Some musings on University Life (and other random things) [UPDATED]

I’ve been here for about 2/3 weeks now and I’m enjoying it.  There’s a lot of freedom and you don’t have people constantly nagging at you.  The course moves much more quickly too, they literally throw you into the deep end.  Well anyway, here’s some thoughts on my life here:

Yea, this picture is totally irrelevant but it was one of the first things to come up after searching “university life” on Google images.

• My dorm shower is weird.  It has two turney knob things, the one above controls the pressure of the water and the one below controls temperature.  Simple, right?  Well, no.  The pressure is highly adjustable, which is good, gives some great showers.  The temperature knob has a sticker on that goes from red to blue, obviously red means hot and blue means cold in this context.  That’s a given.  So the first time I get in, I put it to about half-way which sounds logical; then I’d adjust the temperature from there.  The shower’s built so you have to close the shower door or water goes everywhere, so there’s no escaping the shower water either.  At first, the water was cold (which is predictable because most showers start of cold then get warmer), I let it get warmer then start showering.  But then something strange happens… it continues to get hotter.  To the point where it’s scaldingly hot, no kidding.  I immediately dial it down a notch, but it’s still hot.  This repeats a few times until I reach the very blue end where it’s meant to be cold.  It’s not.  It’s actually still hot.  So basically, the shower goes from HOT –> SCALDING –>THE TEMPERATURE WATER BOILS AT (100 degrees) –> SKIN-MELTINGLY HOT –> MIDDLE OF THE SUN HOT.  They should replace the sticker on it with a one that goes from red to black, the current one is much to deceptive.  To add insult to injury, after I come out my dorm-mate tells me: “Oh yea, the shower is really hot BTW.”  *cue ¬¬ face*
• The university campus is big.  And I mean REALLY BIG.  So big, that I had to emphasise this with bold capital SHOUTY letters.  I was there the other day and was walking around with a friend and we walked while talking, then after some time we looked up and both said:  “Where the f*ck are we?”  We had never seen this before, which was a bit unnerving although it was quite cool looking.  And yes, we did get out alive.
• Apparently the dorm blocks Xbox Live, which sucks.  Even though I didn’t bring my Xbox with me; I’ve been meaning to but never got around to doing it and would also need a TV/Monitor.
• I’ve started learning two new programming languages: Python and Haskell (with OpenGL).  I had heard of Python before, mainly through Google’s efforts on their Google Apps and Google App Engine.  But I was WTF with Haskell at first, having never heard of it.  I thought there was some relation to PASCAL but turns out there’s no connection whatsoever.
• PsychoDuck is back.
• The computers they have at the computer labs in the Computer Science block are SWEEEEETTT.  Too bad they run Linux which means a lot of games don’t run on them (I’ve already tried my RTW flash pen drive).
• I’ve joined a few societies including BBCSoc (British Born Chinese Society) and HKSoc (Hong Kong Society).  I’m thinking of joining CompSoc (Computer Society) as they hold LAN nights (followed by curry apparently) and y’know, who wouldn’t wanna be cool and join the computer society?
• Speaking of societies, I now play for the HKSoc football team.  It’s currently just 5-a-side but there’s gonna be 11-a-side matches soon.  But having tried out playing in the league last week, it seems to be a step down from the league I was playing back at my home town.  Well, it’s a lot less ferocious anyway.  Oh and the game I played last week was for SPARTA FC.  No kidding.  Turns out HKSoc weren’t playing –and the guy forgot to text me *shakes fist angrily*- and SPARTA FC were down a player so I joined them temporarily.  Against BBCSoc.  Oh, the irony.  We (as in, mostly the members of SPARTA FC) utterly trounced BBCSoc.  It’s quite befitting to call them SPARTA FC I think.  Apparently the name came out when they spent a wild night in Prague together… Yea, I pictured it turning out somewhat like The Hangover but X-rated.

Again, no relation to what I’m actually saying.  I bet it got your attention though.

