swordBeatsPaper

Work’s starting to hit me, so it’s been less convenient to blog. Or maybe that’s just an excuse.

I’ve begun to jog in the morning, and today was the first day. I finally have proper shoes for it. Last week I went to the park across the street from my flat and checked it out for running, and took some amazing pictures. I went early, so the sun had just come up. You can see all of Glasgow from a viewpoint at the park. With a place like that so close to my flat, I don’t have a good reason not to get some exercise.

I also found out for sure that I don’t have any exams in December. Good news: I get to have a month-long Christmas and New Year break, and I bought my plane tickets home yesterday. Bad news: I have nine exams in May. Yes, nine. Four of which are for classes that will have been over for five or six months. And all of them count for 80% of my grade for that class, except one that’s worth 50% (though I’ve already mentioned this). It’s just overwhelming.

Otherwise, I’m making good friends, going out on the weekends sometimes, and generally having a good time. Now, I’ve got to get some sleep before classes tomorrow.

Cheers!

I finally got the rest of my textbooks in the mail from Amazon, so I can do all the (boring) recommended reading. I may have said something like this in my last post, but the first few chapters of any textbook seem rather unnecessary. If it’s not things that are almost common knowledge, the ideas are simple enough that I can fully understand it from the lectures, and I don’t need to read the chapters. Hopefully things will get more interesting over time.

Classes are progressing slowly; I don’t have any real challenging work to do yet. My second real lab is tomorrow. Technically I should be having three or four of them a week, but right now it’s only one or two, which leads to rather boring afternoons. Though sometimes it means shorter afternoons, since the labs go for two hours and the lectures (usually) only go for one hour. Which is nice.

I’m spending a fair amount of time with my team, since we all have the same classes and we have two big projects to work on. They’re nice guys, and it’s good to have friends outside the flat. One of our projects is the Instant Messaging System, the other is an in-class project about something like e-mail notifications, used to teach us how to do project planning and other aspects of software engineering. I don’t see the point of having two projects at once except to test our ability to organize it all.

Another thing that’s a little overwhelming is that in four out of five of my classes, 80% of my grade depends on my final exam. On top of that, I’m pretty sure all of my exams are in May, even for the classes I’m taking this term.

It’s helpful, though, that I share a couple classes with two different flatmates. That means three out of the eleven people in my flat are in Computing Science (including me). If I need help at crunch time, I’ll probably get it.

NOTE: I’ve begun a new short story. Not quite sure how long it will be yet, or how often I will work on it, but here is the first part: http://elizabethmuir.blogspot.com/2010/10/dreams-part-1.html

Classes have begun, but the work really hasn’t.

It’s one of those strange situations where you know you’re going to have a lot of work to do, but it’s not time to do it yet. I’m just reading the extremely boring and somehow essential first chapters of my textbooks. Tomorrow I have my first lab, where I will write my first programs in a language called Haskell. I’ll feel like I’m finally doing something productive.

Judging from the first couple lectures of each of my classes, I think I’m going to enjoy the more technical ones better, the ones about the computer languages themselves. Programming Languages doesn’t just teach you various computer languages, it teaches you how to learn computer languages, because in a real job it’s normal to have to learn a new one (or two…). Somehow I find that more interesting than the more theoretical classes, for example about the “software life cycle” (the process of creating a large-scale project), etc. I thought I might find Interactive Systems interesting, which is basically about human-computer interaction and how to design software so it’s easy to use, but the first few lectures have been kind of boring. We’ll see.

Interesting fact: two of my professors are American. I think only one of them is from Scotland, the rest sound English. Between the two Americans, though, they say “zed” instead of “zee” and “shed-ule” instead of “sked-jool.” I wonder if they’re just trying to fit in with how the majority of students and staff talk, or whether they’ve naturally picked up those ways of speaking.

Photo: I couldn’t resist taking a shot of this. I pass it every day on my way to classes. It’s an old-style police box, but it’s also what the TARDIS looks like, if you’re a Doctor Who fan. In that case, it’s epic.

Tomorrow, classes actually start.

I feel like I’ve been saying that in every post. I don’t know what my books are yet or what exactly I’ll be doing all year, except for my group project. All I’ve been doing this week is learning Unix/Linux, a lot of which I know already. Sadly, that means this coming week will likely be boring introductory lectures. If I was a student in anything other than computer science, that boring first week would be over already.

My group project will be creating an instant messaging program, like a very simplified MSN or AIM or Skype. We’re deciding this week whether we want to create the entire thing ourselves, or use code that MSN or another instant messaging service has already created and make our own version of it (this is all very vague because I assume most of my readers wouldn’t know what I’m talking about if I got specific). It’s going to be challenging, but also hopefully fun, and it’s one of the available projects that is very extendable and is possible to write a lot about. We have to write a fairly long dissertation between me and my other three group members, which will actually count for most of the grade. That kind of writing is not my favorite.

I finally went on that shopping trip I kept talking about, but ended up going on my own because everyone else was busy. It was a fruitful trip. I bought this coat (the black one), which I’m very proud of finding, and two t-shirts, one white, one black, both with designs on the front. All of that for 30 pounds (about $45). I easily found the subway stops and everything on my own.

I find these first-time-on-my-own trips rather exhilarating. First the airplane ride here, then learning how to get around my local area, then going downtown on my own. I’m enjoying this new independence.

