understand why people loved it so much but in the end I got used to the format it was made and my final conclusion is that if I see it again I probably like it a bit more.

Travel

Keukenhof flower garden - spring garden. I was very lucky to have spectacular spring weather! It was a very nice bike trip :)

The first weekend of May I have biked to Scheveningen beach and Katwijk beach because it was truly "summerish" weekend. Together with the trip to Keukenhof I have made 90 km on bike in four days!

Delft - engineering town of Netherlands ;)

December summary

Movies

Les Miserables - this movie is phenomenal in my opinion but might be unbearable for those that do not like musicals.

Moulin Rouge! - weird tear squeezer. It is an old movie that I have never seen but I enjoyed it.

Ted - very funny.

Ted 2 - not as funny as Ted.

Star Wars - I am not the biggest fan of Star Wars but it actually was a quite nice movie.

Bridge of spies - a great movie based on a gripping true story of a lawyer James B. Donovan who took a case of a Russian spy Rudolf Abel in 1957 and afterwards in 1962 negotiated exchange of captured American pilot for Abel. I highly recommend.

Travel

I traveled  to Poland for this Christmas break so I had a lot of family time this December.

-
Goodbye year 2015 
You were grant!

October

Books

10 billion by Stephen Emmott - very depressing book. It hasn't received the best reviews and has been very criticized for not being precise enough when it comes to numbers and data that it refers to. I do not have time to play a Sherlock Holmes myself. Therefore, I have decided to assume that the author probably made some mistakes and that he has a bias opinion. He himself admits that he is a bit on a pessimistic site when it comes to a view on a situation of humanity and on what is going to happen next to our planet. Regardless, I think it was very important book, it is loaded with information and there is nothing to like about future author presents but I think it is a healthy alternative to ignorance and non scientific optimism.

Introduction to Quantum Field Theory by Maggiore - I am not going to describe details. It is an academic book meant for two semester course. I read it in 4 days so you can imagine a headache I had in the end. Regardless, I think it is not the best book for self study because it skips a lot of details.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - very cool book. I am not really a geek and I loved it, I cannot imagine how much geeks love it. This book is a science fiction, fantasy and adventure in one. It is about growing up, about how our world could be in 30 years. It is full of action book that go through enormous amount of references to 80s. Geeks were born in 70s this is a must read for you!

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow - I really enjoyed this book. Nicely written book about limitations of science and philosophical methods of dealing with it.

Movies/Shows

The Lobster - it is a very very weird movie. I guess one of most surprising and interesting I have ever seen. It is an anti-utopian love story that will shock you, and about some things you might laugh first when you leave the cinema ;)

The Martian - very good movie but unfortunately not nearly as good as the book. I am saying mostly because movie didn't manage to show how dangerous was the situation of Mark left on Mars on his own. In a movie it seemed way too easy. I was entertained but I would say book is a must whereas movie you can watch if you want to but you don't have to. For me Interstellar was better as a movie, but book The Martian is incomparable to anything because it is absolutely fantastic.

The Maze Runner II - number one was a better movie. This one is not as well rounded and balanced because we get so many new characters and so many turns of action that it is hard to care and fill in in their situation. I sill was entertained but I even stronger regret not having read the books.

The Voice - I have lost one day of my life to watch this program from USA, UK and Poland. It is a great show, funny and so pleasant.

Food

Jujube fruit - is kinda like an apple but very little, and has a stone in the middle. It is a first time I have tried this fruit but it stole my heart. Apparently if one lets it dry it will taste like a date.

Travel

Strasbourg, France - I have spend there almost whole month visiting my husband. I was very proud of myself because I managed to limit myself to manageable amount of luggage.

Paris, France - for the long weekend of October which was also the last weekend of the month me and my husband went to Paris. We have spend there four days. These were my last days in France before going back to Denmark. It was wonderful. Paris is great but we also were very lucky and it was warm and sunny.

Versailles, Paris - I also went on a bike trip to see one of the most famous palaces.