• Surprisingly, I haven’t been living off pure noodles.  I’ve hardly touched the box of 30 noodles underneath my bed, sort of depressing really.
• It’s warmer here than my home town, I sleep with the window open.
• My university has a clock tower and I’ve always wanted to see what was at the top of it.  Unfortunately, I don’t see any clear instructions to get up there.  Damn.  They also project movies (or video, at least) on it at night.  Somehow I managed to miss this totally until about 2 hours ago.
• Living 5/10 minutes away from university rules.
• I like programming.
• Somehow I found this on Brad’s website (bornegames.com).  Don’t ask me how, or I’ll have to kill you.  No seriously, I would.
• A lot of American shows have started up again.  Currently watching: How I Met Your Mother (LEGEN- wait for it –DARY), Heroes (it’s got off to a good start for this season), Big Bang Theory (you just gotta love those nerds).
• OMFG BRAIN TREE IS BACK.
• Morrisons has been having a really big sale lately, I managed to get a 35p loaf of bread.  35p!  It was so cheap that I’m now comparing that to everything, annoying a friend of mine to no end.  Seriously though, I’ve made the comparison like twice today.  There’s also 60p packs of Hula Hoops!
• It’s about a 15/20 minute walk to town, which isn’t very far.  But I find myself procrastinating and putting off shopping anyway.
• The University Student Union is AMAZING.  I love it.  Watched a show called Hypnodog and laughed my ass off.  Not to mention there are quite a few bars and a pub there.
• Got part of my student loan.  Still somewhat worried that I won’t have enough money to make it through the year with rent and the need for food.  Oh wait, silly me, who needs food?  At least electricity and water is free, I’ve been abusing it to no end.
• Speaking of abusing free electricity, a friend of mine borrowed a rice cooker (from my sister, weirdly) and cooked 15 cups of rice –which was over the limit it provided- then left it on “WARM” for a whole weekend.  His room now smells like a paddy field and he wants to move rooms.
• A kettle and some tea does wonders for thirst.
• OH LOOK IT’S TURBO THE (SHORT) MOVIE:

I WISH MY VIDEO GAMES WERE LIKE THIS.

 

• I miss playing on my Xbox.  Good thing I get to play it when I get home.  Seriously considering getting a TV and bringing it over.  Anyone wish to donate some money to me?
• LittleKuriboh is beyond awesome.  He's super-special awesome.
• At a forum I go to they’re getting a bit frustrated at my continued teasing of something I tested that they didn’t get to test.  They’re still trying to probe me for information, little do they know that I’ve posted about it here somewhere.
• RANDOM COMIC TIME:
  

  My sentiments exactly.

• Spotify is awesome, I love it.  The ads can get a bit annoying (especially when a few come at once), but hey: it’s free!  What do you expect?
• It feels weird learning a (two, in fact) programming languages from scratch.  There’s a lot of stuff I could bring from my VB experience but it’s hard to apply to it.  Not to mention I’m still extremely hazy on Haskell.
• I’m also told to do some HTML and CSS stuff for Computer Science.  It feels weird to do this again after so long.  We’re not allowed authoring tools like Dreamweaver either (thank god, it cranks out some weird broken code).
• Derren Brown does a mean accent:

 

 

I think that about sums up my random thoughts.  I may post some more later.  I understand it would probably be easier if I just used Twitter to do random musings like this… But I refuse.

 

[UPDATE]  Another good one:

• The most depressing scene I’ve seen is just as I get through the ticket gate, I watch the train I need to catch pull away from the station.  ;(

 

Oh and I found this while digging around my laptop:

This was the original essay.

Link to this essay

 

 

This is the revised version for media after my teacher said it was to “Computer Science-y”.

Link to this essay

 

They’re quite long, aren’t they?  I have a (much) trimmed down version of this somewhere.  But I can’t be bothered to look for it.  And man this post has past 1500 words.  Man.