Cambridge Diary IV

Now the true reason for not updating the blog. It is WORK! As a Natsci, there are 12 lectures (14 for the last 3 weeks), 4 supervisions and 3 sessions of practical in a week. These add up to more than 25 hours. Doesn’t sound a lot? Of course because they do not take into account the amount of time I take to understand the lecture notes, read up textbooks and doing the supervision questions. Worst of all I have Saturday lectures! That basically ruins half of my weekend and I only get 1 night of decent sleep. Definition of decent sleep: sleep until I am awake.

That is not the whole story. As all Natsci have to take 4 subjects in the first year, I was undecided between Materials and Compsci. Months at IMRE did not give me any motivation for Materials, but I have not done any programming before. As the decision time came, I just thought about giving Compsci a try. It turned out to be a disastrous decision. The lectures made sense, notes are not hard to understand, the first two practicals are deceivingly simple. BUT, it’s a big but here. I have no idea how to do the questions. Not even the faintest idea. And there is the scary logic part. If something then one thing otherwise something else. As you can see, clearly my logic is not there. If this is not worrying enough, there is another even more worrying fact. Almost everyone taking Compsci has prior programming knowledge. Lots of people say it doesn’t matter but I seriously doubt so. Using my weakness against others’ strength is no joke, especially smart people. I could still have gone for it. But remember there is Astar sitting on top of everything.

My decision was to switch. That included arranging meeting with my DoS and persuading him. This thing really stressed me for about 1 week, as he thought I was making a rash decision. In the end after my switch was final, I was left in another mess. I am two weeks behind the materials work. Just like a peddle dropped into the water, this event has far reaching effect on other subjects and I was doing catching up for another 1 to 2 weeks.

Now that the term is ending, I am positive that the switch is a good decision. I am learning interesting topics just as magnetism and x-ray diffraction. To be honest, I don’t understand quite a lot still, but just like other subjects, I will be spending a good proportion of holiday revising and consolidating. A good holiday plan?

Cambridge Diary III

What is the social life like in Cambridge? One word to describe them all---“booze”. Probably it explains a bit why I was not updating regularly. (No I will touch on the true reason maybe in the next entry).

Pub crawl is the first heavy drinking game that I participated in the Freshers’ Week. As the name suggests, we just go to pubs after pubs on the same night. Drinking games are played and most of them involved “downing” your drink. It is scary in many different ways. Firstly I am shocked at the sheer volume and the need to finish it pretty much in one breath. Also the shock increased exponentially when I saw how effortlessly the others can do it. It seems I’m in a fictional land where the God of alcohol has come alive. Anyway back to reality. I had to settle for coke and plain water half of the time, just to stay sane. As we progressed, more people had gotten drunk, and they just started doing strange things like cramming into the phone booth and climbing lamp post. Seriously I think it is not fun either as a by stander or the main “protagonist”.

Then there’s drinking in everyday life. Party is taking place at a friend’s room, and everyone is enjoying themselves with alcohol. There are also various drinking games such as ring of fire, that can be played perfectly fine without any booze but somehow have to involve them. No alcohol equals no fun. However, there is an absolutely a personal choice whether to drink or not.

The most famous part of drinking in Cambridge has to be “pennying”. Wikipedia actually has an entry on it. The rules may not make much sense, but it can be summarized in a few sentences. In a formal hall or drinking game, if a penny is dropped into a glass of drink, the owner has to down the glass to “save the queen”. She is drowning! Other rules such as back penny, double penny or catching the penny in the teeth are just additional clauses to prevent mayhem. Just like the architecture and gowns and formals, this game is a hallmark of Cambridge. It is somewhat banned in my college formals but nobody really cares. It really got me really giddy a few times, and I have definitely consumed more alcohol within the first few weeks here than my entire life.

About Natsci

Chemistry has been fascinating;

Materials and Mineral Science interesting and overloaded with information;

Mathematics difficult and boring;

Physics uninspiring.