Chapter One of University

I've just experienced the first week of university.
And it is good.
Really good.
Mind boggingly good.

Obviously I haven't seen it all, haven't experienced it all, but everything I've done so far has struck the right chord. It truly is just liberating to finally be there, walking about campus and running into friends completely accidentally - all of whom are quite happy to see you =]

As a really simple run down of some of what I've experienced this past week -

• Missed the first Linguistics lecture to attend the Linguistics Society picnic (accident I swear!) and thought I missed the first tutorial (they announced it wouldn't be on in the lecture -_-)


• Nearly lost my phone and wallet


• Nearly lost my bag (with laptop and study notes) - I was learning however, I still retained my phone and wallet


• Stayed back late to play DotA and succinctly missed all sane buses (left SIT at 8:10pm, got home 11 something)


• Accidentally cheated on a Back of the Envelope calculation (James forgot to say calculators weren't allowed, and I was sufficiently gold fish like to forget he'd specified that in the past ^_^)


• Attended the pain that is the 8am Math Lecture

The Math I Fear
There is one slight issue. Math. I'm pushing myself by taking Advanced Math - it's my last chance to try and grab hold of high level math before it leaves for orbit. Advanced Math generally assumes that you've studied Mathematics Extension Two in high school, so it doesn't fluff about with such things.
Luckily the lecturer is covering it all - and so far it looks like I can keep up.
But we'll see with time whether I finally succumb to the torrent of math being thrown at me.

I can't procrastinate much longer - maths calls in a hauntingly sombre tone...
Smerity

NCSS Over and Out

NCSS
This year NCSS ran from Saturday 5th January to Sunday 13th January - and I was lucky enough to be invited back as a returner. Amongst the highlights were Crypto Challenge, the Programming Challenge (where I worked with a lady employed at Google), Google site visits and Atlassian site visits, amongst a million other things.

The most shocking thing is just how rapidly the days flew past. This year we were given an extra two days, yet of all things it felt shorter than that of last year's NCSS.

Other things needing notes...

The Final Countdown
The NLP Song ("He saw the girl on the hill with the telescope... Telescope, telescope, telescope! Time flies like an arrow, I may-aid her duck") - notice the emphasis on MADE? It's a MINIM people!
Random seeds from Microsoft
Excessive NDAs from Google
Game after game of Bartok and Zah Butsah

Towards the end we finally got our version of Youth Off The Streets up and going - a bit of a struggle due to a few issues which were sorted out only the night before the presentation. Sadly I didn't get a chance to implement my collocation based search suggestion due mainly to the fact I was in damage control mode for the website fighting just to get basic functionality up. Nonetheless, the result that came out looked quite impressive - here's a screenshot with my chat client in action.

Nonetheless, just as last year it was a stunning week - many close friends old and new. Thanks to all those who made it happen ^_^

---

I was going to write more, but I realised it's nearly a month after I left NCSS - and that's time enough =]
Smerity

Enchanted in the Least

I usually voice my hatred of Disney pretty clearly, but when they get it right I'll at least acknowledge it.
There are only a few rare films that allow you to become utterly engrossed - you forget all your troubles and just feel yourself fading into the narrative web - and Enchanted was one of them.

All I can really say is that it was a pleasure to watch, and sadly a film that's making me think about the way I perceive the world - it can be your stage show if you'll let it =]

Special mention to Amy Adams who was just stunning - I knew her from Catch Me If You Can, but her style has changed immensely - a testament to her ability =]

Tomorrow is the beginning of NCSS '08 =] I'm certainly looking forward to it, butI have this worrying feeling that I haven't prepared for it, which is strange considering I really can't. Such happens however - at least I'll be with a bunch of friends - nothing horrifically bad could go wrong - I hope ^_^

HSC, Scholarship, UAI and USyd

Sadly I need to be rapid. I would love to recount this tale in full, but it's 03:33 and I need to be up in a stupidly small amount of time for the drive up to Adelaide - hurray.

