Well, again I have let the weeds grow over this blog a little, but again I have a good excuse. I have been finishing a Masters thesis: Realtime generation of multimodal affective
sports commentary for embodied agents. And since finishing this thesis mid-October, I have moved to Zürich, where I am Living The Dream (as a friend put it). Specifically, I am working as a software engineer for Google.

Zürich is a beautiful city. Neutrality during two world wars, and other wars before and since, has a wonderfully preserving effect on heritage architecture. Also, the weather is beautiful here. Either it is sunny with blue skies, or it is snowing. Admittedly it is also very very cold, but I hide from that by staying in the heated indoors.

The people here are on the whole lovely, although they speak a almost-entirely-incomprehensible language that somehow is also called German. (For my linguistically inclined readers, yes, it is blatantly obvious that the language is not context-free. Words come in the ‘wrong’ order.) But I am steadfastly watching Swiss television and trying to learn. Meanwhile, I am learning that it is better to be taken for an Australian than mistaken for a German. To make some gross generalisations, the Swiss (as a whole) can be rather unfortunately hostile towards foreigners, but they seem to reserve a special level of distrust for Germans. Possibly this is due to the fact that the Germans (as a whole) tend to look down their noses at the Swiss – presumably out of jealousy that Switzerland has more money, better cheese, better chocolate and better skiing than Germany. But these are just my impressions after a few weeks here, and all the people I have met have been friendly and lovely and helpful and kind, which is something I have learnt not to take for granted.

As far as working for Google goes, the Interblags have enough rumours and writing and whatever about that. All I will add is that it’s all true. (Yes, “20-percent-time”, free food, on-site haircuts and massages, even the secret moon base.) A week ago I had a bit of a moment on the stairs, where I had to stop and think, wow, how many people all over the world wouldn’t kill (or more!) to be right where I am now. This is cool.

Last week Google launched Google Maps Switzerland and Austria (oh, and Lichtenstein, natch) to great acclaim and media brouhaha. T-shirts all round. Finally I have one not in Extra-Extra-Large. (I have to learn to be more proactive about t-shirt sizes!)

Thus far I have been living in a one-room corporate apartment while I searched for a permanent apartment. Finding an apartment in Zürich is remarkably difficult, especially if you’re after the sort of one-bedroom, one-person apartment that seemingly everybody is looking for. But I shall cut a long story very short and just note that I now have an apartment, and I will be moving in on the 26th. Yesterday I went to Ikea to buy plates and bowls and knives and forks and pots and pans and things so that I won’t starve (that sort of stuff is provided in this corporate apartment), and the removalists will deliver what little furniture I own to my new apartment when I move in, so I will have a bed on which to sleep. The next great adventure will consist of finding furniture. This corporate apartment is tiny, and the fridge is right next to the bed and gurgles at night, and the internet is so slow it could be the 1990s (well, not quite), and the cleaning ladies barge in en masse to change the sheets at inconvenient times, so I am greatly looking forward to moving into a place of my own.

Well, we have had snow during the week, but now we have blue skies and sunshine, and the temperature is thinking about dipping above 0C, so perhaps it’s time for me to wind up this epistle and head outside into the fresh air.