I R Settled

Realisation suddenly hit me today - i'm settled in. I no longer feel that i'm abroad and after a long day coming ot the flat feels like home.

Whats been happening you may be asking?... well:

- Hiking: Scotland has amazing scenery and we have been visiting it thanks to Breakaway - the university's hill walking club (www.breakawayclub.org). Last weekend we stayed at Kinlochleven and went hiking around Glen Coe in the areas known as - "The Devil's Staircase" and "The Lost Valley".Yes they are as impressive as their names suggest :). Unfortunately i didnt get any photos on the last day (lost valley walk) since it rained NON-STOP all day.... och the scottish weather...

- Photography: Lots of things to photograph: Sports, Events, Campaigns for the Student's union, and my istocky stuff :). Also we are getting closer to the 5D Mk2 release date... come to papa!

- University: Department is great, subjects are interesting, coursemates are fun.... but... I remember how much i hated prolog and logic at uni.... oh well.Oh and more assignments :)

- Friends: I miss you guys! (and gals! - without whom my sexist jokes wouldnt be half as fun :)) Luckily the people are really friendly here - i think in the last month i've met more people than i have in the last 5 years back home.

- Pancakes: Keeping the tradition alive (always reminds me of mattoo) and going strong - last P Night i actually experimented by making the thick american style pancakes - they are yummeh... but the batter is stickier than... er... um... well its sticky :) Nutella + Chicken mixture (NOT TOGETHER!) are still the favourite toppings :)

Oh apparently we had extremely summery weather so far (by scottish standards clearly) and the weather is going to get colder in the next few days. Over in the west there are weather warnings issued - i think the wind is strong enough to knock you down... crazy.

Over and out!

Busy Busy Busy!

Freshers week has just finished and so many things have happened in the last week that it amazes me just how much of your day is 'gone' when you work.

On the scholarly side all is well, we're having an Introduction to Java course (which i used to teach demmit! :)) ..but i'm actually enjoying going completely over spec since the last months at work didnt involve much programming.

In more general terms, the deparment of CS is great here - we have a great environment, which is very well equipped, there are Macs everywhere which i have learnt to love. In fact hand on my heart i take back everything negative i ever said about them. Oh and we also have a real coffee machine! (i was still missing the lavazza machine at CcBill :)). Lecturing is going to be pretty intense and we are looking at lectures all day for many days of the week - unlike malta, here we will learn 1 subject at a time intensely for 2-3 weeks and move on rather than all the subjects at once for the whole year.

On the social side, many of the people here are very friendly and we've already made many friends. also for such a small town there are a huge amount of things happening - the university clubs and societies (i've joined a few :)) are very active and its not uncommon to have multiple events in the same day. This weekend the town is buzzing because of the Dunhill Links Golf tournament here on the old course (pics in whats happening section).

Internet has been ordered and i expect to be fully connected again (read: able to download/upload stuff) on tuesday.

Cheerio