HSC - 19th of December
At 5:30am Adelaide time (6:00am Sydney time) I received this shockingly simple SMS.

Course - Mark (out of 100 or 50) - Band
EngAdv 85 5
EngX1 41 E3
EngX2 46 E4
Maths 83 5
MathsX1 33 E2
Music1 85 5
LatnC 86 5
VET IT 89 5

None of the marks were horrible, but none of the marks were great - except for one - my English Extension Two mark - quite glad with that =]

Later that day I received a phone call from UTS - the University of Technology Sydney - saying I'd made been offered a place in their Bachelor of Information Technology and they were offering me the $13k a scholarship. It was damn tempting, so very tempting, but I honestly had my heart set on University of Sydney. The second I said no though my doubts flared up - I'd just basically ripped up a $39k cheque - and there was no assurance yet that I'd get into the course I'd want at USyd.

Smerity began to enter panic mode...

That night Smerity went clubbing with his cousins Laura and Kate - it was a pleasant form of distraction and beneficial apart from the alcohol keeping him up until 5am.

UAI - 20th of December
Woken up by a phone call from my friend Stui, I checked my UAI in a somewhat zombie-like state. Oh - 90.15? I didn't know exactly how to react at first - it was in the 90's - that's good. Only issue is I remembered the course I wanted - Bachelor of Information Technology at USyd - had a 96.60 UAI.

Smerity upgraded from panic mode to high definition surround sound terror...

Did I make a huge mistake? I couldn't quite decide. Either way, I wasn't straight into the course I wanted - I'd need to rely on the Experienced Programmers Portfolio to boost my mark. Only issue was 6 points seemed to be stretching it.

Luckily here some friends reminded me of a very fair point - Ben Taylor especially. USyd has a flexible first year, meaning that "students who do well at university [have] the opportunity to reapply to higher cut-off programs which they may not have been successful in gaining entry to on first application" - so I could get into BCST and transfer up. Smerity was reassured from this, but he still wouldn't mind getting straight into BIT.

USyd - 22nd of December
Usually it takes USyd a fair while to sort out and evaluate the Experienced Programmers Portfolio submissions, and even then applicants can be required to go through an interview process to be considered. I received a strange email tonight however, marked simply "Application for Engineering at Sydney University". At first I thought it was just another push for students - they'd sent out an email with the subject "You've got your results...what's next?" only a day or so before - but I began reading the email and something was different. In the second paragraph however my interests were peaked -

The extra information supplied has helped us determine that your UAI will be sufficient to meet the flexible entry cut-off requirements for your 1st Preference of Bachelor of Information Technology (expected cut-off of 95).

I reread the sentence about three or four times in a slight shock. Then I reacted in a somewhat childish and giddy way - but I reserve my right of excitement for times like this =]

So, simply put, this shall be my new home =]
Smerity

Schoolies

I returned yesterday from possibly one of the best weeks of my life. A group of my friends decided to avoid the main and raucous schoolies area of the Gold Coast and simply rent a house right on the edge of the ocean near Nambucca called The Glen.

The view from my bedroom window

Nearly every day we went out on the boat, and nearly every day someone suffered some sort of injury. I suffered a badly grazed knee after a seagull flew at me whilst on an extremely treacherous rock, James was struck by a car, Hayley suffered a concussion, and later I was bruised raw by a loose life jacket.

Miss Hayley and me

Beyond all that however was my drinking story. Deciding to get drunk I ingested the majority of my bottle of absinthe - a fiery burn which I've learned to love! That wasn't the issue however - the issue began when I was offered the rest of the butterscotch to finish off. Having a gulp or two I decided I could easily finish this - it tasted like a thick gluggy water, and for the alcohol I could easily put up with that. The next morning I woke up sick as a dog however - it turned out the butterscotch wasn't butterscotch - they replaced it with Home Brand Olive Oil. I downed half a bottle of olive oil and didn't even notice O_o
Luckily however I still maintain my record of never having been sick due to alcohol - even when the alcohol is tainted with olive oil =] I never plan on having to throw up to offset my inefficiencies of drinking - and I hope that plan remains in effect.

