Scarborough

Map of Scarborough
I have not been updating this blog recently, have I? Well, firstly because I have been busy on weekends, the last being a visit to Scarborough. It is a seaside town, so the beach is the main attraction here. The British students were most excited whenever the sea came into view.

However, as this trip was organized by the Birdwatcher and Naturalist Society, our main purpose of this visit is the Sealife Centre. It is not a bad place at all (see the photo album). I especially like the way the tanks are build. They have a lot of glass area, so you can really peer into what's going on within the tank. If you look at some of the photos I have taken, it looks like I took the photo in the tank, right? Too bad my camera is really quite low-end so the quality didn't turn out too good.

Some of the display area also have background music to accompany the movement of the marine life. For example, "space-like" music (any one can comment on the proper genre name of this?) accompanied the jelly fish area, plus with some clever lighting, you get a feeling that the jelly fish are like floating around in space as you are viewing them.

Scarborough itself doesn't have much other attractions. Besides the beach, there is a castle ruin on the ridge separating the North and South bay area. It'll probably be more alive in summer, and more interesting to visit then.

In case you are wondering, there were only 5 of us who made the trip: me and 4 other British students. Yes, the Birdwatcher and Naturalist Society is a small one (ok, bigger than 5 as not all members turn up), and trips like this are more of an outing of like-minded people than a formally organized event. It is easy to form a society here in the university. Get another person who share the same interest, and both of you can register as a society. So, the smaller clubs like the BNS are quite informal, and events are casual and adhoc.

Secondly, I have been studying hard lately, yes, really. We are now deep into "Block 3" of the autumn semester. My exams for "Block 3" will be held in the first week of next semester, and since I will be spending most of the vacation in Austria, I am working hard now to make sure I understood all the materials. Then I won't have to panic when I get back from Austria after Christmas.

So, I will be in Austria, not UK, during the Christmas period. And I'm be coming back in the midst of a big shut down as everyone goes on holiday from Christmas till New Year. I've got to work out how I'm going to get food for that week. But that's a blog for another time, another day. Till then, here's wishing everyone a happy holiday season!

First week of full timetable

So, time is starting to pass quickly. We have started the full timetable for one week and things are getting hectic. As mentioned in my previous post, the time table is in "block mode". For the non-TP readers, this means that instead of spreading all the subjects out evenly over the term, we do lesser subjects in intense "blocks" of smaller number of weeks.

My first "block" is 3 weeks long with 2 subjects. My initial feel is that this is better for learning as there is less context switching. However, the student must be very conscientious during lesson, and keep up with all the given homework. Otherwise, there'll be no time to catch up once you are lost.

For CCA, I have signed up with the Singapore Society (must support, right?), Yoga Society and the Astronomy Club. Actually I'll like to join more clubs (Tai Chi, Outdoors, Skydiving etc), but studies have to come first (and it isn't cheap as each club cost at least 4 pounds, I was told imposed by the Uni, to join). The Yoga Society is surprisingly very popular, and about 60 students turned up for the first session. Hopefully, some (or most) of them will drop out as it is difficult to follow the instructor with such a big crowd.

The Astro Club met up for the first time last night at the campus observatory. This is a small one, with only about 30 members in total. Last night's attendance wasn't very good because the rugby world cup finals was playing live at the same time. We learned how to use the telescope, which is quite easy, with technology to help track the stars. But it was really cold last night (3C maybe?), so we have to stop after about 1 and half hours as everyone was freezing. I could hardly write my name as my fingers were too numb to feel the hold of the pen.

It's good to be a student again!

The class

The MSc (Software Engineering) course is surprisingly enough, the most popular taught MSc in the Comp Science department. There are about 30 of us, and as far as I know, there is only one British. And surprise surprise, I am not the oldest in the class. The honour goes to the British, and he is almost 60 years old.

As for the professors, well, we have not met all of them yet as the full timetable kicks in only next week. Those that we have met seemed nice enough, typical professors in a university.

The students

This week is orientation week for those who have signed up for it. Singapore is well represented, and the number of Singaporeans here is more than what I had expected. We are the most well-represented country in the orientation program among the countries in SE Asia. There are of course many international students here. As term proper starts only next week, most of the students I have meet so far are international students, mostly from Europe and Asia, plus others from Americas and Carribean. I supposed the British students would be coming in next week as most of them live off-campus as new and international students get priority for campus accomodation.

And many of them will be studying courses that would be considered as "unconventional" and "economically un-viable" back in Singapore, like astrophysics, philosophy, linguistics, post-war recovery, archeology to name a few.

It's going to be an interesting time here.