Photo: Near the City Centre (no, spell-checker, that’s how they spell “center”…) on a usual Sunday afternoon. Complete with the busker playing his drum in the street.

It feels like I haven’t written anything new, fiction-wise, in a long time. It’s understandable, considering I was working editing on a full-length novel for so long. Counting the short story on my other blog, it’s really just been a month. I finally got my journal out though, and have been writing in that a little. Definitely not the three-pages-a-day I did over the summer, but enough that I get my thoughts sorted out. I hope all the future programming homework I’ll have won’t damper my will to write. Maybe I’ll find the time for another short story. I just need ideas.

Let me just say I was surprised today. Though I probably shouldn’t have been.

Freshers’ week is intense. I don’t know how people go out every single night and drink and stay up till 3 or 4am just to do it again the next night. There are two student unions, and both have events going every night. Apparently the unions spend most of their money this week and then hope that students come back during the year to pay it all back.

Myself, I’ve only gone out about three nights in the past six, and as many of you know, I’m not much of a drinker. So I’m not as tired and bruised as some people, but I don’t feel a need to go out every night. It’s fun though, and when you are around drunk people, it’s easier to be crazy without alcohol.

Monday is the first day of classes for many people at my university. I don’t have a timetable yet, and I don’t even know my classes. I have to go to registration and enrollment on Monday instead, which will probably take up my whole day. Most of my flatmates say they usually don’t drink or party as much as they are now, so it will be interesting to finally be around them in a “normal” setting to see how much they do work when they need to.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I haven’t had time. I might take my camera with me today when we go shopping.

Today was more shopping. I bought two new plaid shirts, and afterward we went out for very good (and inexpensive) Chinese food. Tomorrow will probably be the same, though I have to set up a bank account in the morning.

Tonight, like last night, I’m staying in. I’m really not much of a partier. When Fresher’s Week is over, I’ll actually be happy, since I won’t have to decide whether I’m going out or not. The two student unions on campus have events every night this week, and many of my flatmates are going to most of them. I’d honestly rather stay home and hang out (which we have really never done without going out afterward), or maybe go to a pub. But if lots of people come to the pub, it’s not a nice conversation anymore–its a party–and people drink more, and then want to go out somewhere else after the pub closes. Like I say, once school starts next week, people will have more reasons to not drink so much and stay out so late. I’m looking forward to it.

Don’t be alarmed if I decide to skip a day or so of blogging. I’m not sure how much longer I can come up with new interesting things to say on a daily basis. We’ll see.

I thought I’d spend a little time talking about food here in Scotland. I stopped at the fish counter in the grocery store today and noticed a few things. They’re known for their salmon (which reminds me of home), so they have quite a few choices of that. They had less shellfish, and I didn’t see any prawns, which I love. Perhaps I didn’t look in the right place for it, but they might not have much of it here.

I’ve been told they have a very small asian influence, so I will have to ask my parents to send things from Uwajimaya (the asian market chain in Washington). I’m still contemplating a rice cooker, since I’ve been eating instant rice for a few days now. I have yet to see if they have good noodles.

I also took a look at their peanut butter. None of it looked as appealing as Skippy or Jif back home, so I decided to stick with cheese (which is very good here, though I suppose it is everywhere). I was also sad to find they didn’t carry Fuji apples, my favorite kind from home. But they’ve got other good things.

I haven’t tried haggis yet, but my flatmates say it’s very good. They say, don’t ask what’s in it. Just eat it, and it’s delicious. I’m going to make it a point to try it soon, perhaps if I go out to eat.

I’ve seen Domino’s, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. The daily coffee is still Pike Place.

Photo: A church-turned-pub near the shopping area that’s close to my flat. The ring around the tower lights up at night and helps you find your way around. Notice the cars driving on the opposite side of the road.

Today was a slow day, and I really enjoyed it. We went to the Freshers’ Fair at the university, got lots of pamphlets thrown at us and free pizza shouted at us and such. I bought a university sweatshirt, and thought about buying postcards, but decided they were too expensive at the university store.

Afterward, I went to my adviser appointment. It seems the two curriculums (my old and new school) are only slightly different, and the adviser I talked to is going to see if he can get me the notes on the topics I may have to catch up with. He was a very nice guy, hopefully he’ll be my long-term adviser.

Then I did some grocery shopping, and came home. I finally went to the nicer grocery store, where the veggies and fruits are much fresher and they have a real fish-and-meat deli. It was incredibly windy today, and a bit rainy on the way home. In the morning, security guys came around telling us to shut our windows, so that nothing gets broken in the wind and so we don’t expect them to fix things (we’d have to pay anyway). Instead of going out dancing tonight, we’re going to a bar to just chill and talk and drink a bit. I’m really bonding well with my flatmates, for which I am incredibly grateful.

Not much else to say today. The rest of the week I don’t have anything planned, so downtown shopping or sightseeing are good possibilities.

Scottish Word Of The Day: You are not standing “in line.” You are standing “in a queue.” I feel like I’m trying too hard to fit in whenever I say it, but it’s actually what they say. “Are you in the queue?” “The queue was too long, so I couldn’t get into the event.”

Photo: Credit goes to this person. I thought you guys deserved a good view of the main building, but I didn’t have time take the photo myself. More pictures of my own to come, I hope…