The Culprit of Smerity's Drinking Story

Overall it was a splendid week. Among other things was the fact that I got up first time in water skiing - so far I've yet to fail a take off =]

The Crew

-in jokes- Oh Fifi! Oh Fuck! Star! -/in jokes-
Smerity

Wargh... 5am...

It happens to be 5:33am - and I'm in the middle of a LAN still very much in operation. Sleep should have overcome me hours ago, but it seems that peer pressure from a bunch of USyd students does wonders =]

DotA, CS:S, Pudge Wars - so many strange and horrific things. Oh, and I forgot a powercord, but was saved by Aaron - happiness ^_^ And Cat's house is in the worst place ever for getting heavy things to and from ^_^ And it's hard to find - mainly as the directions from WhereIs are wrong O_o

This is all following a meeting with a bunch of school friends - and I'm meeting with them again in around 15 hours ... I have a fear I may fall asleep whilst there with them. Normally that isn't a bad thing, but I gave them permission to draw on me ... in permanent marker ... =[

Anyway, I fear I need to go - they seem to be playing some action arcade game now which likely desires my attention...

They're taking the Hobbbits to Isengard!
Smerity

Over - quite quite over =]

Life
The HSC has been over for some time now. It went a lot more rapidly than I expected, and for the most part a lot less stressful than I expected. It is over now - and no, I don't like it when people ask "ZOMG! How do you think I went?"
The less times I am forced to remember that period the better ^_^

Dashing past the HSC, I really haven't done a great deal so far - incredibly sad :(

Yes, we were quite the awesome =]

Me, Marcus, Stui, Luke

Oh, and the Formal happened - nothing great. Lets just say nothing happened, and then nothing continued not to happen =] I couldn't even get drunk! The drinks were ridiculously expensive and involved about a tablespoon of alcoholic liquid - so I decided against wasting my money ... argh ... so much for social lubricant !

I am however going out with Luke and the majority of 'the gang' tomorrow as we need to test and get familiar with the boat before we take it out on schoolies. (Just don't remind me I should be getting sleep instead of writing a blog post, considering I need to be at his house in only a matter of hours ^_^)

-Edit-

I guess this counts as Life considering how long I've been playing it - Call of Duty 4 came out and me and StephenC have been dicing it up on the pub servers. I've decided Ventrilo is such an awesome thing - the world needs much more Ventrilo - the closest thing to LANning =]

Programming
I haven't really gotten into coding as much as I should have by this point - I have started going through K&R for C, but it's somewhat slow and laborious. Such happens I guess.

I did slap together a Mandelbrot Generator - fun fun =] Was originally going to do it with PyGPU as the Mandelbrot set like raytracing is an embarrassingly parallel algorithm but sadly there is next to no written documentation for PyGPU and it has a somewhat unclean interface, so I had to fall off that idea.

ZOMG! PRETTY! See a larger non-animated wallpaper version here

On a further sad note, the Programming Weekend Challenge has died out it seems ... That was a great push for me to produce something - I really need to rediscover that drive elsewhere, and preferably independent of third parties.

...first up against the wall when the revolution comes?

Finally, an interesting thing - Google's new Android SDK. I am quite tempted - I have a desire to learn Java (I know, sickening isn't it?) and learning for a purpose rather than for the prosperity's sake can certainly help the process. I'm nearly giddy about it honestly - reminds me lightly of the times when I coded on the PSP - except that this time it isn't a kludged together toolchain I'm using but instead a properly written framework =]

Nonetheless, I should get some sleep...

Here are some things I still need to do -

- start or give up on the podcast idea
- do some more programming
- do some NLP (plus below)
- do some AI (plus above)
- fix up my F chord and start properly working on barre chords (on guitar they're EVIL!)
- take over the world ... don't worry, I like you - I'll let you live ^_^

SELECT * FROM World WHERE IQ < 0
Smerity returned